Pumpkin Peanut Bars

These pumpkin bars are light in texture, wonderfully moist and delicious. A thick layer of delightfully spiced pumpkin filling in between a buttery crust and chopped pea-nutty topping. Drizzle some caramel over and enjoy them with a pot of freshly brewed tea. A perfect autumn treat!

Peanut Shortbread	Pumpkin Filling
80 g Roasted peanuts, ground 110 All purpose flour Pinch of salt 100 g Unsalted butter, room temperature 80 g Golden caster sugar 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract	2 Eggs 450 g Pumpkin puree 100 g Golden caster sugar 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract 1 tsp Ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp Ground ginger 1/4 tsp Salt 250 ml Sour cream 80 ml Milk 50 g Roasted peanuts, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 175C/350F and place the rack in the center of the oven. Line the bottom and sides of a 24x36 cm baking pan with aluminum foil that has been buttered and floured. Blend the ground peanuts, flour and salt together in a bowl.
   
2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat until a soft dough forms. Press the dough evenly and firmly onto the bottom of the foil-lined pan. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the shortbread is set and beginning to brown around the edges. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack.
   
3. Whisk the eggs, pumpkin puree, vanilla extract, spices, and salt in a large bowl until combined. Gradually stir in the sour cream and milk. Pour the filling over the pre baked crust and sprinkle the chopped peanuts all over the top.
   
4. Bake in the hot oven for about 35 minutes, or until the filling is set in the center. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Lift the pumpkin bars from the pan by holding onto the edges of the aluminum foil. Cut into squares or bars.

Pizza Part II

Although the Cheat's Pizza I wrote about a few weeks ago was a revelation, I kind of wondered what part it could play in my life. What problem does it solve? Great for one or two people, but impossible in larger quantities - and isn't the whole point of making a pizza, at home, from scratch, to give other people a home-made pizza experience?

And I was also curious about Jamie Oliver's pizza dough, which a lot of people say is nice, but I wanted to see it for myself. And it is fantastic - obviously. You sacrifice nothing: not taste, nor texture.

So I made up a quantity of this dough and rather than dithering about frying it in a pan and then putting it under a grill, I found a flat baking sheet that could fit both in my oven and under the grill and decided to go with that. The trick is to briefly bake the pizza base in the oven before you put the ingredients on top and then finish it off under the grill - it stops the whole thing going soggy.

I used a 12in x 17in baking tray, which gives enough pizza easily for 4 people, or enough for about 6 hungry children. Wow that makes me sound like a really nice person, like I might be making this for a bunch of 7 year-olds. Fat chance.

This recipe makes enough dough for TWO 12in x 17in pizzas. I recommend freezing the extra for another pizza moment as making the dough is the only faffy bit.


500g very type 00 italian flour
OR
400g very strong plain bread flour + 100g semolina
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon sugar
7g dried yeast
325ml warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil

1 Sift together the flour and salt and make a well in the middle.

2 Mix together the water, oil, sugar and yeast. Stir and leave for 3 minutes. Then pour into the flour and mix round with a fork. When it comes together, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead for 4-5 minutes until it's springy and cohesive

3 Put it on some kind of floured surface, your choice what - dust with more flour, cover with a tea towel and leave somewhere warm for an hour.

4 After that time, pummel the dough out a bit on a well-floured surface and knead it round for 4-ish minutes. Then divide this ball into half and roll it out very, very thin to about the shape of your baking sheet - it doesn't have to be a precise rectangle. Make sure the pizza base is well-dusted top and bottom with flour so it doesn't stick to anything.

5 Put this to one side for 20 minutes. Now turn your oven and your grill on to the highest they will go and make some tomato sauce (1/2 can chopped tomatoes, 1 clove garlic, 1 spring basil, 1 glug olive oil, large pinch salt and whizzzzzz in a whizzy machine) and chop up all your toppings now because you'll want to scatter them quick quick over your pre-baked pizza base.

6 Your kitchen by now ought to be worryingly hot from the heat blasting out of your grill and oven. Slide your baking sheet into the oven, as close to the top of the oven as you can get it, for about 3 minutes.

7 Remove from the oven and scatter ideally with semolina or you can use flour. Now carefully lay your well-floured pizza base into the now-boiling-hot baking sheet. This isn't that easy. I recommend picking the dough up with a rolling pin and then laying it down on the sheet and sort of rolling it on - if that makes any sense. Anyway, just do it the best way you can see how and if you find a foolproof way, do share.

8 Stick this back in the oven for about 3-4 minutes, just until the edges of the dough are begining to very lightly colour and the dough feels light and not sticky to the touch.

