Florentines

Nothing says "Christmas" and "eat me" better than biscuits filled with caramel and cherries, and covered in chocolate. In my opinion, any way. Florentines are delicious, and can be made even more festive than usual by using a mixture of red and green glacé cherries, and a pinch of cinnamon.

50g butter

 125ml cream

125g sugar

50g glacé cherries rinsed in hot water and quartered

50 g slivered almonds

1 pinch cinnamon (use your discretion as to the size of your pinch, but remember, the bigger the pinch, the more festive the biscuit)

100g peel

50 g plain flour

250g Whittakers chocolate (preferably at least 60% cocoa solids)

Turn the oven on at 180C and leave to heat up for a while. Maybe treat yourself to a festive tipple while you wait.

Melt the butter, cream and sugar together in a small saucepan over a low heat until it starts to brown and caramelise.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your cherries, almonds and peel. Sprinkle the flour over the top and mix it up.  Pour the melted butter mixture over the top, and give everything a good stir.

Cover a baking tray with non-stick baking paper. Use two dessert spoons to scoop out a spoonful of the mixture and pour onto the baking paper. The florentines will spread, so leave plenty of space in between. You may need to do your florentines in a couple of batches.

Pop your baking tray into the oven, and leave to bake for around 5 minutes. At this point, take them out and use your spoons to push them gently in to circles -the mixture will be quite runny and loose, because of the caramel mixture.

Bake for another 5 minutes or until they start to brown slightly around the edges. Take the florentines out of the oven, and leave to cool for around 3-4 minutes, until you can move them without them falling apart. The biscuits are still quite malleable at this stage, so you can make them into perfect circles if you're a bit of a perfectionist. Pop onto a rack to cool.

Smash the chocolate up into small pieces, and melt gently in a bowl placed over a pan of simmering water. Be gentle with chocolate, it is quite delicate when it comes to heat. Brush the melted chocolate over the smooth sides of the florentines, making sure you get a nice thick layer. If you feel like being super fancy, gently drag a fork through the chocolate to create wavey lines.

Chicken Korma

I would never order a korma in an Indian restaurant - it just seems wimpy - but at home, I'm quite happy to cook a pleasantly mild curry, because that means I can eat more of it. This may look like a long list of ingredients, but it's actually quite easy to put together, and will only take about half an hour to cook. Makes enough for 2 generous portions - which you should scoop up with poppadoms or naan bread, ok?

1 / 2 cup blanched almonds
1 / 2 cup cashews
1 onion
1 tin tomatoes
4 cm ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp fresh chilli
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 / 4 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp garam masala
1 chicken breast
1 capsicum (any colour is fine, or you could use a mixture of different colours)
1 spring onion
1 cup water
1 handful fresh coriander
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
salt


Right, first of all, the chopping. Finely chop the onion, garlic and fresh chilli, and roughly chop the almonds and cashews. Chop the chicken breast into bite-size chunks, and the capsicum and spring onion into 1cm pieces.

Blitz the almonds, cashews and tin of tomatoes in a food processor or blender until almost smooth - a few chunks is fine.

Mix together the spices - ground coriander, cumin, turmeric, garam masala and chilli powder. Grab a large frying pan, pour in the tablespoon of vegetable oil and put on a high heat to warm up. Once hot, add the onion, garlic and ginger, and cook for 5 minutes or so until everything starts to brown. Pour in the spices, stir, and cook for a minute more.

Add the chicken pieces and cook for 5 minutes or so until they're starting to colour. Pour in the tomato and nut mixture, and a cup of cold water. Add the capsicum, turn the heat down slightly and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste, and add salt.

Stir through the spring onion and coriander, and eat.

Barbecued kumara skins

Barbecues make everything more exciting. Even the humble kumara, when filled with tasty treats, becomes all smoky when treated to 10 minutes on the barbecue grill. The skin on the bottom get blackened, while the inside stays soft and tasty - although if the weather doesn't cooperate with your barbecue plans, these stuffed kumara can also be grilled in the oven, like boring, normal food. In that case, the tops will be crispy instead. Makes enough for 3 - 4 people. 

