Sometimes lazy leisure at the weekends is overrated. Sometimes feeling quietly productive and making a series of things to be eaten during the bleak week ahead can be not only reassuring but also blissfully satisfying. This tomato sauce is a good example of this kind of cooking. Generally if I’m having a day of culinary tinkering there’ll be a pot of this simmering slowly at the back of stove while I get on with making other things.  Once it’s made I tend to divide it into tubs and put a few in the freezer and keep a couple of portions for through the week for having over chicken, or for a quick aubergine parmigiana or through pasta on the days that I can’t be bothered cooking midweek. It has a much richer, more complex flavour than the fast tomato sauce I make when I’m trying to make a quick plate of pasta and don’t have any of this sauce made up.  

I’m not going to pretend that this is in any way an authentic old Italian recipe, it is based on one shown to me by an Italian but I played with this recipe so much over the years I don’t know whats from the original recipe and what’s not. I try to avoid adding sugar to food as much as possible so instead of adding sugar to cut the aciditity in the tomatoes cooking this sauce longer and using some finely chopped carrots gives this sauce a sweet umptous quality.

Ingredients:

2-3 onions

3 garlic cloves

1tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

2-3 carrots

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

1 carton passatta

1 glass red wine/ half a glass of port

rind off a wedge of parmesan (can be frozen until you’re making this)

2 bay leaves

2 tsps dried oregano

2 tsps balsamic vinegar (optional)

small bunch of basil

1) Begin by chopping the onions fairly finely (I use a food processor). Put the oil in a saucepan and add the onions and stir together until they’re slicked. Season and then put on a low heat. Stir occasionally until the onions have softened but not browned, this usually takes between 8 and 10 minutes. In the meantime peel and chop the carrots finely (again I do this in the processor). Peel the garlic cloves and crush or chop finely, add to the onions and stir for 1-2 mins. Add the carrots, sti in and then turn the heat up to medium. Add all the other ingredients keeping the lion’s share of the basil back until later. Swill out both of the cans of tomatoes with about a quarter of a can of tap water and pour into the pan. Give everything a good stir.

2) Once it has come to the boil, turn the heat down and partially cover (Just because the sauce tends to spit) and then forget about for between 2-4 hours. Then turn the heat off and stir in the basil and fish out the bay leaves and what remains of the elusive parmesan rind. If you’re not eating immediately, when it has cooled you can either freeze this in tubs or it keeps for up to four days in the fridge.

There is something about a simple, buttery loaf cake that screams of good, honest home baking. It’s the kind of cake you would imagine your mother always having in a tin for you if you had been a child in the 1950’s. So if want to feel a bit like a 1950’s housewife (and why wouldn’t you?) I would suggest making this. It’s not only perfect to have in the house to enjoy with a cup of tea but it’s also perfect to give out to other people to enjoy. The one I make the most is a Lemon Syrup Loaf cake from Nigella’s ‘How to be a domestic goddess’ (generally with the addition of a tablespoon of poppyseeds to make it easier to delude myself that this is in fact a health food).

For the past few weeks I had some clementimes lying in a bowl. They had been there so long that they seemed to be more ornamental than edible and while I was pretty convinced they wouldn’t be nice to eat anymore I really hate wasting food. As a result I decided to try making a clementine syrup loaf and the results were fantastic. Buttery sponge, soaked in a citrusy clementine syrup. Not only was it good with numerous cuppas it actually was great as a dessert served with some greek yoghurt and summer berries drizzled with agave nectar.

Ingredients:

175g caster sugar

125g unsalted butter, room temperature

2 eggs

100g self raising flour

25g ground almonds (If you don’t have these just add an extra 25g of flour)

pinch of salt

2-4 tablespoons milk

finely grated zest of 2 clementines

For the syrup:

100g icing sugar

juice of the two clementies (but if yours are really quiet dried out maybe add the juice of another one)

1) Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a loaf tin.

2) I think it’s easiest to make the cake mix in a food processor but mixing it by hand is easy too. Just put the butter, sugar, flour, alonds, eggs, salt and zest into the processor and switch on. Add to thin out the mixture until it is the right consistency (ie it would drop off a spoon when the spoon is tapped). Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for 45mins to an hour.

3) Make the syrup by combining the icing sugar and clementine juice in a saucepan and heat on the hob, stirring all the time until the sugar has disssolved and it just reaches boiling point. Take the loaf out of the oven and piece allover with a skewer or a piece of raw spaghetti. The plunge the hot syrup over the unsuspecting loaf. Leave in the tin to cool completely and then take out of the tin, peel off the paper and devour.