9 Remove and pour over the tomato sauce, spread it around and add the mozzarella and whatever else you want to it. Then shove back in the oven for about 6-8 minutes until the dough is crisping up and going dark brown around the edges. Finish off under the grill. Produce for lunch to screams of awe.



I can't quite believe that I've got this far without launching into a huge insane rant about what a terrible mood I'm in. Like I'm angry like I used to get at my old job. I just filed a piece and got an email back along the lines of "Thanks. Could we make a few changes..." and there followed, I promise you, about 18 things they wanted to change. And they're shite changes. But BIG changes. And I've written it now and going back over it seems like being made to eat the dinner you didn't want last night for breakfast. And I want to tell them to go and fuck themselves, right in the bum, but I can't, because it's that kind of shitty attitude that got me into this mess in the first place.

But, you know, it's only pride. And they probably know what's best for them. And at least they asked rather than just changing everything themselves to make me sound like someone else was using the family braincell when I wrote it.

I would say that being able to write whatever I want here and not being asked to change things has spoiled me - but being asked to change things has always pissed me off no end. Unless it's the Mail, of course, in which case you just smile and think of the money.

Cracked Black Pepper Fig Spelt Loaf

A simple fig bread that's bursting with flavours and fruity goodness. Fresh black pepper gives this fig bread an extra kick!

Recipe Source: BBC Goodfood

• 640 g Spelt #1050 flour
  
  
• 3 tsp Cracked black pepper
  
  
• 2 tsp Salt
  
  
• 6 g Instant dried yeast
  
  
• 420 ml Warm water
  
  
• 2 tbsp Walnut oil
  
  
• 360 g Dried figs©angiesrecipes, roughly chopped

1. Whisk together the spelt flour, black pepper, salt and yeast in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.
   
   
2. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, and add in warm water and walnut oil. Stir to form a soft dough. Increase the speed and knead until the dough is smooth.
   
   
3. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape into a ball. Put the dough ball in a lightly greased bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for one hour until doubled in volume. Lightly knead the chopped figs into the dough until incorporated. Don’t over do it, the dough won’t look smooth.
   
   
4. Shape the dough into an oval or a round and place on a lightly floured baking tray. Slash the top of loaf and dust a little flour. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Proof the dough for 30 minutes at room temperature until it slightly swelled. Bake in the center of hot oven for 45 minutes until it sounds hollow when you tap it underneath. Remove and cool on a rack.

Baked Carnival Squash with Smoked Bacon and Rosemary

Carnival Squash - Cream colored with orange spots or pale green with dark green spots in vertical stripes. Carnival Squash have hard, thick skins and only the flesh is eaten. It is sometimes labeled as a type of acorn squash.

The delicious yellow meat is reminiscent of sweet potatoes and butternut squash and can be baked or steamed then combined with butter and fresh herbs. Also great in soups. Source: What's Cooking America

Recipe Source: Kürbis aus dem Ofen-Essen und Trinken

• 1 Carnival squash (acorn or hokkaido)
  
  
• Salt and black pepper to taste
  
  
• 100 g Smoked bacon, diced
  
  
• 50 g Olive oil
  
  
• 1/2 tsp Dried rosemary
  
  
• 2 Garlic cloves, minced
  
  
• 1/5 tsp Nutmeg
  
  
• 1 tsp Sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F. Cut carnival squash into halves, scoop out seeds and fibers, and cut each half into two chunks. Place them cut-side up on a shallow baking tray. Sprinkle some salt and black pepper.
   
   
2. Dice the bacon and combine with olive oil, rosemary, garlic, nutmeg and sugar in a bowl. Divide the mixture among the carnival chunks. Bake in the middle of the hot oven for 25-30 minutes.

Sausage casserole

One of the more exciting things about being pregnant - (aside from the stress incontinence, which adds a not unthrilling frisson to sneezing) - is the idea that the child might inherit some useful qualities from its father's family.

For example, my husband and his sister are both amazing mathematicians. And by that I mean they've got great mental arithmetic, which is really the only cool thing to be able to do with maths.

My sister-in-law has applied her maths wizardry to playing cards, with great effect. I hear that beyond a certain element of cunning and luck, being good and consistently taking money off other people at such card games as this "poker" I hear so much about, requires a facility with maths. I don't know why, and I know it's nothing to do with 'counting cards', which I'm pretty sure isn't allowed, but I know it's the case that maths is the thing.

And she's good at spelling, too. So in all, there's very little that I can do that my sister-in-law can't.