4 medium kumara

1 tomato

5cm chunk of yellow capsicum

3 heaped teaspoons of sour cream

1 spring onion

salt and pepper

1 teaspoon paprika

Give you kumara a good scrub to clean off any dirt - if the skin looks particularly ugly, you can scrap off the top surface using a spoon, which leaves the skin itself intact. Microwave for 5-6 minutes on high until soft, then leave to cool in the microwave. 

Cut the kumara in half lengthways. Scoop out the inside using a teaspoon, being careful not to break the skin. Put the kumara flesh into a mixing bowl, and mash until smooth. 

Add the paprika and sour cream. Finely dice the capsicum and spring onion, and add to the mixture. 

Cut the tomato in half, and squeeze over the kumara mixture so the seeds squirt out. This will add plenty of moisture to the kumara, and keep everything soft when you cook them. Finely dice the rest of the tomato, add to the bowl, and give everything a good mix. Season with salt and pepper.

Fill your kumara skins with the mixture - you might need to press down slightly on the skins to make sure they sit flat on the chopping board. Cook on a hot barbecue plate for 10 minutes, until the skin becomes crispy and the filling is warmed through. You can also grill indoors for 10 minutes if the weather gods aren't on your side. We had ours with chorizo sausages and salad - very summery!

Gremolata

While it may not be the most fashionable of herbs, I have a secret soft spot for flat-leaf parsley. It's always cheap, and it's easy to grow - even in Wellington, my parsley plant has survived for four years, in some of the most unlikely growing conditions, including snow. 

Gremolata is a mixture of parsley, lemon zest and garlic, and when loosened with a little bit of lemon juice, it makes an amazing sauce for summer food - we had it with barbecued mackerel and asparagus.

2 cups of finely chopped flat leaf parsley, stalks and all

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper

No tricks, here, just mix everything together, and leave to mingle for about half an hour. Pour over everything. 

Dukkah

Dukkah has approximately a million different uses. Hmm, I may have exaggerated that slightly but it is really versatile. It's great with bread dipped in oil, sprinkled over chicken and fish then baked, or over roast vegetables. Or mixed with lemon juice and oil to make a salad dressing, or sprinkled on top of bread rolls before you bake them. Or stirred through yoghurt and used as a marinade for chicken. So what I'm saying is, make dukkah, and you will not regret it. This recipe makes a jam-jar's worth of dukkah. Most recipes call for hazelnuts, but the bulk bin store only had walnuts, so walnuts it is!


2/3 cup walnuts
1/2 cup sesame seeds
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon salt


Toast the walnuts, sesame, coriander and cumin seeds one at a time in a dry frying pan over a medium-high heat. Shake the pan every 30 seconds or so, and be careful - the sesame seeds especially will burn very quickly if you don't watch them. You want to just colour each batch, so they're golden but not burnt. The walnuts will take about 3- 4 minutes, the rest slightly shorter. 

After each batch is cooked, pop them into a mortar and pestle or food processor. Once everything is nicely coloured, grind the walnuts and seeds together. You're not aiming to make them into a powder, more to just break up the large seeds so everything is roughly the same size as the sesame seeds. Add the pepper and salt to taste, then store in an air-tight jar. 

Tortillas

This recipe is stolen from the Christmas issue of Cuisine magazine. As I only cook for 2 people, rather than an enormous dinner party, the quantities however have been adjusted - although to be honest, the tortillas were so good I could have eaten enough for about 12 people. 


You can cook these tortillas in a dry frying pan, but they're best when done on the barbecue, because you get amazing charred edges. They're nothing like the plasticky, soft tortillas out of a packet, and after making them, I don't think I want to eat bought ones ever again...until I'm too tired to make them from scratch. Makes enough for 6 tortillas. 

1/2 cup milk

1 and a 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 and a 1/2 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat the milk and oil in the microwave until just warm. Mix the flour, salt and baking powder together in a bowl, then pour in the milk and oil. Mix together with your hands until it comes together in a soft dough, then knead for 3 minutes. Cover and leave to rest for 15 minutes, while you prepare your fillings.

