STICKY TOFFEE PUDDINGS

Ever since the days started getting colder and darker (boo!), I've been craving warming, comforting foods. I'm loving roast dinners at the moment, especially since the girls have finally decided that they quite like them too. Isn't it a great feeling when kids suddenly decide - after months or even years of shunning a certain food or meal - that they DO like it after all? Of course, they might change their notoriously fickle minds again next week so I'll make the most of this while I can!

As far as I'm concerned, a roast dinner simply must be followed by a decadent pud, and you can't get much more decadent than a classic sticky toffee pudding. My version is made using individual basins and it is steamed to make the most deliciously moist, self-saucing puddings. And with Christmas Day being just four weeks away tomorrow (sorry to remind those of you who are still in denial), these mini puddings would make a great prepare-ahead alternative to the traditional Christmas pudding if, like me, you're not a fan.

Before I had kids to cater for, making cakes and desserts was my absolute favourite kind of cooking but, with less free time and more focus on healthy family meals, I've found myself doing less baking in recent years. I'd actually forgotten how easy this recipe is - sure, there are a few stages involved but none of them is especially difficult.  It's a great recipe to try when you have a little time to potter around in the kitchen.

I love the fact these desserts are portion-controlled (a single pudding will easily feed two children or one hungry grown-up) and any leftover puds can be whacked in the freezer for another day. Call me boring, but feeding my freezer makes me very happy!

Sticky Toffee Puddings

Makes 6

150ml boiling water

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

125g dates, chopped

175g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

40g cold unsalted butter

125g caster sugar

1 large egg, beaten

Toffee sauce

140g dark muscovado sugar

85g unsalted butter

4 tbsp (60ml) double cream

vanilla ice cream, custard or cream, to serve

To make the toffee sauce, put the muscovado sugar, butter and cream into a small saucepan over a low-medium heat. Stir until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved, then gently bring to the boil. Divide the sauce equally between six 150-ml non-metallic pudding basins and transfer to the fridge for at least 1 hour. The sauce needs to set a little before you add the sponge mixture on top.

Meanwhile, pour the boiling water into a heatproof measuring jug and add the bicarbonate of soda. Add the dates and give a good stir, then leave to soak for 1 hour.

To make the sponge, sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixture bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles dry breadcrumbs, then stir in the caster sugar. Drain the excess water from the dates (reserving the liquid), then gently stir the soaked dates and beaten egg into the flour mixture to form a dropping consistency (adding more of the reserved liquid if needed).

Remove the pudding basins from the fridge and divide the sponge mixture equally between them. Cover each basin with a square of aluminium foil, pleating it in the middle to allow for rising. Place in an electric steamer and steam for 40-45 minutes, until the sponge springs back when pressed.  

Tip out the individual puddings onto a plate, scraping any remaining sauce out the basins with a small spatula. Serve with vanilla ice cream (our favourite), custard or cream.

Tips

• This is a great make-ahead recipe - make a few days ahead, then give each pudding (still in its basin) a 45-second to 1-minute (depending on wattage) blast in the microwave just before serving. Remember that heating more than one pudding at a time will take longer.
• Any leftover puddings should be frozen as soon as possible (still in their basins). They can be reheated from frozen - 1-1½ minutes in the microwave should do it, but make sure they're piping hot all the way through before serving.

MIXED BEAN CHILLI

Here's a little something for meat-free Monday! Even though we're a family of omnivores, I think it's important to incorporate meat-free food into our weekly menu, so I usually try to make at least one vegetarian dinner a week, and our lunches are often meatless. Actually, come to think of it, this particular recipe would be suitable for a vegan diet too, if you omit the yogurt accompaniment or swap it for a dairy-free alternative.

Sadly (although predictably), this chilli turned out to be a bit on the spicy side for my kids (and a bit on the vegetarian side for my husband, a confirmed meat-eater) but it freezes well so a batch lasts me a while. I like to eat it for lunch as a filling for a baked potato or, if I'm feeling slightly less virtuous, I'll serve with tortilla chips and a good dollop of cooling natural yogurt.

The vegetables and beans in this tasty chilli all count towards your five-a-day (although apparently beans only count as one portion a day, no matter how many you eat) so I reckon you'd be well on your way to this target if you ate this for lunch or dinner.

