When I think back to the palaver my mother went through with the annual ritual of making the Christmas puddings, not to mention mincemeat for mince pies and Christmas cake, it is shockingly easy to make them today. All you do is stir all the ingredients together and steam the mixture in pudding basins. The…

When my sister arrived from Sydney on a visit, our first meal together was cauliflower cheese. When we visited our brother in Spain, she made it for him. Cauliflower cheese is a tradition in our family. You could say we were weaned on it; it was probably mother’s Desert Island dish. Great though it is…

This is one of those lovely gooey aubergine stews, this time mixed with sloppy, intensely flavoured roast red pepper, onion, a hint of chilli and a goodly slug of white wine with flat leaf parsley to pretty. Serve it with short stumpy pasta tossed with Parmesan or over doorstep bruschetta with a generous garlic rub….

This soup looks deceptively like Heinz tomato soup from a can. It’s blessedly simple to make, no chopping or frying, just roast tomatoes, red peppers and small red onions, the latter two peeled, then everything liquidized with stock. I tend to use chicken stock for vegetable soups (a cube is fine) but vegetable stock will…

There was a fantastic turn out of friendly people for my sausage cookery demonstration as part of the Chiswick Literary Festival, Cook Book division on Saturday 14 September. The lovely ladies from Cook Book Festival, who did all the preparations and planning for all the events, were so supportive and helpful. Sadly Rodney from Macken’s,…

When one of my twitter followers posted my mug shot and this recipe today from my old column in the Evening Standard, several people wanted the recipe. So here it is, published Friday 1 March 2002. No photo or illustration I’m afraid but my usual style of writing the recipe in real time and maybe…

My childhood trifles always included jelly, tinned fruit and a thick, hard layer of Bird’s custard under the whipped cream. I remember the smell rather than the taste of sherry and it’s that sweet boozy smell of custard, fruit and cake that so evocative however the trifle is made. This one is made with pale…

These fish cakes could be made with any firm fish but cooked sea trout, salmon or trout, would be the best. The quantity of fish to potato is approximately one to two with egg yolk and a dusting of flour to bind, with spring onions softened in butter and masses of chopped herbs – mint…

Beetroot and spinach is a match made in heaven, the earthy flavour of freshly boiled beetroot with sweet-sour tomato works in many ways. Here, the dish begins with onion, softened and flavoured with crushed garlic, chilli and aniseedy caraway. Diced beetroot and peeled, seeded tomato are simmered with the onion then stirred with quickly blanched…

Leftover roast chicken was the inspiration for this gratin. I added it to faux sausage meatballs with a hint of shallot, lemon zest and nutmeg, all held in a Dijon mustard flavoured sauce made with chicken stock and milk. The gratinee topping ended up suitably crusty and golden, the perfect foil for the essentially soft…