- 1 block of puff pastry.
- Enough sausage meat to feed your family.

Pre-heat your oven to 180C

Roll our the pastry into a square sheet.

Using your hands mould the sausage meat into a cylindrical shape, and place it in the middle of your pastry sheet. Wrap the sausage meat up in the pastry, and place your giant sausage roll seam-down on a baking tray. Trim off excess pastry from the ends and cut a few lines into the pastry on the top side of the roll. Brush milk over the pastry and slam in the oven for about half an hour.

- 1 block shortcrust pastry – taken from the freezer about 3 hours ago and now thoroughly de-frosted.
- 1 tin Campbell’s condensed chicken soup.
- 2 chicken fillets – diced.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C

Fry the diced chicken in a knob of melted butter.

Grease the inside of a pie dish or oven-proof plate. I use a shallow pyrex bowl which is very un-glamorous, but quite effective.

Roll out two sheets of pastry. Put one on your plate to form the bottom of the pie.

When the chicken’s cooked take it off the heat and stir in the condensed soup. Ladle this mixture into the pie and cover with the top sheet of pastry.

Trim the pastry so it’s nice and tidy round the outside of the pie, seal the edges by pressing down with the tines of a fork all the way round the rim. Cut a slit in the top of the pie and if you’re feeling creative make a few pastry leaves to decorate the top of the pie. Brush or sprinkle with milk.

Put it in the oven until the pastry’s cooked.

Lovely with roast potatoes and some veg or just some chips!

- 1 head of celery.
- 1 large carrot.
- 1 large onion.
- 1 and a half pints (900ml) vegetable stock
- 75g grated cheddar cheese
- 100g grated stilton cheese

Trim the celery (optionally leave one or two stalks aside for later). Peel and chop the carrot and onion and place in a saucepan with the stock (I just use a veggie Oxo cube) and season.

Let it come to the boil and then simmer for about an hour.

Give the soup a whirr with a blender. Reheat in the pan and add the grated cheese.

If you decided to save some celery stalks now is the time to chop them into slices. Add them to the bowls when you serve to give the soup a bit of crunch.

Lancashire Hotpot is traditionally made with lamb, but this hotpot variation calls for beef.

- Some diced stewing steak. About 500g.
- Potatoes – loads.
- One onion.
- Half a pint of red wine.
- Veggie stock cube (optional).

Preheat the oven to 170c.

Peel the spuds and cut them into chunks about the same size as the pieces of your meat.

Coarsely chop the onion.

Throw the meat, potatoes and onion into a large pot.

Pour in the wine and top up with boiling water. Add the stock cube if you want.

Put the lid on the pot and leave in the oven for three hours. I usually take it out and give it a stir once an hour, but there’s really no need to!

Serve while piping hot. You can garnish with beetroot, and it’s also really good with some biscuits of shortcrust pastry to help mop up the juice.

I think it’s a great dish for this time of year. It’s lovely to put on before going to see a fireworks display. When you come back home the delicious smell will meet you at the front door, and the meal will warm you all up again. If there are any left-overs it’s just as good reheated in a saucepan the next day!