Last year I planted some 'Mignonette' alpine strawberries. We only got a handful of strawberries per week last year but this year we are getting many more. Most of the time we eat the fruit on its own, with melon, or with ice cream. This week I decided to keep the strawberries in the fridge until I had enough to cook something new.

Ingredients

• 250g puff pastry, rolled out.
• 2 cups of strawberries.
• ¼ cup of light brown sugar.
• 3 tablespoons of cornflour.

Method

Mix the strawberries, sugar and cornflour together. Place in the middle of the pastry. Brush the edges with milk, and roll up, crimping the ends together. Brush the outside with milk then bake in the oven, gas mark 7, for 20 minutes.

The strudel was slightly over-cooked, thanks to me failing to start the kitchen timer properly, but otherwise it was good.

This weeks recipe came from the Mail on Sunday. When we first read it, it sounded unusual and interesting. Since we recently tried Chocolate and Beetroot Cake, we thought another strange vegetable cake was worth trying.

The cake came out quite moist and lightly spiced. We made a few slight changes, using allspice instead of ground cloves, and doubling the quantity of cinnamon. You couldn't tell it was tomato soup based unless you tasted carefully and tried to discern the flavour. If you didn't know, I don't think it would be obvious.

We were trying to think of a new recipe for this week, probably involving sausages because we had some in the fridge. Emma came up with the idea of Bagel Dogs, based on Corn Dogs but with the sausage wrapped in bagel dough.

The dough was made following the same recipe as last time. After leaving the individual dough balls to rise, they were rolled out and a cooked sausage was placed on each, before being rolled up to completely enclose the sausage.

After boiling for 1 minute on each side, the 'dogs' were put on skewers and baked for 20 minutes - resting the skewers on the sides of a deep baking tray so the dogs were held above the tray while they cooked.

A cooked bagel dog on a stick.

We thought the Bagel Dogs were an original idea but according to Wikipedia, they have been around since 1943.

This was my attempt at recreating a Marks & Spencer dish which we ate a couple of months ago. I can't remember what the original tasted like but I was happy with the flavour of my version. A lot of our cooking is based around what we can buy reduced or on offer. The sweet potato and butternut squash came from a supermarket pack which was cheap since it was going out of date.

In a low oven (approx gas mark 4), roast the following for about 30 minutes:

• 250g sweet potato and butternut squash.
• 2 cloves of garlic (peeled but kept whole)
• ½ green chilli (chopped).
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil.

When everything has cooled down, add to a food processor, along with:

• 100g cooked white beans
• 2tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp chopped parsley
• a pinch of salt
• ½ tsp lemon juice
• 1tsp pumpkin seed oil
• 1tsp horseradish or ½ tsp wasabi paste.

Add a small amount of water if needed, to get everything to blend to a smooth paste.

We used some of the dip as a pizza sauce, and topped it with salmon, leek and cheese.

We have a monthly cake day in work, on the last friday of each month. My contribution was this chocolate and beetroot cake:

The recipe came from the Channel 4 website. A couple of months ago I mentioned to a colleague that I had some beetroot in the garden. He sent me the recipe and said it was better than you'd expect.

The beetroot from the garden was smaller than I expected. When I weighed it, it was closer to 75g than the 250g required so I had to go out and buy some more. The supermarket didn't have raw beetroot so I got cooked instead and I don't think it had any adverse effect.

The cake was quite good, with a nice gooey texture. I don't actually like beetroot so I was glad you couldn't really taste it in the cake. I peeled all the beetroot to reduce the chance of the cake having that 'earthy' taste which beetroot often has.

Home-made Pesto Sauce

This is a version of pesto sauce tailored to the ingredients we had in our kitchen at the time. All quantities are very approximate - we didn't measure anything at the time.

• 50g of mature cheddar cheese, grated
• 1 handful of fresh basil leaves
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp ground almonds
• 2 tbsp white wine.

Put the basil and the vegetable oil in a small food processor and blend to a rough purée. Mix with the other ingredients.

Chicken Mozzarella Pasta

(Serves 2)

Slice and fry 1 red pepper, 1 red onion, 2 chicken breasts and 2 cloves of garlic. Boil the pasta, then drain and mix with the chicken and vegetables. Stir in the pesto sauce followed by 125g of diced mozzarella.