My one tangible, definable skill is my outstanding timekeeping. I am never late for anything, ever. And I know how long five minutes is, almost to the second, without using a watch. And pretty much any time of the day, you can ask me what the time is and I'll know. But what fucking use is that? I don't want to work in a train station. And my sister-in-law has her very own watch. It is pink.

But occasionally she will ring the house looking for her brother, who will be out strangling dogs somewhere, and get me. And she'll occasionally humour me with a question about cooking.

Like the other day.

"I know what I could ask you. Do you think," she said, "if a recipe says cook a casserole on the hob for 50 minutes and you would actually rather do it in the oven, you can?"

"Yes," I replied, sounding grand and patronising. "Yes that's fine. Stick it in at 180 for 50 mins. Would this perchance be a Nigel Slater recipe from this weekend? The sausage casserole one where he - snort - FORGETS to instruct you to put the sausages back in the pan [shaking head] - I don't know..."

And she said "Oh I'm not sure. It's Nigel Slater but it might not be that one."

And I said "Well, let me know how it goes anyway."

And this is how is went:

Victoria's sausage casserole

"This one's still pretty simple. Basically, you colour up some onions in (well, this is how I did it because of not having a big enough casserole dish that cooked on the stove) - I coloured up some onions in a frying pan, chopped up some Cumberland sausages and browned them, all of that in a pan with fennel seeds, chopped garlic and a couple of bay leaves.


Then I put it all in an oven casserole dish with some chopped up apples and a spoonful of mustard, a litre of stock and some Madeira, and a tablespoon of flour stirred in. And salt and pepper of course, good old salt and pepper. Cooked that (braised? baked?) in the oven for half an hour, then added a tin of haricot beans (obviously you're meant to have dried haricot beans that you've soaked in water overnight but, I mean, LIFE'S TOO SHORT), then cooked it for another half an hour, then stirred in another spoon of grainy mustard - done. Nigel Slater might have had some other stuff in his recipe, I can't remember now, but that's what I had mine.


In the Nigel Slater version, all done on the stove, after 50 minutes the liquid should be "mostly dissipated" or "mostly disappeared" or something, so I imagined a thick stew for plates and forks.


It didn't come out like that, either because I fiddled with the measurements cos I was cooking for more people, or because he hadn't tested it properly - or just because I cooked it in the oven with the lid on, so obviously the liquid can't disappear off into the air quite so easily.


Anyway, it was very liquidy (though a nice thick liquid because of the flour) so I served it in bowls with a spoon, and granary bread to dip in - the bread dipped in the liquid was delicious, mmm."
 
I didn't ask her to send a photo too, because she doesn't even know I'm posting the contents of her email here, so I thought a photo as well might have been a bridge too far.

Carrot Poppy Spelt Dinner Rolls

If you enjoy good hot rolls, then these healthy and delicious yeast carrot dinner rolls are for you. Serve them with some creamy carrot soup!

• 230 g Whole spelt flour
  
  
• 120 g Spelt #630 flour©angiesrecipes
  
  
• 2 tbsp Brown sugar
  
  
• 5 g Sea salt
  
  
• 6 g Instant dried yeast
  
  
• 190 ml Warm milk
  
  
• 25 g Butter, melted
  
  
• 70 g Carrots, finely grated
  
  
• 2 tsp Poppy seed
  
  
• 1/2 Egg, lightly beaten
  
  
• 1 tsp Water

1. Mix the flours, brown sugar, salt and instant dried yeast in the bowl of your stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk and melted butter. Stir until combined. Mix in the carrots, poppy seeds and and stir until a soft dough forms.
   
   
2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 5-7 minutes, or until smooth and elastic.Put the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours.
   
   
3. Divide the dough into 15 pieces, about 48 grams each. Shape into balls and place on an 9-inch springform pan lined with parchment paper. Cover with a tea towel. Proof until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
   
   
4. About 20 minutes before baking, heat oven to 190C/375F. Beat egg with water. Brush egg wash onto the risen rolls. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until rolls are golden brown color. Remove rolls from pan and cool on a wire rack.

Chicken curry

So I made this curry last night, but decided I wasn't that crazy about it, so didn't take a photo. But then I had a bit more and thought "Actually this is great" and my husband said "Yeah it's really great."

And so I resolved to take a photo this morning. But then I forgot and turned the leftovers into a salad, so now I've got nothing to take a photo of. So here's another photo of me on holiday:




Yes I don't look too fat here until you have a look at where my back ends (bottom right)


Anyway, it was an approximation of a thing I got off River Cottage Bites and it's a nice curry although it'll make your house stink like the local Taj Star.

