Ingredients:

• ½ cup fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon packed lime zest
• ⅓ cup fresh lime juice (from about 3 limes)
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 garlic cloves, grated or minced
• 1 large jalapeño, seeds and veins removed if desired, minced

Unreal on steak, seared and sliced thinly on a rice bowl, with spring onion and fresh herbs

Ingredients:

• 1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• Thyme and parsley
• 2 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (from 1 large lemon)
• cherry or grape tomatoes
• Onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Red chilli flakes
• Can of chickpeas or cannellini beans
• Vegetable stock

Method:

Slice the tomatoes, salt and oil them and put them in the oven to roast for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a pot, heat some oil and add the onion, garlic, and red chilli flakes. Cook until the onion is soft, along with other veggies you want, like courgette or pepper.

Add roasted tomatoes, chickpeas, and stock just to cover. Reserve some of the beans, and smash them before adding to the stew, to thicken it.

Add lemon zest and herbs, and simmer until the veggies are done. Add croutons, sour cream, or any other additions you'd like.

Any white fish is fab in this recipe. Low work, high return on effort.

Ingredients:

• 4 white fish fillets
• olive oil
• 1/2 cup pitted green olives, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon capers
• 1 inch piece ginger, grated
• half a lemon, sliced
• red pepper flakes
• salt, pepper, and a handful of chopped parsely or other soft herbs

Method:

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, leaving plenty of overhang. Heat the oven to 200C

Add everything to the sheet with plenty of olive oil, and mix everything well. Spoon the mix on top of the fish, and top with the lemon slices.

Fold the parchment paper over to seal and bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fillets

No amounts here, so just add as much food as you want to eat! One pot (excluding potential rice) and comes together in like half an hour max.

Ingredients:

• Salmon, in bite sized cubes
• Spinach or other greens
• Any other veggies you like - i go for e.g. aubergine, courgette, cherry tomatoes, peas
• Diced onion
• Grated ginger (plenty)
• Sliced garlic cloves
• Coconut milk
• 1 big teaspoon miso, more to taste
• lime wedge & cilantro to finish

Method:

In a saucepan, dry off the onion, garlic, and any veggies that take longer to cook. Add miso and ginger, and cook for another minute or two.

Add coconut milk, add salmon to the pot and if needed, top with water to almost cover everything.

Allow salmon to poach/steam for 5 minutes, and gently stir in your greens to wilt. Top with a squeese of lime and the chopped herbs, and serve with rice.

Colu Henry from NYTCooking I owe you my life. Ate these everyday for like, an entire year. So good.

Ingredients:

• 1 part harissa
• 1 part honey
• 1/2 part lime juice
• Chopped mint
• Green beans, trimmed
• Cherry tomatoes, halved

Method:

Mix the harissa, honey, and lime. Season to taste.

Pan fry the green beans until they're almost done but still have some bite.

Add the tomatoes, and fry for a minute or two.

Add the sauce in, and let it bubble a little and coat the vegetables before serving. This is also great finished with some crumbed feta

Every year I scramble to find my recipes, which every year get written on a loose piece of paper and immediately lost. No more! At least I'll have them here!

Turkey Glaze

Ingredients:

• Small handful of hardy herbs (such as sage, rosemary, bay leaves, and/or thyme)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• strips orange zest
• ⅓ cup low-sodium soy sauce
• ⅓ cup (packed) light brown sugar
• ⅓ cup sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
• 6 Tbsp. vegetable oil

Method:

Cook herbs, garlic, orange zest, soy sauce, brown sugar, and vinegar in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved and glaze thickens slightly (it should just barely coat a spoon), 10–12 minutes. Remove glaze from heat.

Brush the turkey with glaze every ~20 minutes and adding more water when needed to keep some liquid in the bottom of the baking sheet, to avoid the glaze burning

Ridiculous Gravy

Yes it takes like, 2 days! But it is the best gravy you've had in your life. I do the roasting on one day and the gravy-ing the next, preferably in advance but realistically on Christmas Day. A more organised person could do it in one day.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 lb. chicken wings/flats/drumettes
• 2 heads of garlic, cut in half crosswise
• 1 large white onion, some red onions. Unpeeled, cut into halves/quarters
• 2 sticks celery
• 4" piece ginger, scrubbed, thickly sliced
• 4 oz. crimini, shiitake, or white button mushrooms, torn into large pieces
• 2 tsp. black peppercorns, lightly crushed
• 6 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup sherry
• Handful of parsley, sage, rosemary, whatever you have
• 6 cups turkey or chicken broth (low salt/homemade), or just water and some bouillon
• 2 tsp. sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp. MSG

Method:

Roast off the chicken wings in a hot oven. Tossing halfway through, until golden brown and starting to crisp, about 25 minutes.