Divide the incredibly soft dough into 6 pieces, and flour a chopping board or your counter. With your trusty rolling pin, roll out the dough as thinly as possible. Roll away from yourself, and give your tortilla a slight turn after every 2 or 3 rolls, so they have a nice rounded shape. They need to be paper thin, but the dough is very forgiving, so it should be too difficult!

Cook on a hot barbecue or in a dry frying pan for about 30 seconds on each side, then eat straight away!

Tinfoil chicken

No, no, you don't literally eat the tinfoil. You only eat the chicken that's baked in a shiny tinfoil envelope. 

1 chicken breast

1/4 head of broccoli

1/3 yellow capsicum

1/3 green capsicum

1/3 red capsicum

1 onion

1 tomato

2 cloves of garlic

25g butter

25g cream cheese/ 2 tablespoons of cream

2 tablespoons white wine

1 tablespoon thyme

salt and pepper

tinfoil

Chop the capsicum, tomato and onion into chunks, and break the broccoli into smaller pieces - keep everything around the same size, so they all cook at the same rate. Peel the garlic cloves, but leave them whole. 

Cut/tear two large pieces of tinfoil. Place the first into a baking tin, then place the second one over the top, but laying the opposite way. 

Throw in all your ingredients, putting the chicken on top. Fold the two layers of tinfoil over the top, and crumple up the edges so they form a tight seal. Bake in the oven for around an hour at 180C.

Be careful when you open up the tinfoil at the end - it will be filled with steam, so you don't want to scald your own face! Take out the chicken and slice it, then serve with the vegetables and the juices from the bottom of the pan. Good with polenta or mash potato, because they soak it all up!

Apple butter booze cake

More baking! I bought a large bag of Granny Smith apples, before remembering that I don't actually like fruit. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the fresh food, but I'm more of a vegetable lover than a fruit fan. 


This cake is incredibly moist, mainly because it has lots of butter in it, and a little booze - hence the title. I also made a rather tasty glaze rather than icing, which looks much prettier, and tastes a little like marzipan. In terms of booze, use whatever is in the house - I used Benedictine but brandy, apple schnapps or rum would all be good additions!

Cake

2 apples

2 tablespoons of your chosen alcoholic beverage

140g butter

1 tablespoon honey

160g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons ground almonds

3 eggs 

100g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 200C, and grease a cake tin. 

Peel the apples, and chop into pieces around the size of a dice. Sprinkle over the booze, stir, and leave to sit for half an hour. 

Melt the butter and honey in the microwave on low for 1-2 minutes, then leave to cool. 

Sift together the flour and baking powder, then stir in the ground almonds. 

Whisk together the eggs and sugar until thick and slightly foamy, then fold in the flour in 2 lots, using a spatula. 

Drizzle in a little of the honey and butter at a time, folding in to combine. Finally, fold in the apple and booze. 

Pour into your cake tin, and cook for 40 minutes until golden brown on top. 

Glaze

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoon pumpkin seeds

2 tablespoons almonds, roughly chopped

1 tablespoon poppy seed

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 teaspoon almond essence

Pop the sugar and water into a saucepan, and bring to boil over a medium-high heat. Simmer for around 6 minutes, swirling the pan every now and then to make sure it doesn't burn - it will start to turn a golden brown colour though. 


Add the butter and honey, and stir. Cook for another 4 minutes until golden. Add the nuts and seeds, remove from the heat, and leave to cool for 15 minutes or so. I made the glaze while the cake had its last 10 minutes in the oven, then left both to cool. The cake needs to be cooled lightly before you can add this topping, or it will all dribble over the sides. 


Once everything has reached room temperature, pour the glaze over the top of the cake, and leave to set. 

Brunch-time muffins

In a moment of house-wife madness that comes over everyone when they realise they're unemployed, I offered to bake for my boyfriend's officemates. I decided to make them like a miniature brunch - bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese - because I know they will eat them as soon as they get to work, because the public sector isn't known for its self-restraint in relation to baked goods. 

220g self-raising flour

5 slices of bacon

6 mushrooms

1 cup of grated cheese

1 tablespoon of paprika

1 tomato

1 egg

1 cup of milk

1/2 cup of canola oil

Chop the bacon and mushrooms in to bite-sized pieces, and fry for around 5 minutes until the bacon is crispy, and the mushrooms have lost most of their water. Chop the tomato finely.