Ever had one of those weekends where all thought of dietary restraint flies out the window with the first sip of wine on a Friday night and does not return until late evening Sunday? Well this weekend has been just one of those weekends and as a result I considered removing all the leftover chocolate lying about the house to make way for a week of saint like healthy eating. The only trouble is, I really don’t like to waste food so rather than throwing away the assorted confectionary that has been lying around since Easter (and maybe even Christmas) I decided to use them up by putting them in cookies. Well the weekend’s not over yet is it?
 
I think any mix of chocolate would work here, I used Nigella’s chocolate chip cookie recipe (with a couple of changes due to not having some ingredients) which provides an excellent base recipe which can be used for loads of combinations of flavours. 
 
Ingredients:
 
300g worth of assorted confectionary of choice ( I used a Curly Wurly, a Picnic, a Fudge bar, Minstrels, Maltesers and mini chocolate eggs)
150g granulated sugar
1 tbsp maple syrup
150g unsalted butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
 
1) Preheat oven to 170C. Melt the butter in the microwave (about 1 minute on high) and cool slightly. Pour the sugar into a mixing bowl and mix the butter and maple syrup in. Now add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and mix together. Fold in the flour and bicarb followed by the confectionary.
 
2) Use an ice cream scoop to divide up the mixture and spread out the cookie dough lumps on two baking sheets (I got 13 cookies out of this). Pop in the oven and back for 15-18 mins. Leave for a couple of mnutes on the tray to firm up before cookling on a wire rack. Eat alongside the obligatory cool glass of milk (the calories can wait til Monday).

Despite appearances my food preferences don’t purely consist of flavoured vodka and baking. In fact there are times when I just crave something summery, simple and vegetable loaded for dinner. These kebabs with this simple but satisfying salad are exactly what the first promise of summer in the air makes me crave.

The word salad has connotations for me of either something that’s too light and leafy to be satisfying or something that’s too stodgy and rib sticking to be enjoyable (like pasta or potato salad). This salad is a nice compromise, light and healthy but it has enough texture and bite to make me feel satisfied (and above all else it’s just a bit pretty).

Despite living in a flat and not having a garden, if I close my eyes and focus hard enough I can just about convince myself that these kebabs have been cooked on the barbeque in the baking sunshine.

Ingredients:

For the kebabs:

400g lamb steak meat, trimmed of the fat and chopped into 1” chunks

2 tablespoons greek yoghurt

1 clove garlic, minced

small bunch of mint, chopped

juice of half a lemon

1 tsp garlic oil

salt and pepper

1 block of chilli halloumi, chopped into roughly 1” cubes

1 small red pepper, deseeded and chopped into roughly 1” chunks

1 small red onion quartered and slices separated

spray oil

For the salad:

1/2 a red onion, slice finely

1 cucumber, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1” chunks

5 tomatoes, deseeded and quartered

1 stick of celery, chopped

1 red/ yellow peppers, deseeded and chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tablepoon extra virgin olive oil

juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper

bunch of basil leaves, torn up

small bunch of coriander, chopped

1) Begin by putting the marinade ingredients into a bowl (yoghurt, garlic, lemon juice, garlic oil, mint and seasoning) and then put the lamb in for between 10mins to an hour. Put the red onion for the salad into a small bowl with the juice of half a lemon, it stops it being to strong later on (thanks to Nigella for this tip). In the meantime get a chopping with everything else.

2) When you’re ready start to shake the excess marinade off the lamb and thread it, halloumi, pepper and onion onto the kebabs (you can do this in a particular order if you like but I wouldn’t break a sweat over it). I use metal skewers when I cook meat as these conduct the heat better. Spray the kababs with a little spray oil. If you are lucky enough to have a barbeque pop them on there but if not preheat the grill and pop onto the grill pan. The should take 15- 18 mins to cook.

3) If you haven’t already done so, chop up your salad vegetables and put in a bowl. Season well. Add the minced garlic, lemon juice that the onions have soaked in and olive oil. Finally add the herbs. Toss this altogether so all the veg are coated and the garlic is well distributed. Best eaten outside with a large glass of wine, but if you don’t have a garden still have the wine.

I was given this recipe by Gillian who I work with after trying this cheesecake at a bring and share lunch and it is really is every bit as good as it sounds. The really wonderful thing about the marshmallows is how light they make this dessert (which may not be such a good thing as it’s quite easy to comfortably eat the whole thing). It not only contains marshmallows but chocolate chip cookies and crunchie bars as well so it is sheer confectionary heaven and when better to roll this one out than for an Easter dessert? I made this yesterday along with a more traditional dark chocolate tart, needless to say this one ended up having the most slices out of it by a country mile.

Even the most pretentious culinary snob has to give in and let their inner child run free with a slice (or five) of this. It’s simplicity itself to make and simplicity itself to eat. My only advice would be, don’t make this if you’re going to be left on your own in the room with it!