Mixed Bean Chilli (vegetarian/vegan)

Serves 4

½ tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tsp each ground cumin and paprika
1 tsp mild chilli powder
1 each red, yellow and red pepper, deseeded and diced (360g total prepared weight)
400-g can chopped tomatoes
400-g can mixed beans in mild chilli sauce
400-g can red kidney beans in water, drained and rinsed
200-g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a low-medium heat and cook the onion for 8-10 minutes, or until softened. Add the garlic and red chilli and cook for a further minute.

Add the cumin, paprika and chilli powder and mix until the onion is coated in the spices. Increase the heat to medium-high, then stir in the peppers, tomatoes, beans, chickpeas and tomato purée.

Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, until thick and reduced. Stir in the coriander just before serving.

BROCCOLI & STILTON SOUP

January is definitely a soup kind of month - there's something immensely comforting about eating a steaming hot bowl of soup when the weather is as chilly as it has been lately. It's also a great portable lunch - I often used to pack up a thermos of soup when I worked in an office. I admit that this recipe is not all that dissimilar to the Cauliflower Cheese Soup I posted a while back (link here) but I hope you'll forgive me because the end result tastes quite different. Although the cheese (and butter) in it might not be so great for the waistline, this soup does at least deliver one of your five-a-day. It's also s(o)uper tasty!

If I'm perfectly honest, my main reason for making this soup was to use up the last of our Christmas cheeseboard. We had a really nice selection of British cheeses this year - creamy Somerset Brie, crumbly Wensleydale with cranberries, tangy vintage Cheddar and strong blue Stilton. I do love a good cheeseboard, but I'm not someone who regularly eats cheese on its own so most of the leftovers were used up in cooking. I just love how oozy and gooey cheese goes when it's melted - yum! There are loads of tasty ways to use Stilton in cooking - my favourites are to add nuggets of it to macaroni cheese and to crumble it over a mushroom or squash risotto.

Broccoli & Stilton soup

Serves 3-4

10g butter
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
150g (peeled weight) potato, peeled and cut into 1-cm cubes
225g broccoli, separated into florets
750ml vegetable stock (I used Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder)
100g Stilton (or other blue cheese), cubed
freshly grated black pepper and nutmeg, to season

Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a low–medium heat. Add the onion to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes, until softened. Stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the potato, increase the heat a little and cook for 5 minutes.

Put the broccoli into the pan and pour over the stock - don't worry if the stock doesn't quite cover the broccoli. Bring to the boil, then partially cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the broccoli is very tender.

Season to taste with plenty of black pepper and nutmeg. Remove the pan from the heat and, using a hand-held stick blender, process the soup in the pan until smooth (or leave the soup a little chunky if you prefer).

Add the Stilton to the soup, return the pan to a low heat and stir until melted. Transfer to bowls and serve.

Tips

• Skip the butter if you're counting the calories - it's there for the flavour but the soup will taste perfectly fine without it.
• I use the broccoli stalk as well as the florets - just remember to peel off and discard the thick outer skin before slicing.
• A stick blender makes the job of blending soup incredibly easy but you can, of course, use a blender or food processor instead. Just allow the soup to cool down a little before processing and work in batches if necessary.
• I like my soup thick, but feel free to add extra stock (or even a little milk) if you prefer a thinner consistency.

CLASSIC MINCEMEAT

Mince pies are a Christmas staple here in the UK. For anyone who's not familiar with this delicacy, they are individual sweet pies containing a mixture of dried fruits, sugar and spice called mincemeat, which despite its name doesn't contain any meat (unless you count the suet, although these days many British cooks use vegetable suet rather than the traditional beef suet). Over here, we can buy ready-made mincemeat in pretty much all supermarkets (well, at least we can around Christmas-time) but honestly it's so simple to make at home that I'm surprised that more people don't. Mincemeat can be made a good few weeks before you intend to use it; in fact, it should be made in advance to allow the flavours to mingle and mature. So apologies for my tardy posting of this recipe - it's admittedly somewhat late for Christmas 2016!

In our household, we leave out mince pies and real ale for Santa, and a carrot for Rudolph. Today, my 5-year-old insisted that we picked the biggest carrot we had so that the other reindeer could have a bite too!