In one mixing bowl, mix together the flour, paprika, bacon, mushrooms, and cheese. 

In another bowl, mix together the milk, oil and egg until well combined. Add the chopped tomato, stir, then pour onto the flour mixture. Stir everything together well with a spatula. 

Pour the mixture into 12 large muffins cases, making sure the best bits (bacon and mushrooms!) are evenly distributed, so no one gets upset. Bake at 180C for around 20 minutes, when their tops should be a golden brown colour. 

Smoky tomato salsa

Summer! Almost! But that's OK, because no one told the tomatoes they aren't supposed to be ripe yet, and they're already making an appearance in my kitchen. The ingredients in this salsa are "smoky" in that you cook them in an extremely hot, dry pan before hand, which transforms even mealy and pasty tomatoes into ingredients worthy of the noble name, "SALSA". 

Ingredients - and a large knife, lurking menacingly in the background...

2 large tomatoes

1 clove garlic

1/2 spring onion

1/2 cup herbs such as chives, coriander, parsley

1/2 teaspoon dried chilli or cayenne pepper

1 lemon

salt and pepper

Heat up a frying pan over a high heat. Throw in the tomatoes, garlic, and spring onion. Cook for around 5 minutes for the garlic and spring onion, and 10 minutes for the tomatoes, turning frequently so burnt patches develop all over the skin of the tomatoes. Remove from the heat, and leave somewhere to cool for at least half an hour, so you can handle the ingredients without burning your fingers!

Finely chop the garlic, spring onion, and herbs, and put into a mixing bowl. Dice the tomatoes, removing the hard bits around the stalk. Add to the bowl, along with the dried chilli. You can use powdered chilli or cayenne pepper - I used a whole dried cayenne pepper that my dad grew, and just broke it up into small pieces before adding it. 

Squeeze the lemon juice over the top, and stir everything together. I would recommend leaving it somewhere cool for at least half an hour before mixing again and seasoning, because it allows time for the flavours to all mix together. This salsa is great with...well, almost anything, really!

Fajita marinade

I'm a big fan of Mexican food, but, what with living in New Zealand, don't get many chances to eat "authentic" Mexican. Instead, most people seem to enjoy those awful packets of Old El Paso spice mixes - gross. I make my own mix instead, because I'm all fancy like that. This marinade can make friends with any kind of protein that comes your way. Along with the marinated steak in the picture, we had mushrooms, onions, peppers, salad and tortillas, and it was amazing!

1 tablespoon paprika

1/2 tablespoon tomato puree

1/2 tablespoon fresh chilli

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon cumin

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon oil

salt and pepper

something to marinade

Put all the marinade ingredients into a ziplock bag or a mixing bowl - a bag is good because you can squeeze all the air out and make sure the whole surface area of your protein in is contact with the marinade. Nom. 

Mix it all together, so it forms a deliciously red paste. Add your protein, smother it in the marinade, and leave the two alone for at least an hour. By this point, they should be the best of friends. Cook quickly, in a very hot pan, and eat quickly. Because you will want to. 

Cream of green soup

After 6 years as a student, I'm pretty darn thrifty, and this "Cream of green" soup is the epitome of cheap food. Any time I'm cooking green vegetables, and have leftover raw cuttings, or bits that aren't great for fancy recipes, I throw them in a ziplock bag in the freezer. In recent weeks, this bag has accumulated woody asparagus ends, broccoli stalks, the green bits of a leek...Anything that isn't perfect enough to use straightaway, but too good to throw out. After a couple of weeks, you have a bag full of soup-worthy ingredients that you would otherwise have wasted. Thrifty! Defrost them, and chop them, and give them the soup-treatment they deserve. 

The ratios for making more or less of this soup are pretty easy - the recipe uses 1 cup of stock to each cup of vegetables. I would recommend a guideline of 4 measuring cups of ingredients per person. Try to cook it for the shortest amount of time possible, so that everything stays an eye-wateringly bright green.