The really interesting thing about it is that I implemented some advice given to me, indirectly, by the film director Gurinda Chadha, who said on some cooking programme that her family always cooked chicken with the skin off. She said "I don't know why," but I do.

It's because chicken skin is unbelievably greasy and curry doesn't need to be any more greasy than it already is. So last night I skinned the chicken drumsticks before browning them as normal and the result was superb.

So here we go, the River Cottage Bites chicken curry, for about 4 people

8 chicken drumsticks (or thighs)
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 can coconut milk (I use those small turqouise ones from Waitrose)
1tsp coriander seeds
1tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp ground cumin
1 fresh chilli, seeds in or there's no point
1 2cm square of fresh ginger
1 small onion
salt

1 Grind together the seeds, the turmeric and the cumin and toast gently in a dry pan until the kitchen smells like the set of Slumdog Millionaire. It seems like a shiteload, but just tip it all in.

2 In a food processor, whizz up the ginger, onion and chilli to make a paste. Add some oil to the pan that the spices are cooking in and then tip in this paste. While that's cooking gently for about 10 mins, bloop into the processor the chopped tomatoes and coconut milk and whizz. Leave it there for a bit.

3 Skin the chicken and brown in a pan for about 4 minutes each side. Arrange in a baking dish

4 When the paste/spice mix has had about 10 mins, add in the tomato/coconut mixture and wibble this around until it's all bubbling. Then taste - it will be bland as hell, but spicy, so add salt bit by bit until it starts to taste like something nice. In the end I added - no joke - about four big pinches of salt, but it's best to start small.

5 Pour this mixture over the chicken and bake in a 180C oven, uncovered, for 1 hour.

Very nice re-heated, or cold. The leftover sauce makes a really delicious light curry dressing when mixed with yoghurt, cucumber and mint.

Braised Red Cabbage with Cider & Apples

Red cabbage, with an attractive dark purple colour and undeserved bad reputation, is Fat-Free, Cholesterol-Free, and rich in vitamin A, B, C, E. Talk about the perfect weight loss food!

My husband simply frowns on the idea of cooking him some red cabbages. He even dislike the word "Kohl or cabbage in English". He didn't touch a single bit of it. Well, take it or leave it. So red cabbage anyone?

Recipe Source: BBC Good Food

• 2 tbsp Olive oil
  
  
• 1250 g Red cabbages, quartered, cored and shredded
  
  
• 2 Apples, peeled and cored and chopped
  
  
• 1 tbsp Ginger root, finely shredded
  
  
• 2 Onion, sliced
  
  
• 1 tsp Allspice, ground
  
  
• 1 tbsp Mustard seeds
  
  
• 80 g Golden caster sugar
  
  
• 40 ml White wine vinegar
  
  
• 300 ml Apple cider©angiesrecipes
  
  

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan, add cabbage, apples, ginger, onions, allspice and mustard seeds. Cook for 5 minutes until just starting to wilt.
   
   
2. Scatter over the sugar and pour in the wine vinegar and cider. Cook, covered, over the low heat for 15 minutes, then remove the lid and turn up the heat to medium. Simmer the cabbage for about 35 minutes, stirring occasionally until all the liquid has evaporated.

Buckwheat pancakes

Urgh I've got SO MUCH cooking to do. So MUCH. And I don't know why, but I don't want to do any of it. Even starting it feels like the biggest load of homework ever, or a tax return.

It's all my fault, too. I offered to do it all and now I don't want to do any of it. The most pressing and urgent thing is a beetroot soup I said I'd test for my friend James who is writing a cookery book and I've just completely failed to do it. Every time I go to the shops I forget to buy some key ingredients and then get home and think Oh God Oh God I haven't got the stuff. But I AM going to do it as I'm now ashamed of myself.

An equally pressing thing is a pork pie I've got to make as a thank you. Now's probably a good a time as any to tell you that those four days when I went missing just now I was in Miami. On holiday.



Coral was very  much the toenail varnish colour du jour out there

 I didn't say anything because I never want to know about anyone else's holiday, particularly not in winter.

I try to be nice when they want to tell me about their six weeks in Thailand. I say "Oh how lovely, how lovely - your own pool, really? Free, you say? Best food ever? And Bradley Cooper chatted you up at the bar, wow. That is one. Cool. Holiday!"

But in my head I am thinking FUCK YOU FUCK OFF WITH YOUR FUCKING HOLIDAY YOU A-HOLE.