Ingredients:

230g pack choc chip cookies of choice

70g unsalted butter

500g full fat cream cheese

284ml tub double cream

100g caster sugar

bag of mini marshmallows (save a third for decorating)

3 crunchies

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1)      Get a 23” Springform Cake tin. Pour your cookies into a freezer bag and melt your butter in the microwave or in a pan. Mash up the biscuits with a rolling pin (or heavy object of choice) until they are like rubble. Pour them into the cake tin, add the butter, combine with your hands and then press down into a flat base.

2)      Pour the crunchies into a freezer bag and smash up keeping it fairly chunky. Put a small handful of the rubble into a small bowl as you can use this for decoration later. 

3)     Put the cream cheese, cream, caster sugar and vanilla extract into a bowl and beat together. Now add the marshmallows and crunchie rubble and stir through. Spoon this heavenly mixture onto the base and smooth out so the base is covered. Now pour over the remaining crunchie rubble and marshmallows. Cling film and put in the fridge until needed. When you’re serving run a knife around the side of the tin and unclip the outside.

When I think of a chocolate bar the one that always jumps into my head first is of course, the classic Mars bar. It has a sort of hallowed status among other cheap confectionary because it is the ultimate, the most satisfying and the most sinful of all. It’s not that I necessarily eat a Mars bar very often but it’s just good to know that it’s there on standby for the day when you really just need the most indulgent of all sugar fixes. So when I tell you that this recipe contains no less than six Mars bars it stands to reason that this recipe has proved ever popular since it was invited by some clever housewife in the 60’s. It can still be found in cafes all over Britain but I really believe until you have actually made this at home (and hopefully resisted the urge to dive into the glossy pool of melted Mars bars) you really haven’t lived.

Be warned, however, that learning you are only ever ten minutes away from having a tray of this made is a dangerous revelation that is not to be underestimated by even the most strong willed of people.   

Ingredients:

6 Mars bars

6 oz butter/ margarine

6 small mugfuls of Rice Crispies

1 block of milk cooking chocolate

1) Cut up the mars bars into piece and put in a heatproof bowl with the margarine. Melt in the microwave (usually between 2 and 3 minutes) and stir together. Stir in the Rice Crispies. Spoon into a small rectangular baking tin (about 20” by 24” roughly) and smooth out with the back of a spoon or spatula.

2) Break up chocolate and put in a  heatproof bowl. Melt in the microwave (usually between 1 and 2 mins) and pour on top of the glossy crispies. Smooth out. I always think this is even better when allowed to cool at room temperature but if you can’t keep it in your eyeline while it cools (and I don’t blame you) pop it in the fridge and then slice.

Its may come as a surprise that this unusual sounding dish is actually ridiculously simple, made of only three ingredients, but many of the best recipes are. This is one of the few recipes that my Gran makes which was picked up from the time she spent living in Algiers. We always had it with boulets (basically just fried mince and mashed potato, rolled together into balls, rolled in flour and deep fried, fabulous!) but this is such a versatile accompaniment to lamb, steak, roast chicken and fish also. The often underestimated green pepper steals the show here and it brings a smoky intensity to the sweet onions and tomatoes (and then some). If you have any left over it is fabulous on toast with some feta or goats cheese or if you can be bothered in ‘kokas’ which is basically chou chuo ca with anchovies baked in a parcel of short crust pastry. Try it once, it’ll knock the socks off the usual carrots or broccoli with your Sunday roast.

Ingredients:

5 green peppers

3 large onions

5 tomatoes

2 tablespoons oil (any flavousless one will do here)

salt

1) The basic premise here is chop the veg large so I deseed the pepper and cut each half into 3 slice and then chop these in half widthwise. Take the skin off the onions cut into six and the cut the tomatoes into six as well.

2) Put an extractor fan on or open a window as the kitchen will get smokey (it is worth it, I promise). Put a large casserole pan on the heat and pour in a tablespoon of oil. Let the pan get very, very hot and thrown in the peppers. Pour in a liberal sprinkling of salt and stir around until the peppers cover the bottom. Now leave for at least five minutes before stirring (you made need to do something else to distract you here, but ultimately you are looking for the pepers to burn and blacken). Once stirred leave for another five minutes then stir.

3) Add the other tablepoon of oil to the pan and add the onions and stir in. Leave for ten minutes and then add the tomatoes and salt again. Now partially cover the pan with a lid and simmer on a lower heat for about twenty minutes. Once its ready the tomatoes will have melted down and let out their juice and all the ingredients should be softened and have merged into a thick, smokey sludge.