Add garlic, celery, onions, ginger, mushrooms, peppercorns, along with some extra oil and roast for another 30-40 min, tossing occassionally until theyre good and roasty

Make beurre manié by mashing together equal parts flour and butter to make a paste, and set aside for now at ROOM TEMP.

Dump all roasted things into a big pot. If there is something to deglaze on the roasting tin, pour in sherry (and a little water if needed) and set it over a low heat on the stove, to scrape it up. Add to stock pot.

Add stock and herbs to the pot, and simmer for 40 minutes or until it's tasty.

Fish out the wings and strain - do not skip this step! Add gravy back to the pot

Take some beurre manié into a small bowl and add a little gravy until you get something soupy, then add this to the pot. Add beurre manié little by little this way, whisking constantly. Allow to simmer ~10 minutes, until the gravy is thick and doesn't taste like raw flour. You might not need all the b.m., depending on how thick you like it. You can also add it directly to the gravy if you want, but the pre-thinning step makes avoiding clumps a lot easier imo.

From here you can cool and store until the big day

Before serving, add in vinegar and MSG, and adjust salt/pepper to taste.

Nut Roast

My sister-in-law is vegetarian, and so this is what we make for her! My ex introduced this recipe to my family and every year I asked him to write down the recipe and he never did because he was basically riffing every year!! Anyway, I know it was based on a Jamie Oliver one, so this is my best recollection and I will update if/when I get an actual recipe from him..!

Ingredients:

• 200g roasted butternut squash
• 1/2 onion, diced
• half stick of celery, diced
• 70g roasted chestnuts
• 5 mushrooms, diced
• decent handful of breadcumbs
• 50g dried apricots
• 50g mixed unsalted nuts
• 1 egg
• cheddar cheese
• rosemary, paprika, oregano, garlic powder, whatever else you want!

Method:

Dice onion and celery, and sauté along with diced mushrooms just to develop some colour.

Chop the nuts, chestnuts, apricots into small pieces.

Chop the roast butternut squash, and combine with the breadcrumbs and chopped ingredients.

Add your seasonings, salt & pep, and taste to see if you want or less or something.

Add your egg and combine. These amounts are guesses, so if you mix seems a bit unbalanced then add more of something!

Put the mix into a bread tin lined with parchment and bake for 25-20 minutes at 180°C

Ingredients:

• 1¼ cups/150 grams whole-wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (from about 2 large bananas)
• ½ cup/120 milliliters plain whole-milk yogurt
• 1 large egg
• ½ cup/110 grams packed light brown sugar
• ¼ cup/60 milliliters neutral oil, such as grapeseed or canola
• ¼ cup/60 milliliters honey
• Add-ins like chopped nuts, dried fruit, ect.

Method:

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk the bananas, yogurt, egg, brown sugar, oil and honey until just smooth.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, add mix-ins if you want, and gently stir until no streaks of flour remain. Divide the batter evenly among the muffins cups. Sprinkle on toppings like chocolate chips, candied orange peel, or chopped nuts and seeds.

Bake for 20 to 23 minutes at 180C.

Ingredients:

• 480ml milk
• 3 eggs
• 100g sugar
• 130g all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 60g crystallised ginger, finely chopped
• 300g+ fresh or frozen blueberries
• pinch of salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C, and generously butter a deep baking dish

Whisk together the milk, eggs, sugar, flour, lemon zest and salt until combined and the sugar is dissolved.

Pour about half the batter in and bake for 15 minutes

Add the rest of the batter, along with the blueberries and chopped ginger. Doing this in two steps helps prevent the berries sinking, but you can skip if you don't mind that.