But now there's a picture of me in Grazia at a party in Miami for this hotel so it seems weird to not mention it. It's like I've been presented with a picture of me being unfaithful and I'm just trying to ignore it. I look fat and sweaty anyway, and had to go to bed about half an hour after it was taken because I'm the biggest most pathetic person ever when it comes to jet lag.

We were there because my husband knows Nick Jones, who owns Soho House and Babington House and all those other houses and now Soho Beach House and we went to have a poke around and complain about the plumbing. But then you get home and you're, like: "What the hell do we get him to say thanks? His own personalised unicorn? A lapdance from Beyonce? This man owns EVERYTHING: he doesn't want dinner, he doesn't want champagne, he doesn't want a lapdance from someone else's wife. I mean... probably not."

So I thought I'd make him a pork pie. But I can't seem to get started. And now I've just found out that I put the lard I bought specially for it in the freezer (WHY?!?!?). So that's delayed that for another few hours. And God only knows where Nick is anyway, he could be half-way to China by now.

I've also got to make a giant chilli - but that's another story.

But I did get off my fat pregnant wheezy arse and make some buckwheat pancakes this morning, out of the really excellent new Leon Cookbook 2 (more of which, inevitably, later). They are wheat-free, for anyone doing a wheat-free thing and although they are not as bouncy and sinful as proper American diner pancakes they are pretty nice with butter, banana and a splosh of maple syrup of a morning. They are dense and nutty and a good alternative if you don't want to have a finely-milled white flour event in your kitchen.

So here we go - buckwheat pancakes.
for 4

125g buckwheat flour
pinch baking powder
pinch salt
3 eggs
1 large teaspoon runny honey
milk

1 Sieve the flour into a bowl and add the baking powder, salt and honey. Separate the eggs and put the yolks in with the flour. Make sure the egg whites go into a large bowl because you're going to beat them - (or straight into a processor).

2 Mix the yolks into the flour and then add milk until you get a smooth batter - not too thick. Then beat the egg whites until they're stiff and fold them in. You can always add a bit of milk after the egg whites if that thickens the whole thing up too much.

3 Cook as normal. You can make the mixture the night before if you like.

Under pressure

I want to point out that I'm doing this under some serious duress. I don't see why anyone would want to know any more about me than I already splurge on about, but one of my readers, who shall remain nameless because I'm about to be really mean about her, wants me to do it - in her perky, cheerful, happy-go-lucky, probably American manner. Why these people have to be so cheerful I don't understand.

Anyway she wants me to answer these questions. So I said I would.

1) What do you most enjoy about blogging ?
The shitty, snide comments I get 18 times a day that I have to delete and then wander round answering them furiously in my head, which always results in some kind of daydreamt mid-street show-down with a flamethrower.

2) What is your personal acheivement or moment that sticks in your mind and why?
I got my boyfriend to buy me a really enormous engagement ring. That was pretty cool because people don't usually want to buy me things. Can't think why.

3) What is your favourite party drink?
The Coca-Cola I drink with a kebab on the way home/a charcoal bolus.

4) If you could go on holiday tomorrow, where would you go?
Back to bed. Or anywhere where I'm not expected to pretend to work

5) What is the most unusual ingredient in your store cupboard right now?
Some really weird-looking szechuan peppers, I think. Maybe they're not szechuan peppers.

6) What do you do in your 'free' time?
I watch Judge Judy and eat Nutella on toast. Although to be honest, all my time is free, but I only allow myself to watch Judge Judy in my "free" time, which are moments I nominate to stop pretending to work.

7) What is the name of the last restaurant you went to?
It was called Lumiere in Cheltenham. It was okay.

8) What is your favourite style of cooking to eat out (rather than cook yourself)?
Japanese grilled food, or dim sum.

I'm supposed to tag eight other food bloggers, but I don't know eight other food bloggers. I don't even know eight other bloggers full stop because I'm so antisocial. Of the two other bloggers I know, there's only one who I think won't be monstrously offended by my questions, below, and that's James at

http://jamesramsden.wordpress.com/

And here are my questions to him

1) What's the point of it all?
2) What do you like least about me?
3) What do you like least about yourself?
4) What's the worst restaurant in London?
5) Who is the worst cook you know?
6) Who is the last person who really annoyed you?
7) What do you hate most about cooking?
8) What do you hate most about other bloggers?

But he's finishing off his cookbook at the moment, so won't answer them for about three months, by which time I hope everyone will have forgotten all about this embarrassing interlude.

[LATER...]

In a staggering but typical moment of ineptitude, I failed to explain to James how the game works, so instead of posting the answers to my questions on his blog, he emailed them back to me. But as it's so funny how I've managed to totally collapse the whole system, I'm just going to post the answers here.



