Game stew

Now autumn feels like it's properly here.  I love summer but the first flushes of autumn with stews, pies, traditional puddings are like the coziness of coming home.  Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, at the end moving into winter, the crisp cold, maybe snow.  The older I get the more I look forward to every season and everything it brings.

The dried mushrooms in this massively add to the flavour.  Without them, it wouldn't be the same, it wouldn't have the depth of flavour so I really would give it a go.

This was going to be a game pie and it would be fabulous to make into a pie filling if you prefer.  I was just too lazy and my son liked the smell of it so he wanted to taste it straight away (it was a hit with the 6 year old too!)

Baked Sea Bream with Olives and French Beans

I love sea bream, it is a gloriously delicious fish, like Sea Bass but with thicker fillets and more flavour.  Yummy.

When I first started working, I used to go to my local fish stall in the market and chose a delicious sea bream.  If I'm honest, most of the time, I cooked it simply and served with lemon juice with coarse sea salt but trust me on this sauce; it is stunning.

Salmon with Mussel Sauce

This looks like such an expensive dish but in reality salmon and mussels are pretty cheap and it's so simple and tasty.

Slow cooked lamb shanks

Lamb shanks might not sound like the most romantic of meals but providing your other half is a meat eater there is something that feels pretty special about it.

I mean look at that?  Meltingly tender meat with lovely fresh vegetables.  That's romance on a plate that is!

Alternatively if you are on your own, this is a great special meal or Sunday Lunch option.  I cooked two shanks together and took the meat off the second one, serving with leftover gravy and vegetables heated in a microwave at work (in front of jealous stares.)

Prawns with Ginger

This recipe was inspired by the takeaway classic, Prawns with Ginger and Spring Onions.

The only thing was, I didn't have any spring onions and I wanted to increase the amount of vegetables.  This is what I made up, I hope you enjoy (I did!)

Steak with Bearnaise Sauce

The first time I had bearnaise sauce, I was an exchange student just outside Paris.  Glamorous though that sounds, the bearnaise was straight out of a bottle.  It was a few years later before I tasted the proper stuff.  For good reason, it's not commonly on a menu.  Imagine making an egg thickened sauce in a busy service kitchen.  Let's face it, even for the most experienced cook, it can go wrong.  With everyone else's food waiting, it's a massive risk...

But this is where I'm going to make the crazy suggestion, making an egg thickened sauce like hollandaise or bearnaise sauce for one makes perfect sense.  The great thing with this recipe is the steak rests while the sauce is being cooked.

So I'm sure many of you would think "no, it's not for me" but genuinely, the flavour is amazing and I've put in a few tips to make it easier to cook for one.

I had such a hard week this week so this was the ultimate "well done to me".

Tempura

I love tempura, it's not healthy, it's not good for you (all that frying) but after a morning run, what could be better for Friday?  Let's make it Fry-day this week!  This can either be a great fish dish or vegan depending on your preferences.  Both are great.

Shallot Tarte Tatin

Traditional Tarte Tatin contains apples but the combination of the caramelisation with the puff pastry is something which can apply to lots of different dishes and shallots are a lovely way of bringing this together in a savoury way.

This could be a great vegetarian (or vegan) Christmas lunch or a lovely starter.  It's a piece of cake to make and is fine (even better) served warm rather than hot.

Simple Apple Tart

This simple apple tart was inspired by my laden apple tree in my garden and a roll of puff pastry in my fridge.  I love this kind of recipe as it was an absolute doddle to make and looks and tastes like more than the sum of it's parts.

I cooked this in an oven with Sunday lunch to maximise the use of the oven space to keep things a bit more thrifty.

Fig and Goats Cheese Tart

A friend of mine kindly brought me a jar of delicious beetroot chutney to say thank you for cooking him dinner.  Sadly for him, he got what can best be described as "Mum food" and then I make this for myself instead.  Hardly fair.  Sorry mate.

Anyway, this is super quick, using ready rolled puff pastry, this is in the oven in 5 minutes and cooked in 12.  Fantastic when you've had a busy day.

Sea bass with Crayfish

Sea bass and sea bream are my absolute favourite fish.  When I first started working, nearly every Saturday I would go to the fishmonger in my local market and buy a sea bass or sea bream.  It was a wonderfully indulgent treat on my meagre salary at the time.  I would bake it and have it simply with vegetables, sometimes some salsa verde or a butter sauce but ultimately just enjoy the fish.

Nowadays, sadly I don't live near a good fishmonger and sometimes sea bass and sea bream can be hard to find in good condition but today, some lovely looking sea bass fillets caught my eye.  A pack of prepared crayfish also went into my basket and an idea was born.

I have been fantastically lucky with the green beans in my garden this year.  Despite an inauspicious start, the beautiful autumn sunshine we have been enjoying has lead to a bumper crop and the flavour has been amazing.  I had never noticed the slight hint of bitterness in a green bean until seconds of my beautifully sweet beans, devoid of bitterness were being fought over last weekend by me and my 5 year old son.  That is a good sign.  Anyway, green beans are a fantastic foil for fish fillet but you could always make it even more substantial with some slices of cooked waxy potatoes.