3 cups left-over green vegetables

1 cup of frozen peas

4 cups of stock (I used chicken)

1 clove garlic

1/2 an onion

splash of white wine 

1 tablespoon cornflour

2 tablespoons cream cheese (or ordinary cream, ricotta, mascarpone, sour cream...anything creamy-ish)

olive oil

salt and pepper

Finely chop the onion and garlic. Heat a little olive oil over a medium heat in a large frying pan or wok that's big enough for all your vegetables and stock. Add the onion and garlic, and cook for 3-4 minutes until softened. In a separate pan, heat up your stock so that it is almost at boiling temperature. 

Finely chop all your vegetables so they are around the same size, and smaller than a 1cm dice. They won't be cooked for very long so that they keep their colour, which means they have to be cut up quite small. Add to the pan, and cook for another 3 - 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Turn the heat up to high, and add the white wine. Cook for another 30 seconds while the wine soaks in, then sprinkle the cornflour over all the vegetables. Stir briskly to mix, then start adding the stock one cup at a time, still stirring. 

Once all the stock has been added, add the cream cheese, and stir. Bring the soup to the boil, and cook for a couple of minutes until it starts to thicken. 

Blender time! Transfer the soup to a blender or food processor. Add the frozen peas to the soup - keeping them separate until now means your soup will stay a lovely green-colour. Blitz for a minute or two in the blender, until the vegetables have broken down and you have a creamy-looking soup. Have a taste, to see if you need salt and pepper, then eat!

Dukkah and yoghurt chicken

Ah, marinading. The cheat's way to food that tastes delicious and tricks people into thinking you made an effort. Yoghurt has a tenderising effect on meat, so is great in marinades, while dukkah is just delicious. I have some hazlenut dukkah from the Main St Deli in Greytown out in the Wairarapa, which doesn't appear to have a website, but is amazing, all the same.

4 chicken drumsticks
2 spring onions
1 cup plain yoghurt
1 tablespoon dukkah
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 tablespoon ground almonds
1 tablespoon polenta
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper


Lots of ingredients, but it's super simple, actually. Mix all the ingredients apart from the chicken and spring onions in a large mixing bowl until thick and creamy. Add the chicken drumsticks, cover with the marinade and leave in the fridge for an hour or so.


Preheat the oven to 180C. Pour the chicken and marinade into a baking tray, and pop into the oven for an hour. After 30 minutes, turn the chicken and add the spring onions, chopped lengthways. Put the spring onions under the chicken, so they soak up all the spare marinade.

After an hour in the oven, the chicken should be browned and delicious, and ready to munch. We had ours with some cous cous, and ratatouille.

Baking Day Biscuits

Please forgive the amount of pink in the above image. The baking day biscuits are slightly almond-y, and have a nice soft texture without crumbling everywhere, and will keep for a few days, unless you eat them all first. These biscuits are based on a Nigella Lawson recipe which she describes as good for entertaining young children on rainy days, but to be honest I think she underestimated how entertaining biscuit-making truly is, for immature people of all ages. As you can see, despite the many, many gadgets in our house, we do not have any biscuit cutters, but this recipe is surprisingly easy to roll out and cut freehand. Nigella's recipe uses slightly different proportions, but I found it too soft, so adjustments had to be made. This recipe makes a million biscuits. Well, at least 40, which is more than even the most sugar-crazed fiend can eat (this theory was tested using my willing assistant, and even she paled after 4 or 5 biscuits). Baking days aren't to be hurried, and neither is this recipe. It takes time to make the perfect biscuit - time, and plenty of icing.


Biscuits


175g soft butter (or a mixture of half butter, half margarine, which makes it easier to cream together with the sugar)
200g brown sugar
2 eggs
 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
375g plain flour (plus more for rolling out the biscuits)
50g ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt


Icing
around 300g icing sugar
pink (or other, non-gender normative colour) food colouring
the tiniest bit of water


Cream together softened butter and the brown sugar in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon until creamy, then add the eggs and almond extract, and mix together. In another mixing bowl, mix the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt. Add to the butter and egg mixture a little at a time, mixing it in thoroughly. The mixture will get tougher and tougher to mix, until you finally give up and it looks like a smooth biscuity mixture.