1) What's the point of it all? Of blogging or life? I think beetroot is fairly essential to both.

2) What do you like least about me? Well, you're a little unreliable I suppose. You juice us up with 4 blog posts in a row then don't write a thing for a couple of weeks. And I sent you a beetroot soup recipe to test ages ago and you still haven't done it. But you're pregnant so you have an excuse.

3) What do you like least about yourself? I have imaginary arguments with people and end up cross with them for no reason. Not such a fan of my hair, either.

4) What's the worst restaurant in London? Difficult. I think we're pretty spoiled here. There's a chain called Miso which is dire. Cosmo in Croydon will probably be worse if it's anything like its Bristol sister.

5) Who is the worst cook you know? I can't think of anyone who cooks truly inedible food to be honest. My grandmother is, erm, inventive. She once did a red pepper stew and the labels were still on the peppers. Must be a wartime thing.

6) Who is the last person who really annoyed you? My bandmate Dave annoys me most weeks, but it's mostly intentional, mostly.

7) What do you hate most about cooking? I don't hate anything about cooking. I don't love doing puddings. I put up with them. Give me cheese over pudding any day.

8) What do you hate most about other bloggers? Crikey. Hate is such a strong word. I am incredibly fond of most bloggers - they're a lovely bunch of people. But, to generalise somewhat, bloggish posturing, one-upmanship, sense of entitlement...we're food bloggers for fuckssake, not Nobel scientists. I do admire the level of commitment and academia to food that some take, but for me food will always be just food.

Honey Roasted Almonds

These honey roasted almonds are a real nutty treat. Roasted whole almonds coated with a combination of honey, sugar and salt. Sweet, salty, and crunchy! Almonds are a super food and highly beneficial. So enjoy them in moderation or they would have a negative impact on your waistline.

Recipe Source: Cooks

• 50 g Sugar
  
  
• 1/2 tsp Salt
  
  
• 2 tbsp Clear honey
  
  
• 2 tbsp Water
  
  
• 2 tsp Olive oil
  
  
• 300 g Almonds, skin on
  
  

1. Place almonds in a single layer in a baking sheet and bake at 180C/350F for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the nuts are tan to light brown in colour. Thoroughly mix the sugar and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
   
   
2. Mix the honey, water and olive oil in a heavy saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat. Add in the roasted almonds and cook and stir constantly until all of the liquid has been absorbed, about 5 minutes.
   
   
3. Transfer the almonds to a large bowl. Sprinkle the sugar mixture over and toss until they are evenly coated. Spread the almonds out on a parchemet paper. When cool, store at room temperature in an air-tight container for up to two weeks.

Carrot and Lentil Soup

A glorious, flavoursome, and healthy carrot soup loaded with beta-carotene, which is believed to have antioxidant properties and help to reduce cancer, low in cholesterol and high in dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Potassium, Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate and Manganese to boot. So what are you waiting for? Say YES to carrots!

• 2 tsp Cumin seeds
  
  
• 2 tbsp Olive oil
  
  
• 650 g Carrots, rinsed, peeled and coarsely grated
  
  
• 120 g Green lentils
  
  
• 1100 ml Vegetable stock
  
  
• 150 ml 1.5% Milk
  
  
• Salt and pepper
  
  
• Plain yogurt, to serve
  
  

1. Heat a saucepan and dry fry the cumin seeds for 1 minute until they start to jump around the pan and aromatic. Remove half of the seeds and reserve. Add in oil, grated carrots, lentils, stock and milk. Bring it to a boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes until lentls are softened.
   
   
2. Remove the soup from the heat and process the soup with a stick blender until smooth. Season the soup with salt and pepper. Heat the soup through over the low heat. Ladle the soup into bowls, top with yogurt and sprinkle the reserved cumin seeds.

Provencal Fish

Unlike Bouillabaisse, a traditional fancy fish stew in the Provençal region of southern France, this oven-baked fish with Provencal sauce is rather quick, easy to make, and tastes very delicious and Mediterranean.

• 700 g Skinless fish fillets (sea bass or red snapper)
  
  
• Salt and pepper to taste
  
  
• 1 tbsp Olive oil
  
  2 Shallots, finely sliced
  
  
• 1 clove Garlic, minced
  
  
• 1 tbsp Tomato paste
  
  
• 400 g Canned chopped tomatoes
  
  
• 120 ml White wine
  
  
• 1 Roasted bell pepper, thinly sliced
  
  
• 12 Olives, pitted and halved
  
  
• 1 tbsp Flat-leaf parsley, chopped
  
  

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Grease a baking dish with a little olive oil. Place fish in Season, cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes until just cooked through.
   
