A few weeks ago we thought it would be a good idea to make a giant pizza sized cookie, using our 10 inch pizza trays.

Recipe:

• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup peanut butter
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1½ cups plain flour
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chocolate chips or m&ms

Soften the butter. Mix together the butter, peanut butter and egg, then add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well.

Bake for 10-12 minutes at gas mark 5.
(See measuring cup sizes to convert cups to volume or weight or oven temperatures for conversion information.

Cheaper than using proper Panini bread and a Panini toaster. This needs the part-baked baguettes from any supermarket, and a George Foreman grill.

If it's a long baguette (or a small George), the bread may need cutting in half to fit. Slice the bread horizontally lengthways and then add typical Panini filling, such as ham, tuna, chicken, anything suitable as long as it's topped with cheese to hold everything together.

The important thing is not to bake the baguette first - it will cook in the grill. Press the lid down so it flattens the bread slightly - this will make it look more like a proper panini.

Last weekend we bought a book of Pizza recipes from the National Trust 2nd hand book shops. We're going to work our way through some of the different dough and topping types but we've been impressed so far. We'd already made several dessert pizzas and calzone using our normal pizza base but the book had a recipe for a sweet base so we decided to try that.

Sweet Pizza Base

The book was published in the USA so uses cups rather than weights. Conversions can be found here.

• 1 teaspoon of bakers yeast
• 2 cups of plain white or bread flour
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• ½ cup warm milk

Follow the standard pizza method to make the dough. The pizza can be topped as normal or folded over to make a calzone.

Suggested Toppings

• Mincemeat - this makes a very good 'mince pie calzone'
• Summer fruits or berries - stewed with sugar to taste and a little cornflour to thicken
• Marshmallows and chocolate chunks

I've seen 'home smoking' being demonstrated on tv a couple of times, using either a wok or a roasting pan. We've got an old wok in need of replacing so I thought I'd give it a go using some salmon.

You'll need a wok with a lid and a rack which fits in the wok to stand the salmon on. Start by lining the bottom of the wok with foil, using enough to stick about an inch or so above the lip of the wok because it needs folding over the lid to reduce the amount of smoke which escapes.

Mix together a couple of tablespoons each of rice, sugar, tea leaves. Pour into the foil. Place a rack above this mixture - I didn't have a suitable rack so I used a thick foil 'pie dish' (the sort which is supposed to be disposable) which I cut holes in.

Place the wok over a medium heat. When the mixture starts smoking, put the lid on and fold the foil over the lid. Turn the heat down to low. After about 15 minutes, check the salmon and give it a few more minutes if needed.

It may be a good idea to open the kitchen window and close the door before doing any of this - the smell of smoke managed to fill the house. The salmon came out looking more like 'smoke damaged' than smoked but it tasted good. The technique would work with other fish but it was a lot of hard work.

Saturday night has become our traditional 'home made pizza' night. Emma makes the base and I make the tomato sauce and then we sort out the toppings.

Pizza Base

• 8oz bread flour (white or wholemeal flour)
• 1 tsp bakers yeast
• pinch of salt
• 2 tps dried herbs
• pinch of salt
• 4 tsp vegetable oil
• ¼ pint warm water

Mix the yeast with a little water and wait until it starts to 'bubble'. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the salt and herbs. Add the yeast, water and oil and mix to form a dough. Knead for around 10 minutes before returning it to the bowl. Leave for about an hour until it has started to rise.

Divide the mixture in two, roll out and cover with the chosen toppings. One alternative is to make a 'stuffed crust' by putting a ring of spreading cheese around the pizza, about 1 inch in from the edge. Fold the edge inwards to cover the cheese.

Tomato Sauce

• 1 tin of tomatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tsp mixed herbs
• pinch of chilli flakes
• pinch of salt

Put everything in a food processor or liquidizer and puree. Pour into a pan and simmer gently for about 1 hour until the mixture has cocentrated down to a thick paste. You may need to stir occasionally to make sure it cooks down evenly and doesn't stick or burn. Leave to cool slightly before spreading on the the base.

Toppings

The range of suitable toppings is almost infinite but we tend to stick to either chicken/turkey based, seafood based or vegetable based. We sometimes do combinations such as a paella style topping, with saffron and paprika in the tomato sauce and a mixure of chicken and seafood on top.