Roll out a sheet of baking paper, and split the mixture into two piles, then wrap each up in the baking paper. Pop it in the freezer for about half an hour to rest, while you have a spot of lunch and gossip.


Turn the oven on, at around 180C. Dust your counter-top or chopping board with flour, and coat a rolling pin with flour as well, so the biscuit dough doesn't stick. Take your dough out of the freezer, and grab a reasonable sized lump of dough to roll out. The dough is surprisingly easy to work with, and doesn't break up too much. Roll out to about half a centimetre thick, then start cutting! Use a small knife to cut out whatever shapes take your fancy, or if you're feeling lazy just use cookie cutters. Our biscuit shape ideas ranged from the relatively simple (hearts! letters! crowns!) to the ridiculous (brontosaurus! little dogs! cats!)


Pop the biscuits onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper, and bake for 5-8 minutes - they cook very quickly. Leave to cool.


Icing time! We used three different shades of icing - white (no food colouring), light pink (the tiniest drop of pink food colouring), and a grotesque bright pink (a fair bit of colouring). Mix icing with various amounts of icing in separate bowls, then add the smallest splash of cold water possible. It always takes a lot less water than you think, so go slowly. Once the icing is mixed, but not too runny, scrap into sandwich bags and squeeze down into one of the bottom corners. Seal up the bag, and snip off the corner. You now have a piping bag!


Decorate your biscuits as needed. Obviously brontosauruses will need little boots and a collar, but I will leave the specific pattern up to you. Try not to eat them all at once, children.

Fish cakes

I found some mystery fish in the freezer, in an unmarked bag, and being the daredevil I am, decided to make fish cakes. I hate fish cakes that are hard like hockey pucks and have no flavour. I left out the egg and breadcrumbs people usually put in the mixture, because the egg is just more protein (and who really needs that?) and I have a theory that both ingredients are to blame for most of the hard, firm texture in fish cakes. This recipe makes softer fish cakes, that still get a nice crispy outside when you cook them. Makes enough for 2 hungry people.

300g-ish of fish
1 medium potato
2 - 3 tablespoons natural yoghurt
2 - 3 tablespoons green herby things like parsley, chives, coriander.
2 cloves garlic
3 teaspoons polenta
salt and pepper
zest of 1 lemon


Cut the potato up into chunks, and microwave in a bowl for 4-5 minutes until soft. Pop the fish onto a baking tray lined with some baking paper, along with the garlic, and grill for the same amount of time, turning halfway through.


Throw your fish and potato into a large mixing bowl, and mash lightly (oxymoron? mashed enough that it mixes together, not mashed so much it's baby food) with a fork. Chop the garlic a little before you throw that in too. Finely chop your herbs, and add them to the bowl along with the lemon zest.


Now the make-it-up-as-you-go part. Add the yoghurt, and mix. Then, add the polenta 1 teaspoon at a time, until the mixture start to look firm enough to make into fish cakes.


Wet your hands with cold water. Grab a small handful of the mixture, shape into a ball, then flatten. Place each one onto a piece of baking paper while you work. If the mixture is too soft, just put it back in the bowl and add more polenta.


Leave your fish cakes to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes or so. This stops them from breaking up when you cook them. Heat a non-stick frying pan, and cook your fish cakes for 2-3 minutes on each side until nicely browned. All the ingredients in the fish cakes are already cooked, so it's just a matter of heating them up and making them crunchy. We ate ours with rocket salad out the garden, minted peas...and chips. Because we like a bit of decadence every now and then.

Lemon and cream cheese muffins

I'm not a great baker - there are too many rules, and too much washing up. Baking, for me, is about how to get the largest amount possible of delicious ingredients into my mouth using the least amount of boring ingredients, like flour. If you can make it into miniature form, that's just a bonus. This recipe uses 2 lemons - the zest of both goes into the dry ingredients, the juice of 1 lemon into the wet ingredients, and the juice of the other into the glaze. The poppy seeds are optional, but make the muffins look a lot more exciting. Makes 12 regular sized muffins, or 11 unevenly sized muffins and some iddy-biddy ones on the side. 