Sometimes the prospect of another full week of work ahead can only be bearable if you know that you’ve got a good lunch to look forward to. Last week I got to the stage that if I saw another limp sandwich waiting for me in the fridge I would cry so I tried these for a change. Few things in the world are more cheerful than a pie and since these little pies are only made with half a sheet of pastry they aren’t at all unhealthy as pies go. I used a curry filling here which was lovely but there’s plenty you could try, all I would suggest is don’t go for ones with cheese as the ones I tried with feta became too soggy when the cheese melted (if you are bent on having cheese though, halloumi would work as it would hold it’s shape). I’ll certainly be making these again for beating the midweek blues.

Ingredients:

A packet of filo pastry, thawed

2 teaspoons garlic oil

3 tomatoes, each chopped into six slices

4 spring onions, chopped

5 new potatoes, halved

1 cup of frozen peas

1 handful of coriander, chopped

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 teaspoons mild curry powder

Spray olive oil

1) Boil the new potatoes until cooked, drain and chop into 1” pieces (approx). You can add the peas for the last few minutes and drain with the potatoes.

2) Toast the cumi seeds in a dry frying pan then add the oil and the tomatoes, stir for two mins over a medium heat. Add the spring onions and curry powder and fry for another 4 mins stirring occasionally. Stir inthe potatoes, peas and coriander. Leave to cool.

3) Get out a muffin pan and preheat oven to 200C. Take the filo sheets and cut in half widthways. Put one of the half sheets of filo over one of the muffin holes and push in to line it. Add one and a half tablesppons of the curry mix then wrap the filo up and twist it around the top. Do this until the pan is full or the filling’s all used up. Spray with oil. Bake in oven for 15 minutes (the tops should look nicely brown).

4) Once the pies are ready take out of the oven. Cool for a couple of minutes in the tin and then remove using a knife to ease out of the tin onto a wire rack. Store in the fridge for up to five days.

I love a good traybake and whenever I have other people’s homebaking I generally won’t rest until they have been given the recipe. I was lucky enough to get the recipe for this one and made it a few days later. It’s a wonderful mixture of biscuity fudge and thick milk chocolate, the perfect accompaniment to a cuppa. Once I had made once I was so keen to make more and I started to think of variations I could make to the flavouring. So far I’ve made maple pecan, ginger and mint Areo and I have plans to try malteser, orange and coconut in the near future. The other wonderful thing about this is it keeps beautifully for weeks, patiently waiting for you to succumb to tempation and allow youself that much needed chocolate fix.

Ingredients:

1 tin condensed milk

8oz margarine/ butter

8oz caster sugar

4 tbsp golden syrup

12oz digestives

12oz milk cooking chocolate

1) Use a disposable rectangular tin or a swiss roll tin. Pop the biscuits in a freezer bag and bash up thoroughly. Melt condensed milk, sgar, margarine and golden syrup in a pan over a medium heat stirring constantly. Once it gets to the boil put the heat down slightly and then simmer. It’s very hard to give a precise time for this as it will depend on the size of the pan but it should be about eight minutes and the fudge should be at the stage where it doesn’t return to the side of the pan immediately when you stir it.

2) Take off the heat and pour in the biscuits, stir though, then pour into the tin and spread out until smoothish. Cool for 15 minutes or so and then melt the cooking chcolate for about a minute and a half until it has melt and pour onto the base and smooth out. Once completely cool slice up as generously or as stingily as you like.

Ginger version- replace the digestives with gingernuts.

Maple and pecan version- replace the golden syrup with maple syrup and replace two thirds of the biscuits with pecan nuts (there’s no need to cursh these).

Chocolate Areo version- Crush a 100g bar of mint Areo and pour in with the digestives. Crush an individual sized mint Areo and sprinkle over the top of the chocolate to decorate.

I love fajitas, I never get tired of eating them whether it’s midweek a weekend or when friends come round. I know I sound like an old lady when I say this but what I do get tired of is how much I have to pay for those tiny packets of fajita spice mix. Believe me when you eat them as often as I do it’s a small fortune, think of all the cocktails you could buy instead! Anyway I decided to try and appease my rage with this outrageous situation by attempting to create my own spice mix instead of buying the packs. After consulting the back of a packet of fajita spice, reading a few recipes and playing about a bit of I’ve come up with this. I’ve provided a ratio instead of quantities so you can make as much or as little as you like. I should warn you though that as soon as you make this you will discover so many other uses for it, it’s a bit addictive. For example it’s great over roast potatoes and sprinkled on baked salmon or through rice and cous cous. Most importantly of all this is only a suggestion you can adjust the quantities and amounts used to suit your own taste.

Ingredients:

6 parts mild chilli powder

4 parts chicken stock (either from a crumbled cube or granules)

3 parts cumin

3 parts paprika

3 parts oregano

3 parts salt

3 parts onion granules

2 parts garlic powder

2 parts cayenne pepper

2 parts sugar

1 part tandoori masala

1) Measure out ingredients into a bowl. Stir and store in a jar. Use on whatever you like.