We often make enchiladas using the kits which contain the tortillas, seasoning and sauce. This time we made it (almost) from scratch. We didn't make our own tortillas this time but used some garlic tortillas from Lidl. The sauce was a carton of tomatoes to which we added a teaspoon of jerk seasoning.

For the filling, I sliced and fried 2 chicken breasts, 1 onion, half a courgette, 1 green pepper and 1 medium sized leek. I added half the tomatoes and a handful of grated cheese.

The filling was spooned into the tortillas which were rolled up then covered with the rest of the sauce and a bit more grated cheese. We baked them for about 10 minutes at gas mark 5 until the cheese had melted.

This was quite a lazy meal - the vegetables had been cooked for a pasta meal where I deliberately cooked more than I needed so there would be some left over for this. Ideally this meal should be made in a slow cooker but I used a wok with a lid on, placed on the smallest gas jet on the lowest setting.

• 1 onion, diced.
• ½ pepper, diced
• ½ courgette, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped.
• 1 inch fresh chilli, chopped.
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 2 cups of chicken stock.
• A quantity of stewing steak, roughly 1 inch dice.
• A splash of worcestershire sauce.

Fry the vegetables for a few minutes until they begin to soften. Put everything in a pan and simmer gently for about 2 hours. Remove the bay and rosemary. Stir in a couple of tablespoons of tomato purée and thicken with cornflour.

This made enough for 2 portions. I served half of it with potato cakes. The second half was used as a pasta sauce, spiced up with a bit more chilli.

I have been trying to empty the freezer so it can be defrosted so for most of this week I'll be eating various odds and ends. The first thing to be defrosted was a pack of Tesco Mashed Potato.

Potato Cake 1 - pan fried

A lot of potato cake recipes call for spring onions but our chives have grown huge and looked like a suitable alternative.

After the mash had thawed out it was quite sloppy, so I added quite a lot of flour to try to firm it up. I stirred in some chopped chives, parsley and a crushed garlic clove. I fried it at roughly medium heat for about 4-5 minutes each side.

The potato cakes were still a bit soft so they weren't easy to turn over - I probably needed to add more flour.

Potato Cake 2 - oven baked

A lot more liquid had drained out of the potatoes by now, which I had to carefully pour off. Even after that, the potatoes were still very wet and sloppy.

I made the potato cakes in a similar way to above but without the garlic, and with more flour added (a combination of plain flour and cornmeal). I added flour until the mixture was very thick and sticky, but not as firm as bread dough.

I spooned the mixture out onto a floured baking tray and baked at gas mark 7 for around 20-25 minutes. The end result didn't have the tasty crispy 'fried' coating of the pan-fried cakes but the internal texture was better.

Chicken Quesadillas

The tortillas were made using a recipe similar to week 19. The filling consisted of:

• 2 chicken breasts, sliced.
• 1 medium onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 leek
• jerk seasoning.
• grated cheese

The chicken and vegetables were sliced and fried before being mixed with the seasoning. The tortillas were cooked then sprinkled with grated cheese. A few tablespoons of the filling were spread over the cheese, then a tortilla was put on top.

These were served with the remaining corn muffins which we made a few days ago:

Corn Muffins

We originally made these because we were going to a mexican-themed at a colleagues house. He is a vegan so we thought we should bring something he could eat.

The recipe is based on one we found at allrecipes.com.

Recipe:

• 1½ tsp cornflour and 2 tbsp water
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• ½ cup plain flour
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 cup water
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 fresh chillies, finely chopped.

Method:

1. Mix together the cornflour and the 2 tbsp water in a cup. Alternatively for a non-vegan version, use 1 egg.
2. In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and chillies then blend in the oil, water and the cornflour paste.
3. Spoon into muffin cases and bake in a pre-heated oven (gas mark 8, 230°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.

The resulting muffins were a little dry but they tasted fine and worked well if you ate them with a bowl of chilli and dunked them in the sauce.

The pretzels were made using the same procedure as the bagels, using plain flour instead of multi-seed flour.