Bake for another hour, until golden brown and slighly jiggly in the center, and when an inserted knife comes out clean

Allow to cool slightly and dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Have not tried this yet, but it sounds phenomenal. Also apparently this makes THREE pies which. I guess everything is bigger in America afterall

Ingredients:

• 2½ cups sugar
• 15oz can pumpkin puree
• 2 eggs
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 2½ cups milk
• 4 TBSP butter (melted)
• 1 orange
• 1 tsp powdered sugar
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 TBSP powdered sugar
• 1 tsp cardamom
• pinch nutmeg

Pumpkin pie Method:

preheat the oven to 325°F

prepare the pie crust (that's another recipe's job—either find a scratch recipe or buy a pre-made dough or graham cracker crust)

blend 2 ½ cups sugar, pumpkin puree, eggs, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl (if using a mixer, blend with a paddle attachment)

add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt; blend until well mixed

add the milk and melted butter, whisk until well mixed (if using a mixer, blend with the whisk attachment)

pour your batter into the crust, filling right up to the edge (the mix will be more liquid than solid, but it will rise/solidify in the oven)

bake at 325°F for 55 minutes

remove from the oven and let it cool, top with sifted powdered sugar

zest an orange over the top of the pie (microplane if possible but regular zester is fine; have found that the most aesthetically pleasing version is to peel the orange and then finely dice the peel but that's a hassle!)

whipped cream method:

put your metal mixing bowl and whisk in the freezer for at least 15 minutes

whisk powdered sugar, cardamom, and nutmeg together in bowl

add heavy cream; whisk until stiff peaks start forming

serve on a cooled pie :)

My friend Karen made these muffins as part of her Home Economics exam when we were about 15, so I ate a lot of these that year. They were always soo good, and I recently found a scrap of paper that she had written the ingredients on for me. The original recipes is lost to time (as is the friendship, sadly), but these muffins hold sweet memories for me so I want to save this so I can make them again!

Ingredients:

• 375g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tbspn bicarb of soda
• 2 tblspn poppy seeds
• 140g unsalted butter
• 200g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 lemon
• 350ml plain yogurt
• 120g icing sugar

Method:

Unfortunately the scrap of paper this was on didn't include instructions.. But I suppose cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs, then mix wet with wet, dry with dry, and then wet into dry. You probably want the zest and juice of one lemon. Bake at 180C for.. 15-20 minutes, depending on muffin size? Check with a knife and if they're not done, go longer. These are quite moist muffins because of the yogurt, so overbaking shouldn't be too disasterous. The icing sugar is for mixing with lemon juice to make a glaze in the end, rather than being put into the muffins.

The first time I made this was for Christmas at my then-boyfriend's house, and when we arrived back at my house three days later we immediately made it again for my family.
It's outrageously easy, it's incredible, it's not too sweet (though, obviously, very sweet), and feels luxurious without sending you for a nap afterwards. You honestly don't even need the extra sauce, though of course it makes it better. Plus it's perfect to make ahead and warmed up in the oven or microwave. It's so good, go make it.

6-8 servings

Pudding Ingredients:

• 1 cup (150-200g) pitted dates
• 1 cup boiling water
• 45g cold butter, cubed
• 70g demerera (/light brown sugar)
• 70g dark brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 100g all purpose flour (or use self-raising, and omit the baking soda)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sticky Toffee Ingredients:

• 70g butter
• 300ml cream
• 6 tablespoon (80g) dark brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

Method:

Put the dates in a bowl and cover with the 1 cup boiling water to soften, at least 5 minutes. Heat the oven to 180°C and grease a deep 9-by-13-inch baking dish

Combine all the other pudding ingredients in a food processor, and pulse until combined. Add the dates and half of the soaking liquid (~120ml) and pulse until nearly totally smooth.

Pour into the prepared baking dish and bake for 30 minutes, until it's just firm to the touch.

Meanwhile, make the topping: Melt the butter in a small saucepan, and slowly add the cream, sugar, and salt. Whisk continuously until the mix bubbles gently and thickens just slightly.

Once the pudding is out of the oven, serve while still warm and pour the sauce over it. Extremely good with just a little bit of vanilla ice cream, too.

I LOVE salty lemonade. I drank about seven gallons of this when I first tried it

Muddle lemons in a glass with a healthy pinch of salt. Top with sparkling water, add sugar or honey if you want to, and ditto with giner or mint. My ultimate fave way though, is adding ginger ale/ginger beer. Salty, sweet, punchy, delicious!! Can also make with preserved lemons, which are salty all by themselves.