Most of our pizza toppings include capers and anchovies along with the obligatory cheese. For the cheese we either use proper mozarella, sometimes grated cheddar or even feta. The seafood pizzas often include tinned tuna, baby clams, crabmeat and sometimes king prawns. Vegetable toppings include sliced onion and peppers or sometimes to cheat, a scattering of a frozen 'roast veg' mixture which includes peppers, courgettes and aubergines.

When everything is on the base, bake in a pre-heated oven (gas mark 6) for about 15 minutes.

This is the perfect time of the year to be cooking with pumpkins - most of the unsold ones left over from Halloween should be available cheap in the shops.

• Pumpkin Mash
  Very simple to make - 2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced. A quarter of a small pumpkin, peel, remove the seeds and dice the flesh. Boil the potato and pumpkin in salted water until soft, then mash together.
• Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
  Scoop the seeds out of the pumpkin, wash and dry them. Toss them in oil with salt, paprika and a little chilli. Spread onto a tray and bake in the oven (gas mark 6 for around half an hour). Leave to cool then eat.
• Roasted Pumpkin
  Diced pumpkin can be added to roast vegetables to add variety of texture and flavour.
• Soup
  Add pumpkin to a vegetable soup.

600g of dried apricots.
500g pears.
1kg sugar.
1 small tin of white grape concentrate.
Wash the fruit in a dilute sodium metabisulphite solution, then chop and put into a large pan. Add the sugar, cover with water and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat and leave to cool.
Pour into a sterilized fermentation bin. Add 1tsp of pectin enzyme, 1tsp of yeast nutrient and the yeast. Leave for a few days, occasionally mashing the fruit to get more juice out. Strain into a demijohn, add the grape concentrate and top up to 1 gallon with water. Fit the airlock.

When the fermentation has stopped (or the wine has reached the desirable sweetness), add some wine stabiliser. The wine will need to be clarified either by adding finings or syphoning into a 2nd demijohn and leaving to settle. Or both if the wine is quite cloudy.

Based on a recipe in the Mail on Sunday 'You' magazine.
To make the base:

• 170g/6oz butter
• 75g/2½oz sugar
• 100g/3½oz ground almonds
• 150g/5oz plain flour

Use a food processor to mix everything together until it all sticks together into one lump. Put into a well buttered baking tray (approx 6x6 inches) and press flat. Put into the fridge to chill for around 1 hour. Prick the base all over with a fork and bake for ¾ hour on gas mark 3 (around 150°C). Leave to cool while you prepare the topping.

To make the topping:

• 200g bar of plain chocolate
• 200ml double cream
• 100g macadamia nuts

Break the chocolate into chunks and slowly melt over a pan of boiling water. Beat in the cream until well mixed. Pour the topping over the base and generously scatter the macadamia nuts, pressing them gently into the chocolate (you don't want them to fall off when you eat it). Cover and put in the fridge for a couple of hours before cutting into very small fingers (at least 12-15 servings). Warning: this is loaded with calories. Depending on the cream and chocolate, up to 300 calories per serving!

1lb minced turkey
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
4 slices bread
1 egg (beaten)
seasoning (salt, pepper, herbs etc.)

Use a food processor to make breadcrumbs from the 4 slices. Add to the mince. Finely chop the onion and garlic (prefereably using food processor again). Mix everything together, adding the desired seasoning. Jamaican Jerk seasoning works very well.

Shape the mixture into small patties and fry gently for about 5 minutes each side.

Makes two individual pies.

For the filling:
Finely dice two small onions and a clove of garlic and gently fry in a little olive oil. When the onions are soft, add a knob of butter. When that has melted add two tablespoons of plain flour and mix well to form a paste. Add some light chicken stock and stir to form a thick sauce. For extra flavour add a dash of thai fish sauce and a tablespoon each of chopped parsley and chopped capers.
Into two pie dishes add a layer of the sauce and then add layers of prawns, flaked salmon, adding a sprinking of peas as well.

For the pastry:
We used some ready rolled puff pastry to cover the pie dishes, and brushed the top with milk.

To cook - around 20 minutes in the oven at gas mark 6.

