< Kitchen

Chicken Stock
Pancakes
Cranachan
Hedgehog Cake
Speculaas Biscuits
Austrian Apple Cake
Plum Squares
Apple and Sausage Loaf
Orange and Walnut Loaf
Pumpkin Pie
Beef and Guinness Casserole
Roasted Pumpkin Soup
Soda Bread
Pumpkin and Orange Muffins
Quince Vodka
Mash O’ Nine Sorts
Pork Sausages with Beans
Posh Polenta Pancakes
Basic Muffins
Dainty Toasties
Awesome American Pancakes
Orange and Rhubarb Crumble

Winter Warmers

Food to warm you right down to your toes.

Chicken Stock
Boiling up a stock from chicken bones makes a base for stunning soups, risottos and dishes like spaghetti bolognaise. Divide the liquid into 500ml bags and freeze so you've always got some stock ready to go.
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Pancakes
Thin and crispy or fat and moist, the choice is up to you when you make your own classic pancakes. You can make the mixture the night before and enjoy a very easy breakfast with the added fun of everyone tossing their own.
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Cranachan
A traditional Scottish pud often eaten at Burns Suppers. Originally it was made simply of crowdie (a kind of smooth curd cheese) and toasted oatmeal, but this recipe uses cream, oatmeal and raspberries instead.
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Hedgehog Cake
A funky cake that children can decorate themselves with fingerlicking lashings of chocolate butter icing and buttons.
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Speculaas Biscuits
These traditional Dutch biscuits – eaten during the St Nicholas celebrations in December – fill the kitchen with spicy, Christmassy smells.
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Austrian Apple Cake
This apple cake fills the kitchen with delicious yeasty smells that the kids love. Make life simple by using a bread machine for the dough.
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Plum Squares
This is such a simple dish – shortbread dough pastry with plums arranged on top – but the cooking brings out the flavour of the plums and makes for an extra tasty afternoon tea.
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Apple and Sausage Loaf
Very quick and delicious with baked potatoes and seasonal green vegetables. Makes enough for 4 to 6 people.
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Orange and Walnut Loaf
A moist loaf bursting with tangy orange flavour and with a sweet, glazed topping. Perfect for autumn tea.
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Pumpkin Pie
A spicy, sweet concoction that’s extra-delicious with a large dollop of clotted cream.
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Beef and Guinness Casserole
This rich, tasty stew is blindingly easy to make – you just leave it in the oven for three hours. A great winter warmer.
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Roasted Pumpkin Soup
This is a great way to use up the huge pile of leftover pumpkin scrapings you get when the children make pumpkin lanterns at Hallowe’en.
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Soda Bread
This is a recipe Carla made at her cookery class at school. It’s delicious and very child-friendly - a good way to introduce your children to breadmaking. Makes two small loaves.
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Pumpkin and Orange Muffins
You can make the pumpkin purée for these delicious and nutritious muffins by steaming pumpkin pieces for about 15 minutes, then blending them to a purée. Or use tinned pumpkin – though you may need to add more orange juice to get the right consistency.
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Quince Vodka
Make this in October and leave for a couple of months. It’ll give you something to crack open around Christmas that’ll warm the soul.
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Mash O’ Nine Sorts
A traditional English dish, eaten on Hallowe’en, called so because it has nine ingredients, most of them root vegetables. The original recipe calls for them to be boiled within an inch of their lives, so we’ve adapted it slightly. A ring was also hidden in the mash, which was served to unmarried members of a household – whoever finds it would be married within the year.
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Pork Sausages with Beans
An easy stove-top dish that warms the soul with its rich flavours. It's delicious served with lightly steamed broccoli and crusty bread.
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Posh Polenta Pancakes
This is the kids’ favourite Sunday morning breakfast, slathered with golden syrup or lemon juice and caster sugar. They taste lovely and light and if you cook them in a cookie cutter or egg-poaching ring they come out looking perfect.
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Basic Muffins
This is a sure-thing muffin recipe you can play around with to make your favourite muffin flavours, for example adding 75g chocolate chips, chopped nuts or dried fruit to the dry ingredients, or sprinkling the uncooked muffin mix with Demerara sugar and cinnamon before cooking to give a spicy crunch.
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Dainty Toasties
When we were growing up, sardines were always the top teatime favourite of storybook children like the Famous Five. But eating sardines straight from the tin doesn’t hold much allure... Here’s a way to make them palatable for kids today. Best eaten smothered in tomato ketchup.
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Awesome American Pancakes
American pancakes are much lighter than English ones because of the air bubbles from the baking powder. In this recipe, the bubbles tell you when to toss the pancake. Ask the kids to look out for them (about two to three minutes), then they can flip the pancake over.
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Orange and Rhubarb Crumble
This rich and oaty crumble is scrumptious topped with the sharp rawness of a dollop of creme fraiche.
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