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Focaccia with olive oil, fresh grapes and crumbled blue cheese. I am not quite sure why grapes are not popular as cake ingredients. All summer berries, cherries, stone fruit and apples get to play, jumping into soft sponge, orderly marching onto tarts, drowning in runny clafoutis and sweating gently underneath crumbles
Green bean casserole is so good when homemade and cooked from scratch! Creamy mushroom sauce is easy to make, while blanching then drying fresh green beans stops them from being soggy.
Beans and tomatoes, blanched green beans served with sautéed tomatoes cooked with green chilies. A match made in heaven, green beans and tomatoes are for me the classic summery dish.
Green beans with Parmesan cream. The dish makes an elegant side; serve it over rice for a veggie main and throw in slices of cooked chicken for the meat option.
Greengage jelly with chilli and rosemary is a full of flavour, unusual condiment. It’s a cross between greengage chutney and plum jam and it’s perfect with lamb.
Grilled asparagus with flaked almonds and Parmesan, an exquisite side dish or starter ready in 10 minutes. It can be cooked in oven grill or on a barbecue.
Grilled chicken burgers, juicy, crispy and tasty thanks to two secret ingredients: Parmesan and a little pork. The healthier answer to your burger craving!
Grilled mussels with savoury breadcrumbs and crumbled black pudding. It’s blood. Mixed with fillers, more often than not cereal of some kind, less often chopped up offal; encased, sausage way, into a length of gut.
Red mullet brushed with anchovy and coriander butter, grilled whole, is delightful little fish and gorgeously easy to cook. It is also, surprisingly, not as bony as small fish usually is!
Pink guava cake with pink buttercream frosting, made from concentrated guava juice. It looks like a six years old girl’s dream. It tastes like heaven.
Pan fried guinea fowl breast with fresh wild mushrooms, it’s the epitome of an autumnal dish. And a feast fit for the gods!
Haggis, neeps and tatties, traditional Scottish supper for Burns’ Night: it is the Scottish oat sausage served with mashed potatoes and swede or, in my recipe, carrots.
Halloumi and vegetable skewers, vegetarian kebabs of cheese, mushrooms, peppers and onion drizzled with tangy marinade, as fantastic cooked on a barbecue as from the oven.
Scary Halloween eyeballs made from white chocolate ganache and homemade edible red slime. They are also the best ever white chocolate truffles!
Haloween meringue bones. Great meringue mix easy to shape into spooky bones, perfect for Haloween.
Spooky meringue ghost cookies. The easiest Halloween cookies to make, and the tastiest meringue mix too.
Hamantaschen are Jewish pastries filled with utterly delightful poppy seed mixture. 'Haman's pockets' or oznei Haman are a traditional eaten treat for the celebration of Purim.
Honey cake with dates and apples from Nigella Lawson’s collection is not only suitable for Rosh Hashanah: it’s simply the perfect autumnal cake.
Frozen Greek yoghurt ice cream recipe with raisins and honey, low-calorie and sugar free. The best thing – you don’t need to churn it in the ice cream maker. Just scrape into a tub and enjoy it a few hours later.
Best hot cross buns ever: wholemeal, with tons of raisins, piped crosses and delicious sticky honey glaze. There’s no better spring breakfast than a buttered hot cross bun.
Ice cream sandwiches in choux pastry buns, with ice cream flavour of choice, homemade or your favourite brand. I first made choux pastry at the age of about 11, in my technology lesson at school.
Gratin of thinly sliced jerusalem artichokes baked with bacon and cheese in a creamy sauce. I like the flavour and the taste – nutty, firmer and sweeter than spuds and not quite as starchy.
Joululimppu, Finnish Christmas bread with rye flour, buttermilk, aniseed flavours and treacle – quite an unusual and wonderful Christmas bake. It means just that: ‘Christmas bread’.
Julekake (pronounced yoo-le-kar-ka) is a traditional Norwegian Christmas bread, with Sukat (candied citrus peel) and raisins. Julekake is flavoured with cardamom and it’s best toasted, served with gjetost (brown cheese).