Cherry Ripple Ice Cream with Chocolate and Cherry Sauce

I'm sat writing this at the weekend as the sun has just gone behind a cloud.  Although the sun has been glorious, the strong wind is a taste of things to come.  Mid way through tomorrow, temperatures will have plunged along with most peoples desire for ice cream; but I will soldier on!  After all if Haagan Dazs can make a fortune from people buying ice cream all year round, I will assume people may still be eating it as the weather cools.  Just imagine in winter, warm chocolate brownies with cherry ice cream and chocolate cherry sauce... are you thinking my way yet?  Oh yes!

This was inspired by Black Forest Gateau, that 1970s creation of chocolate sponge, cream and cherries.  I have to admit I loved it when I had it as a child in the 80s and 90s and would still happily eat it now but baking a sponge cake for one feels like a bit too much effort on a lazy weekend day so I made ice cream instead.

I would suggest serving this with some extra fresh cherries if you have any, unfortunately due to bad planning I had none when I came to photograph it.  Obviously the sauce is optional but it is delicious and very easy to make.  I would suggest keeping excess sauce for later and I wanted to see if it went too thick (as it could easily serve 2) but I ate it all.  It was blooming lovely!

The amount here is a bit better sized than my mocha ice cream which, although delicious, felt like I was eating it for weeks.  You could easily double the mix though and it might be nice to make two different flavours, a conventional raspberry ripple might be nice or try my coffee and chocolate ice cream.

Goats Cheese Stuffed Chicken

This used to be an almost weekly dish in my household but due to not eating as much meat recently I've not eaten it as often but when I was thinking about alternative Sunday Lunches for one, this seemed ideal.

Having it again was a delight, I will have to make it more often!

Assiette of Tomatoes

Tomatoes are lovely at this time of year, the perfect combination of sweetness, a touch of acidity with the perfume of summer.

My home grown tomatoes are finally at their fragrant best.  Resisting the urge to just eat them as they are or with the merest drizzle of olive oil and vinegar (delicious though that is), I decided to get a bit poncy.  Sorry, but I love tomatoes so much I decided to make myself an assiette of some of the most delicious ways to eat them.

Coffee Chocolate Swirl Ice Cream

Ice cream.  Scary and difficult to make isn't it?

NO!  IT ISN'T!  I've found this brilliant new method which takes only about 10 minutes of preparation.  No ice cream maker, no constant whisking, just make the mix and freeze.

Don't believe me?  Read on.

Mixed Green Vegetable Side Dish

Green vegetables.  I love them.  This is the kind of side dish I would happily pay for in a restaurant.  You know when you order your mains and you're asked if you want a side?  You're never sure if you are being sold something with a massive profit margin or if it's something which will really complement your meal.  Well this will be something which will go fantastically with pork, fish, chicken, oh actually pretty much anything.  It is not a waste of time side dish but something lovely.  This would be great to serve up with a dish for that certain special someone, perhaps with some roasted potatoes with rosemary?

The quantities are less important than the idea.  Roughly speaking you want an even mix of each different vegetable.  Mix it up for what's seasonal.  Cabbage could be nice and would work well cooked in the buttery juices.  If I'd had some broad beans that would have been lovely.  Soy (edamame) beans even better but I think it all has to be green.

This would be on my restaurant menu.  You know, that restaurant in your head that you pretend you're young enough, energetic enough and good enough to open?  Ok, just me...

Smoked Salmon Layered Salad

A delicious summery salad for warmer days.  The radish gives a little gentle heat and is really seasonal right now.

Moules Mariniere

Moules mariniere (or my version of it anyway).  I'm not convinced traditionally that it's meant to contain cream or garlic for that matter but I don't care.  I like it with both!

Mussels can be surprisingly cheap to buy, this is less than £2 worth and, although I never have, they are so abundant on our shores, if you're sure of the water quality, you could even do a bit of foraging.

The key thing is to make sure that the mussels are live.  I will explain below.

White Chocolate and Raspberry Layer

I'm desperately trying to not call this a trifle.  I hate trifle.  Now I've offended half of my readers, I need to say why.  I love cake.  I have such a problem with loving cake.  I mean I really love it, more than my waistline does.  I am a bit of a Sherry fan, I even went on holiday to Jerez last year and fell in love with Solera.  I like fruit, I eat masses of it every day.  Custard?  Hell yes!  What's not to love?  Cream?  Give me more!  I'm a dairy friendly kind of girl.

But together...?  No I don't get it.  The fruit fights with the custard.  The cake gets lost, the excessively sweet sherry (rather than the complex deliciousness possible in the best sherries) is a thump of sugar and alcohol around the face and it's just so heavy.

So this is something a bit different.  Zingy fruit, delicious cream cheese, only 4 ingredients and 10 minutes work, if you can call it work...

Fruit Tarts

Fruit tarts are one of those ridiculously easy things to make which look far more impressive than the amount of time taken to make them.

The best idea for these is to make them when you've already made pastry for another reason to use up the scraps.  The quantities below are if you are making these for one from scratch (ok, one greedy person but they are small).