If you plan to keep the mincemeat for a while before using it, it's important to sterilise the jars. I find that the easiest way to do this is to wash them in hot, soapy water, then rinse well, place on a baking tray and transfer to an oven preheated to 140°C for at least 20 minutes. Leave to cool down a little before adding the mincemeat because (1) you don't want the glass to shatter when adding the cold mincemeat to a hot jar, and (2) this will prevent the suet from melting.

I like to use a recipe for a sweetened orange-flavoured pastry that I found in Good Food magazine a few years ago when making my mince pies. I use a round fluted cutter for the bases and top with pastry stars.

Classic Mincemeat

Makes 3 x 450g-jars

150g each sultanas, raisins and currants

70g chopped mixed peel

120g peeled and grated Bramley (baking) apple

juice and grated zest of 1 large orange

juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

150g dark muscovado sugar

½ tsp ground mixed spice

½ tsp ground cinnamon

50ml brandy

70g vegetarian suet

Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and give them a good stir (yes, that's it!) Cover and leave to soak in the bowl overnight before transferring to sterilised jars. I give the jars a shake every couple of days as the liquid tends to sink to the bottom. The mincemeat should be fine to keep in a cool, dark place for a few months but store the jar in the fridge once opened.

CLASSIC FISH CAKES

We all know that fish is good for us, but any parent will tell you that such a logical argument is unlikely to induce a picky child to eat it! These fish cakes are a great way to introduce fish to reluctant fish eaters. They are admittedly a bit of a faff to make but their saving grace is that they can be prepared ahead of time. Conveniently combining fish and potatoes, they are also freezable and are therefore perfect to have at hand for a quick and easy supper.

I generally use cod in this recipe but you could use any white fish. In a bid to persuade my daughter to eat oily fish, I've tried making these fish cakes with half cod and half salmon and I think that combination is pretty tasty. (My daughter rumbled me but still ate a fair amount so I am undeterred!) Of course, some kids will object to 'the bits' (parsley) but you could simply leave that out.

Classic fish cakes

Makes 12 fish cakes
1 lemon
500g skinless, boneless cod fillets
500g potatoes (peeled weight), cut into large chunks
2 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (optional)
40g plain flour
2 eggs, beaten
85g dried natural breadcrumbs or panko
3 tbsp vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

Finely grate the rind of the lemon and set aside. Place the cod fillets in a large ceramic baking dish and squeeze over the juice from the lemon. Cover the baking dish with foil, transfer to the preheated oven and bake for 15–20 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through and flakes easily. Allow to cool slightly, then flake the fish into a large mixing bowl, keeping the chunks nice and big.

Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in a saucepan of lightly salted boiling water for 20 minutes, or until tender. Drain and mash thoroughly (this is the one occasion I dust down my potato rice), then add to the fish in the mixing bowl.

Add the reserved grated lemon rind, the parsley and freshly grated pepper to taste. Stir gently to combine the ingredients; do not mix too vigorously because you don't want to break down the fish chunks. Cover the bowl and transfer to the fridge to chill before you shape it into fish cakes - 15 minutes will do but you can leave it longer (even overnight) if you prefer.

When you're ready to shape the fish cakes, place the flour, eggs and breadcrumbs into separate shallow dishes. Line a large baking tray with a baking paper.

Remove the fish mixture from the fridge and divide into 12 equal portions. I do this by packing a 1/3-cup measuring cup with the mixture (don't worry - it easily pops out again when held upside down and given a sharp tap on the base). Form each portion into a patty shape (approximately 2.5 cm thick) and roll it in the flour, then place it on the prepared baking tray. Finally, roll each patty first in the egg and then in the breadcrumbs to cover it completely and return to the baking tray. At this stage, it is a good idea to chill the fish cakes for at least 10 minutes because this will help them keep their shape when cooking.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over a medium heat in a large frying pan. Add half the fishcakes and fry on one side for 3–4 minutes, or until sealed and golden brown. Flip over the fish cakes and cook for a further 3–4 minutes on the other side. Finally, turn the fishcakes on their sides to brown the edges, giving them a 60 degree turn every minute or so and continuing until browned all the way around. Keep the fish cakes warm in a low oven whilst you fry the rest using the remaining tablespoon of oil.

Serve the fishcakes with vegetables and a dipping sauce of your choice.