Kabocha squash gratin, a creamy, cheesy, delightfully comforting winter dish using a lesser known squash, also known as Japanese pumpkin.
Kalpudding, Swedish brown cabbage meatloaf, served with boiled or mashed potatoes and a sweet and spicy preserve, is best homemade – and one more reason NOT to go to IKEA!
Kohlrabi slaw, grated kohlrabi with creamy dressing is versatile and delicious. Try it instead of your regular slaw – this vegetable deserves more acclaim!
Koulourakia are Greek Easter cookies, flavoured with mahlep and coiled into twisty shapes. This traditional recipe uses ammonia as raising agent and exotic mahlep spice, which can be replaced with ground cardamom and fennel seed.
Festive Krantz cake with chocolate and walnut filling - quite unusual. No idea what its name means and no, it’s not the same as Kranz – creamy ‘crown’ cake. I found my recipe in ‘Baking with Passion’ by Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington.
Greek style lamb koftas served with a simple harissa dip. Lamb koftas are perfect for a barbecue and just as tasty griddled, with this easy recipe for koftas and harissa sauce.
Lamb neck fillet stuffed with spicy nduja sausage, grilled with fresh rosemary sprigs. New season lamb neck is best for grilling, and nduja flavours it beautifully with spicy heat.
Herb and Parmesan crusted rack of lamb flavoured with rosemary and lemon zest, roasted until medium rare, deliciously juicy and tender. Lamb rack can be French trimmed for ease of carving.
Roast lamb shank with anchovy and caper butter, meltingly tender, served on a bed of stir fried cabbage with bacon and tomato - the best side dish for lamb.
Baked yellow courgettes stuffed with minced lamb and tomatoes, topped with grated cheese. Large yellow courgettes are perfect for baking, and much easier to fill with stuffing than the green ones.
Lebkuchen - soft, honeyed cookies, similar to gingerbreads. Lebkuchen are of German provenance, invented by Franciscan monks in the 13th century.
Leek and potato bake, or gratin, with creme fraiche and cheese. This is a vegetarian dish which resembles tartiflette or pommes dauphinoises in its levels of comfort.
Leek and potato soup, homemade is the best. Soup is the easiest, cheapest and quickest thing to cook at home. Especially if you are a proponent of Soup With Bits, like me – you won’t need a blender.
Leek slaw, a simple salad of raw leeks with cucumber and radish, seasoned with black pepper and honey. Leeks are incredibly healthy when eaten raw, did you know?
Creamy leeks sautéed with wild garlic. Wild garlic aka bear’s garlic or ramsons turns up in April in woody, wet, marshy lands and down in the overgrown part of my garden.
Lemon posset, the easiest and the loveliest dessert, served with crunchy biscuits. Posset in medieval times was a spiced, rich milky-wine concoction, served probably more often as a remedy than a dessert. They did mix their drinks in the olden days didn’t they?
Warm salad of poached fish and raw samphire with lemongrass dressing. Samphire, or sea asparagus, is the salty marshland grass and not actually seaweed as some may think.
Lentils and spicy chorizo casserole with fresh tomatoes. Spicy, hearty, tomatoey and earthy with cheese on top – a perfect autumnal dish you might say, except it tastes as good all year round.
Lumberjack date and apple cake with caramelised coconut topping. Try as I might, I can’t trace the origin of lumberjack cake or why it is called thus.
Authentic French almond macarons are very expensive, but you can make them at home. With dark chocolate ganache and lemon curd filling, they will be the most exquisite dessert you can possibly make.
Malva pudding is a South African baked dessert, traditionally served at Christmas. It’s a soft cake flavoured with apricot jam and drenched in vanilla cream sauce.
Smooth mango ice cream without eggs, churned in an ice cream maker. Make sure the fruit is as ripe as it can be; apart from the insufficient sweetness, unripe mango smells a bit off-putting.
Danish marzipan kringle, the perfect cake for festive times is easier to bake than most Christmas breads and it is insanely delicious. Especially with homemade marzipan remonce (filling).
Marzipan truffles, chocolate covered balls of homemade marzipan, and the chocolate is also homemade! Vegan, easy and utterly delicious.