Dry ingredients

220g self-raising flour

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon poppy seeds (optional)

zest of 2 lemons

2 tablespoons cream cheese

Wet ingredients

1 cup milk

1/2 cup canola oil

1 egg

juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Glaze

juice of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons sugar

Put the dry ingredients apart from the cream cheese into a large mixing bowl, give it a mix. Using two spoons, flick small blobs of cream cheese into the bowl, so when you're eating you'll find hidden patches of cream cheese.

In a separate bowl, beat the wet ingredients together with a fork. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, and pour in the liquid. Mix everything together using your fork, making sure everything is combined. 

Pour the batter into 12 muffin cases, or some iddy biddy cases. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes for large muffins, 10 minutes for miniature muffins. Once they just start to brown on top, take them out. 

Stir the last lot of lemon juice and sugar together in a microwavable jug or bowl. On medium power, cook for 30 seconds, taking it out to stir every 10 seconds (this sounds very pedantic, I know, but it stops it from evaporating completely). Once the sugar has melted into the lemon juice, brush over the cooked muffins with a pastry brush, and leave to air-dry for about 30 seconds before eating. Get someone else to wash the dishes. 

Desperation sponge

This is a recipe for those evenings when you just NEED dessert, but have very few ingredients or energy to fetch them/persuade someone else to fetch them for you. The basic idea came from a "Microwave Cuisine" book someone bought my parents when they got married, so it's clearly a classic. It turns out similar to a British-style steamed pudding, very dense and satisfying, but doesn't last particularly well, so it is imperative you eat it all straight away. Not that you will need much encouragement. You can flavour it with anything you have to hand - dried fruit, chocolate, nuts, golden syrup, jam or marmalade are all good. This makes enough for 2 people, or 1 person who has had a truly awful day. 


Desperation sponge


50g self-raising flour
50g butter/margarine, softened
50g sugar
1 egg
50 g delicious things (raisins! jam! nuts! chocolate! anything your pantry can supply)


Grease a microwavable bowl - bear in mind the mixture might rise a little when you cook it. Throw the flour, butter and sugar in, and rub them together using your hands until the mixture starts to look like breadcrumbs. Stir in the egg and delicious things. At this point you will be thinking "there is no way this mixture will be moist and delicious when cooked", but fear not. 


Microwave on full for 4 minutes, then leave it to stand for 5 minutes. Tuck in!

Tandoori...anything

Anything can be made more delicious by covering it in tandoori spices, but my favourites are chicken and mushrooms, because both soak up all the flavours. This is based on Madhur Jaffrey's recipe in Flavours of India from 1995, which seems to be the Indian food bible for most British families like mine. It tastes amazing, but takes very little effort, as most of the hard word is done by the marinating and quick cooking process. This recipe makes enough marinade for 500g of anything, be that chicken, mushrooms, cauliflower, or...toast? No, not toast, but the rest of the fridge is fair game.

Tandoori anything


Dry seasonings
1 1/2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 1/2 tablespoons black peppercorns
1 teaspoon cloves or allspice


Wet seasonings
2 teaspoons fresh chilli
3 garlic cloves
4cm piece of fresh ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon paprika
2 tablespoons cream
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon canola oil

Some "anything" - chicken, mushrooms, any old vegetable
Lemon or lime juice to serve


Grind up the dry ingredients in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. Chop the chilli, garlic and ginger very finely, then add to the dry ingredients, along with the salt and paprika. Give everything a good stir. Add the cream, oil and water, then stir everything again. By now it should be looking thick, creamy, and smell amazing. 


Chop up whatever it is you're going to marinade. If you're using chicken, cut deep slits into the meat, or chop it up so that the marinade covers as much of it as possible. Pour the marinade into a container, add your chicken/mushrooms/anything you like, and stir it really well so everything is coated. Leave in the fridge until you're hungry, but wait at least a few hours.


You can either cook this in a seriously hot oven, or in a frying pan on the hottest element of the stove. It has to be hot though - traditionally, tandoori was cooked in a tandoor oven, which was incredibly hot, and also used for cooking flat breads. Once everything is cooked, each it straight away, with lemon or lime juice squeezed over the top.