   
2. To prepare the sauce, heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add sliced shallots and stir until it starts to soften, 1-2 minutes. Add garlic and stir briefly. Add tomato paste, tomatoes and white wine. Stir and cook for 5 minutes until the sauce has thickened.
   
   
3. Add in sliced roasted bell peppers and halved olives, taste and adjust the seasoning. Arrange the fish on serving plates and spoon the sauce over. Top with chopped parsley and serve with noodles or potatoes.

Fish Wraps with Tzatziki and Rocket Salad

This easy and delicious recipe is a combination of oven-roasted fish strips, rocket salad and tzatziki wraps. Great for a quick and easy lunch time treat and it also makes a super party food.

• 400 g Skinless white fish fillets, cut into strips
  
  
• 1/2 tbsp Lemon zest, finely grated
  
  
• Salt and black pepper
  
  
• Some breadcrumbs
  
  
• 1 Egg white, lightly beaten
  
  
• 1-2 tbsp Olive oil
  
  
• 4 Small flour tortillas
  
  
• Rocket leaves or iceberg lettuce
  
  
• Some red onion rings
  
  
• Small flour tortilla

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Sprinkle the finely grated lemon zest over the fish strips, then season with salt and pepper. Dip the fish strips into the egg whites, then coat with breadcrumbs and place on a baking sheet. Spray the coated fish strips with olive oil, then roast for 3 to 4 minutes on each side or until fish cooked and breadcrumbs are golden and crispy.
   
   
2. While fish cooks, wrap tortillas in damp towels and microwave on high 45 seconds until pliable. To assemble the wraps, place a handful of rocket lettuce onto a tortilla, leaving a 2-inch border at the bottom. Top evenly with 3-4 fish strips, onion rings, and a good dollop of tzatziki. Fold the bottom edge up, and roll from one side to the other, encasing the filling.

Pizza

Considering that this pizza takes 25 minutes to make, from scratch, it's absolutely outstanding. The taste of it is up there with the best pizzas I've ever had. And, I tell you, I've eaten some pizza in my life. I'm like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in a wig.

The texture of the dough is the thing that you sacrifice for speed and ease here - although it's by no means the worst-textured pizza base I've ever had. It's probably up there with all the commendable-but-still-second-rate pizzas.

This is, again, from Jamie's gramatically-incorrect 30 Minute Meals book because I got it last week and I'm mostly cooking from it.

This is the pizza as I made it, not quite to his recipe. If you wanted to do it to his exact recipe, I'm sure you could track it down somewhere, although it's not on his website yet.

Chorizo "Cheat's" pizza for 1 greedy person, or 2 not-greedy people

110g self-raising flour
some water, about 100ml
olive oil
salt
chorizo - about a handful of small cubes
basil leaves
1 clove garlic
1 ball mozarella
1 tin chopped tomatoes
splash of vinegar
1 red chilli

1 Start by chopping up all your topping ingredients and whizzing up your tomato sauce.

2 To make the tomato sauce, put 1/3 a can of tomatoes, 5 basil leaves, I small clove garlic, 1 glug olive oil, I good pinch of salt and a splash of red wine or cider vinegar into a food processor and whizz for 10 seconds. Set to one side.

3 To make the pizza dough, put the self-raising flour, 2 good pinches of salt and 1 glug olive oil into a bowl. Then add water by splashes and mix until you get a dough. Turn it out onto a floured surface and pummel into a consistent ball, then roll out into a more-or-less round shape - as thin as you can get it, is my advice. Don't be afraid to use a lot of flour here. The aim is for the dough to not stick to itself or anything else.

4 Okay, now let's talk frying pans. What you are going to do with this is first fry it to cook the bottom and then grill it to cook the top (unless you have a wood-fired pizza oven in which case I HATE YOU).

So the frying pan you use is a bit of an issue.

The first time I made this, I used an All-Clad skillet and the pizza stuck to the bottom and had to be chipped off by my husband, hence:

So this time, I decided to use a non-stick pan. I know, I know, but I couldn't see another way. The only problem was that I was worried the plastic handle would melt under the grill, so I wrapped a wet tea towel round the handle to protect it.

You can use whichever frying pan you like for this, but I wanted you to be armed with the potential pitfalls of all types.

So once you've chosen your frying pan, set it on the hob, pour in a glug of groundnut or vegetable oil and then heat it until it's red hot. And I mean hotter than the fires of hell and tarnation. Swill the oil around so there are no dry bits. At the same time, put your grill on to full whack.

