This recipe happened because we were lucky enough to find 2 large smoked cod fillets reduced from £10 to £2 in the supermarket. I had some home-made pesto in the fridge, leftover from our regular saturday pizza night. The puff pastry was bought ready-rolled.

The cod pieces were quite large at nearly 300g each. We decided that we had to eat both tonight since fish really doesn't keep very well.

The pesto sauce was made using home-grown basil and watercress, olive oil, pine nuts, cheddar cheese and cream cheese. It was spread onto the fish immediately before the the pastry was folded over the top and sealed with some beaten egg.

The fish parcels were baked for about 25-30 minutes at gas mark 5.

At the weekend we were driving near the Millet's farm shop near Abingdon (on our way home after collecting our new Dormouse). We both really like going round shops like these. They have an impressive range of food available. A lot of it is fairly pricey but the fresh cakes are always excellent value. While we were there we bought a cream-filled 'Viennese Slice' and a really nice flapjack. In addition to those we also bought some cheeses. Tonight we used the smoked sheep's cheese.

We used ready-made puff pastry which we rolled out then spread with red pesto. Next we added a layer of sliced onions which had been gently fried to soften them. The next layer was prawns and sun-dried tomatoes before finally being topped with the grated smoked cheese.

It was baked at gas mark 6 for approximately 20 minutes, until the pastry had puffed up and turned golden.

We received a lot of food related presents for Christmas, including some fancy multi-coloured pasta. Here we served some of it with a home-made chicken and kale pesto.

• Chop and fry 2 cloves of garlic
• Finely chop 2 handfuls of kale and add to the pan with the garlic. Fry until it wilts.
• Put a tablespoon or so of pine nuts (or a similar seed mixture) in a food processor and blitz to a fine powder.
• Add the garlic and kale to the food processor and blitz to a paste.
• Add a tablespoon of cream and a couple of spoons of grated parmesan
• Season to taste.
• Mix in some sliced cooked chicken and serve with the pasta.