Tips

• I've tried making these using fish from the freezer aisle in the supermarket but it was an abject failure - they were too watery and it resulted in a mixture that was a sticky mess! Therefore, I'd advise saving the frozen fish for fish pie or curry and using fresh fish for these fish cakes.
• I'm a big fan of panko (Japanese-style breadcrumbs) for a crunchy topping on things like pasta bakes but prefer the finer texture of traditional dried breadcrumbs for fish cakes. Either will work fine though. 
• Breadcrumbing (or panéing) can generate a lot of mess. I tend to coat all the fish cakes in the flour first, then one by one roll them in the egg and breadcrumbs, using one hand for the egg and the other for the breadcrumbs. It saves me from breadcrumbing my fingers!
• If you want to freeze the fish cakes, do so before frying them. Open-freeze on the baking tray, then wrap individually in clingfilm and pack into a freezerproof container. Defrost fully before frying.
• This recipe yields 12 equal-sized fish cakes but you may prefer to make smaller fish cakes for the kids and/or larger ones for adults. If so, bear in mind that you will need to adjust the quantities of flour and breadcrumbs accordingly.

CLASSIC MACARONI CHEESE

Macaroni cheese is a staple meal in our household. My eldest daughter ranks it as her joint #1 meal (along with fish and chips) and my husband is a massive fan too since it was his favourite dinner as a child. Therefore, I thought it was about time that I shared my recipe for a classic macaroni cheese. I've called it 'classic' because it is a fairly basic version that could easily be adapted to include other ingredients. I like to mix in cauliflower and broccoli florets, and my family enjoys it with sweetcorn and ham. To be honest, I don't always add the crunchy topping because the kids are often screaming (literally!) for their dinner and don't want to wait the extra five minutes it'll take to sort this out. It is a nice addition on those occasions when mealtimes aren't quite so fraught though.

I feel I should apologize for posting yet another pasta recipe but the truth is that my family eats a LOT of pasta. I have to make a conscious effort to limit pasta to just three dinners a week, such is my small girls' appetite for the stuff! I am yet to meet a child that doesn't like pasta (although I'm certain they must exist) but when I was growing up in the 1980s we only ever had pasta as spaghetti Bolognese and canned spaghetti in tomato sauce. I often wonder how my mother coped without this fantastic fallback ingredient, which is so cheap, easy to store, quick to cook, and versatile.

For ages, I didn't think I could make cheese sauce – I remember using cheese sauce granules that you mixed with boiling water when I was a student. It was pretty artificial-tasting! I finally got the hang of making cheese sauce when I was cooking baby purées for my oldest child – she developed a taste for a particular purée that was made from cheese sauce mixed with mashed cod and vegetables, which I ended up making countless times. I discovered that warming up the milk before adding it to the butter and flour mixture made the process a lot easier, not to mention quicker, and I've never looked back!

Classic macaroni cheese

Serves 2 adults and 2 children (generously)
300g dried macaroni

Cheese sauce
30g butter
30g plain flour
300ml full-fat milk
good pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
90g vegetarian extra-mature Cheddar cheese, grated

Crunchy topping
20g natural dried breadcrumbs (I like to use panko)
30g vegetarian extra-mature Cheddar cheese, grated

Bring a medium-sized saucepan of water to the boil. Add the macaroni, bring back to the boil and simmer for 10–12 minutes (I find that macaroni takes longer to cook than other pasta shapes), until tender but firm to the bite.

Make the cheese sauce while the macaroni is cooking. Put the butter in a small saucepan and melt over a low–medium heat. Pour the milk into a jug and microwave for 2 minutes to warm through. Once the butter is bubbling, add the flour, stir to make a paste and allow to bubble for 1 minute. Start adding the warmed milk to the butter and flour mixture, a little at a time, stirring vigorously until each addition has been incorporated. To start with, the mixture will form into a lump but just keep stirring frequently and once you've added enough milk it will transform into a smooth sauce. When you have added all the milk, increase the heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring frequently, for a further 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and add the nutmeg and cheese, then stir until the cheese has melted and the sauce is smooth.

Meanwhile, preheat the grill to medium.

Drain the macaroni and tip it into the saucepan containing the cheese sauce. Stir until the pasta is thoroughly coated in the sauce. Transfer to a 1.5-litre baking dish.

Mix together the breadcrumbs and the remaining cheese, then scatter over the macaroni and cheese sauce. Place under the preheated grill and cook for 5 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown. Serve with freshly cooked vegetables (frozen sweetcorn and peas are our favourites) on the side.