This is a recipe my Dad emailed me a few years ago which I found again recently while I was sorting out some old emails. It takes a bit of work to make but it's worth it:

The recipe makes 300 g of the marmalade
1 kg peeled red onions
100ml olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
1/2tsp black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs rosemary
150g caster or soft brown sugar - we used the latter
100ml dry white wine
75ml red wine vinegar

Cut onions in half and slice finely and cook in the oil for approx 5 mins or until soft.
Add salt,pepper,bay and rosemary ,cover and cook over gentle heat for approx 20 mins until wilted and soft stirring occasionally Add sugar,wine and vinegar and bring to the boil,stirring.Reduce the heat and cook uncovered for 20/30 minsuntil soft and sticky and most of liquid absorbed.need to stir fairly constantly at the end to avoid sticking.Pick out the bay and the rosemary and discard.Spoon into 2 150ml jars and leave to cool,then seal tightly.Jars should be sterilised.your mum put them in microwave 3/4 full of water and allow to boil for a while. Empty and leave to dry. Your mum dries them in a low oven on gentle heat.
Ideally the marmalade should be left for a week before use for best results but not essential. Once open can store in fridge for 3 weeks.

My Dad's email continued to say that it works really well with cheese on toast.

Berry Wine

This used the berries we collected in the autumn, along with some plums to increase the fruit level to around 3½ pounds.

• 2½ pounds elderberries
• ½ pound blackberries
• ½ pound plums

The fruit was washed in a metabisulphite solution before being boiled in a pan with 4 pints of water and 1kg of sugar. The mixture was poured into a fermenting bin to stand for a few days. 1 teaspoon each of pectin enzyme, yeast nutrient and brewing yeast were added. The fruit mixture was then sieved into a demijohn, a tin of grape concentrate and water was added to take it to 1 gallon.
After a few weeks a thick sediment had formed so the liquid was syphoned into a clean demijohn and the volume was topped up with water - actually 200g sugar dissolved in water because the mixture was tasting too 'dry'.
A month later and fermentation had stopped. The wine was tasted and seemed ready for bottling. Wine stabiliser was added. After leaving to settle for a few more days, the wine was decanted into clean sterilised bottles. It's supposed to have several months to mature but I think I'll try a bottle over Christmas.

Jam Wine

This was more of an experiment. I used 3 jars of jam to provide the sugar and fruit content (plum, blackcurrant and strawberry jams), and added 2 teaspoons of pectin enzyme. No extra sugar was added and I used bakers yeast instead of brewers yeast to stop the alcohol content getting too high. Unfortunately I only got 4½ bottles out of it because so much sediment formed in the demijohn.

We seemed to have built up a supply of fresh fruit which was getting a bit ripe, and quite a lot of tins of fruit. It seemed natural to make a fruit smoothie for breakfast:

• 1 Tin of mandarin segments (drained)
• 1 tin of grapefruit (drained)
• 1 large nectarine
• ¼ melon, seeds removed and chopped
• A splash of fruit juice to help it all liquidize

I threw everything into the liquidizer and turned it on. I retained the syrup from the tins, and added some of that, along with some fruit juice, until it reached the right consistency to drink.

We made this curry sauce earlier in the week and liked it so much we decided to make it again. It's very simple but increadibly tasty.

• Chop one onion and fry gently in a tablespoon of oil
• Add one teaspoon of chopped chillies and two teaspoons of chopped or grated ginger
• Fry for a few more minutes before adding a teaspoon each of turmeric and mild curry powder
• Stir to mix everything together before adding 2 tablespoons of tomato puree and 4 tablespoons of water
• Mix well then take off the heat
• Add 1 tablespoon of oil, 1 teaspoon of garam masala, ¼ teaspoon of chilli powder and 8 tablespoons of yoghurt
• Mix well, then add 50g of creamed coconut.
• Return to the heat and stir until mixed thoroughly.

As soon as the sauce has started bubbling, it is ready to serve. Pour over chicken or anything you like really.

Also known as Baba Ghanoush. There are lots of different recipes for this, but the one here is based on one I saw on television years ago. I had another go at making it again at the weekend and the results were quite good.

Ingredients:

• Aubergine
• Garlic (entire bulb)
• Seasoning (eg. salt/pepper/chilli powder)
• Tahini or sesame paste/oil (optional)

Prick the aubergine with a fork and roast in a medium oven (gas mark 6) for around 45 minutes. About half way through, put the garlic in to roast as well.
Let the aubergine cool. Cut in half and scoop out the flesh - it should have gone very soft. Squeeze the garlic out of each clove and add to the aubergine 'mush'. Mix the two together, adding any seasoning and sesame.

To serve: spread on toast or naan bread. Grill until nice and hot.