5 Lower your pizza dough into the frying pan. This is fiddly and I spazzed it completely first time round. The second time, I made sure the dough was well-floured and so less liable to tear and then picked it up by laying a rolling pin across it, wrapping one side of the dough over it and then carrying to the pan and laying it down.

6 Cook this for about 2 min 15, which is approximately when the bottom will start to burn. If you're using a non-stick pan it ought to be fairly straightfoward to lift up the edges of the pizza to have a look at what's going on underneath. The top will go bubbly.

7 Pour over your tomato sauce and spread around a bit, then scatter on your other topping ingredients.

8 Shove the pan under the grill - wrapping a plastic handle in a wet tea towel if you're feeling neurotic, or just taking your chances - for about 4 minutes or until the edges of the dough blacken a bit and the topping is bubbling away and brown. Until it looks like a pizza, basically.

This is a thing to do for only one or two people because it's just impractical and mad to attempt to do it for more - one person or couple will have pretty much finished their pizza by the time the next one is made. I did think that this might be a really fun thing to do with a couple of 8 year-olds, (although probably with a different topping), but I may possibly be mis-understanding what 8 year-olds like to do with their spare time.

The first time you do this, it'll probably be a disaster, as mine was. But if you fancy making a pizza, do persevere, because it works and it is, I promise, delicious.

For a better dough, (although I haven't tested it out yet), Jamie Oliver's At Home book has an authentic-sounding recipe on p.182.

Pistachio Mon Chéri Brownies

I have been on a mission to clean out the pantry, which might have resulted in some peculiar recipes here. :-))The "Mon Chéri",another chocolate product produced by Italian Ferrero, contains a "heart" of sweet cherry soaked in a liqueur and is encased in Ferrero's dark chocolate!

• 80 g All-purpose flour
  
  
• 1/2 tsp Salt
  
  
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder
  
  
• 250 g Mon Chéri liqueur chocolate©angiesrecipes
  
  
• 150 g Butter
  
  
• 200 g Sugar
  
  
• 3 Eggs
  
  
• 2 tsp Vanilla extract
  
  
• 70 g Pistachio, roughly chopped
  
  

1. Preheat the oven to 165C/330F. Grease a 20x25cm baking pan and line with foil. Brush the foil with vegetable oil.
   
   
2. In a bow, whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Melt the chocolate, butter and sugar over a pot of simmering water. Add in the flour mixture. Whisk in eggs, one a time, until fully incorporated. Add in vanilla extract and chopped pistachio.
   
   
3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the center of the hot oven for 30 minutes. Remove and cool completely on a rack. Cut into 12 squares.

Haddock chowder

I've said before how much I hate soup and how pointless I think it is.

But I don't think chowder counts as a soup. Nor is it especially anything else. It's... chowder.

Anyway, this is very nice and very easy. A great thing do to for a lot of people for lunch because it won't take up really any of your attention and you can plunk it down in the middle of the table and pretend you live on Nantucket or something.

It's also quite wholesome, which means that you've got good reason to make a giant comforting crumble or a lot of chocolate cake for afters, which I feel I can never quite justify, and people often can't quite manage, if I've dished up a humdinger of a roast.

Smoked haddock corn chowder, for 4 
(bastardised from Jamie Oliver's new book, 30 Minute Meals, or 30-Minute Meals to be more accurate)

300g smoked haddock (buy it skin off if you can because taking the skin off yourself is a real pain in the A)
4 rashers bacon
2 dried red chillies (if you want - I thought it was lovely a bit spicy, but don't if you're not keen)
4 spring onions
200g waxy potatoes, chopped into cubes about 2cm big
1 large can sweetcorn or 4 corn on the cob
3 bay leaves
1 sprig thyme
1.5 pints chicken stock
150ml single cream (but I used double and it was nice)

1 Chop up the bacon, potatoes and spring onions and cook them in a large pan gently for 10 minutes with the dried chilli if you're using and not if not.

2 When the bacon is looking done, add the sweetcorn. If you're using fresh sweetcorn, you'll have to shave the corns off the cob in the best way you can see how. Tin users can just tip the little suckers straight in.

3 Give this all a stir. Add the haddock, (I cut mine up roughly into about 4 big bits before chucking in. Jamie puts it in whole), the bay leaves and the thyme and then cover with the stock.

4 Cook for 12 minutes over a medium flame. Then add the cream, stir in and cook gently for another 5-10 minutes. You can leave everything whole or you can bash it all up with a potato masher, or just bash up one side and mix it all together.

Eat with Matzoh crackers if you want, but it's pretty filling on its own.