After baking, the straight 'pretzel stick' was sprinkled with salt. The traditional 'knot shaped' pretzel was brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

Makes 4 Multiseed mini-bagels:

• 1 cup of a bread flour with seeds/grains.
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil or flavoured oil such as pumpkin seed oil.
• 1 tsp dry yeast
• just under ½ cup warm water.

Mix the ingredients together and knead for 10 minutes. Divide into 4 and leave to rise for 20 minutes. Pre heat the oven to gas mark 7. Roll the dough into a sausage and squash the ends together to make a ring. Leave to stand for 20 minutes. Bring a pan of water to the boil. Boil the bagels for 1 minute each side. If the bagels sink, they will need to be left to rise for longer. Bake in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes each side.

I only posted last week's recipe yesterday (Sunday is a flexible 'floating' day and I've been counting it as either the start or end of a week depending on whether I've cooked anything else new that week).

This week's recipe came from the book Little Red Gooseberries and consists of corn tortillas with a bean and vegetable sauce. As usual, we altered the recipe according to what we had in the kitchen. These quantities serve 4.

Sauce

Finely chop an assortment of vegetables.

• 1 red pepper
• 1 medium onion
• 1 courgette
• 1 leek
• 2 cloves of garlic

Fry gently for a few minutes then add 1 tin of chopped tomatoes. Add herbs and spices:

• a pinch of dried chilli
• a pinch of cumin
• a pinch of mild curry powder
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley.

Simmer until the vegetables have softened then add a drained tin of beans, such as borlotti or kidney beans.

Tortillas

• 100g wholemeal flour
• 100g fine cornmeal
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• approx 60-100ml of water (The original recipe said 600ml - this must have been a mistake. We had added 150ml and the mixture was too runny. We had to add extra flour to rescue it.)

Put the flour, cornmeal, salt and oil into a bowl. Slowly add the water, stirring all the time. Do not add all the water at once - you might not need the full amount.

Knead the mixture until it is firm.

Divide the dough into 8 portions. Flatten them out and fry them in a lightly oiled pan for 2-3 minutes on each side. Keep the cooked ones warm in a low oven (approx gas mark 1) while the remainder cook.

Photos: The vegetable sauce, before the beans were added.
A tortilla being cooked. The final meal being served, with some cheese crumbled on top.

We have made cookies in the past but this was a new recipe so it counts here. The recipe came from allrecipes.co.uk but we used smarties instead of chocolate chips.

I have reproduced the recipe here for convenience:

Ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 170g unsalted butter, melted
• 200g dark brown soft sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 325g chocolate chips (or smarties etc.)

Method

(tweaked slightly from the original)

1. Preheat the oven to 170 C / Gas mark 3. Grease baking trays or line with parchment.
2. Sift together the flour, bicarb and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and caster sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon.
4. Drop cookie dough onto the prepared baking trays, with each cookie around 1-2 tablespoons of dough (for smaller cookies, reduce baking time slightly). Do not flatten the dough. Cookies should be about 8cm apart.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I'm not very good at cooking desserts. The recipe here was adapted from the BBC website, with a few changes.

My workplace does a monthly Cake Day and this was our contribution. Emma actually did most of the work.

Brownies

• Take 3x100g bars of chocolate, broken into chunks (2x plain chocolate, 1x milk chocolate).
• Add 275g of butter or margarine.
• Melt the chocolate and butter either over a pan of hot water or in a microwave.
• Add 1tsp of vanilla extract.
• Stir in 325g caster sugar.
• lightly beat 4 eggs (or 20 quail eggs) and stir into the chocolate mixture.
• Sift 175g of plain flour and 1tbs of baking powder into the bowl and fold in gently.
• Add approximately 170g of peanut M&Ms (or the contents of a 185g bag with a few eaten).

Bake at gas mark 3 for about 25 minutes.

Frosting

• 55g butter, softened.
• 130g peanut butter. Mix with the butter.
• 120g icing sugar, sifted and stirred into mixture.
• Stir in about 1 tbs milk, to soften the mixture to a spreadable consistency.

The resulting cake was a bit sweet but the combination of chocolate and peanuts works very well and it's difficult to have just one piece.