Anyway, it turns out that they make a lot of pancakes in the Henley household, his wife being French, and here is their preferred recipe. Makes about 10-12 crêpes.

• 200g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• half litre of milk

Make a hollow in the flour and break the eggs into it. Add the salt too. Start pouring the milk in SLOWLY, beating the mixture from the middle as you go. Mix until there are no more lumps.

If you’ve got time (which you never will have, obviously), put the bowl in the fridge for an hour: not essential, but somehow makes the crepes taste even better.

Heat a TINY bit of oil in a frying pan (best put some on a bit of kitchen roll and just wipe it round the pan) and when it’s good and hot use a ladle to pour a small amount — usually half/three-quarters of a ladle-full — of mixture into the pan. Twiddle so the mixture covers the base of the pan.

When it’s cooked on one side (you can see from the surface; it kind of dries out) flip it over with a spatula or if you’re feeling daring, toss it. The secret: don’t use too much mixture in for each crepe: it should just barely cover the bottom of the pan, and make sure the pan is really hot. A too-thick crepe is no good at all.)

Suggested toppings: lemon juice and sugar, maple syrup, Nutella, strawberry jam. Yum.

I’m cracking open the Nutella, Jon!

There are about 23,000 different best ways of cooking chips on t’internet, but I especially enjoyed the article on the Observer Food Monthly blog, which is a wonderful paean to the deep-fat fryer, and the discussions at PistonHeads.

Today I cooked a 3 course Valentine’s supper for @gwithiansunset. This was the menu:

On arrival
Filthy large Plymouth Gin & Tonic
ice, lime, Angostura bitters

Starter
Spicy prawn cocktail

Taittinger Champagne

Main course
Grilled sardines and real chips

Pudding
Chocolate mousse with brandy, grated white chocolate & whipped cream

Here’s the thinking. First up, the prawn cocktail. I really had a hankering for a prawn cocktail the other day, so I decided to satisfy the yearning. I shredded iceberg lettuce in a large glass, soused in lime juice. I then tossed the prawns in the dressing Nigella uses on crab in the Valentine’s Day chapter of Feast – fresh ginger, lime juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, wasabi, a few drops of sesame oil. I didn’t use enough ginger or wasabi – will put that right next time. I then dusted the prawns with cayenne pepper. I used tail-on prawns – so she had to get her fingers all sticky. More sensuous, see?

The main course of sardines & chips doesn’t sound that romantic, but it’s one of her favourite meals, a throwback to summers in Portugal before the kids were born. I par-boiled the chips for about 5 minutes, and deep-fried them at 180c for about another 5. They were certainly cooked but could have been crisper. I think I should have fried them for longer at a higher temperature. The kids, however, loved them and said they tasted like “real chips” – unlike the home-made oven chips we usually do.

The chocolate mousse pudding was from the BBC web site – it was lovely. I used brandy – not enough as it turned out, and I grated Green & Blacks white organic chocolate over the mousse and under the whipped cream. Couldn’t taste the brandy. Something else to put right next time. More wasabi, crispier chips – and more brandy. They did taste like proper chips, though.

bouquet from You Don’t Bring Me Flowers

• 190g unsalted butter
• 190g good quality dark chocolate
• 3 large eggs
• teaspoon vanilla extract
• 250g caster sugar
• 110g plain flour, sifted
• half tsp salt
• some chunks of white chocolate – preferably Green & Black’s White Organic.

Heat oven to 180 C.

Melt butter & chocolate slowly in a saucepan.

Beat the eggs, sugar & vanilla together in a large bowl. Let the melted choc mixture cool a bit before combining with the eggs & sugar. Whisk together. Then add the flour & salt and whisk into a smooth mixture. Stir in the white chocolate chunks.

Pour into a lined or well-greased tray – I used a rubber Tefal/Jamie Oliver thing that worked a treat. Bake for about 25 mins – checking carefully. You want it a bit gooey in the middle. Leave in baking tray to cool, then cut into slices. Perfect with a splodge of cream on a snowy day, or on their own with coffee.

These were easy to make and a big hit.

• 100g softened unsalted butter
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 100g light muscavado sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 175g plain flour
• half a teaspoon of baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 140g white chocolate

Preheat the oven to 190 C.

Beat the sugars and butter together until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla essence and mix. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt and mix again. Smash the chocolate into small chunks and mix in.

Dollop lumps of mixture onto non-stick greaseproof paper and bake for about 11 minutes. We did 2 batches. Put the cookies on a wire rack to cool and eat while crispy on the outside and gloopy inside. Yum.

Adapted from Annabel Karmel’s cranberry & white chocolate cookie recipe in BBC Good Food magazine, Christmas 2001.

A (female) friend of mine points out that only men like Sophie Dahl, whom she describes as over-doing the ‘simpering blonde’ thing. Like that’s a bad thing.

Anyhoo, this pudding is as camp as a summer’s day, if not Christmas. Tilly decorated the top with whipped cream, sprinkles and marshmallows.

• Packet of jelly – Sainsbury’s Basics jelly is 9p a packet I think
• Smallest available tin of evaporated milk
• Stuff to go on top – whipped cream, sprinkles, marshmallows, fruit etc.

Make the jelly up – dissolve the cubes in half a pint of boiling water, then make up to a pint using evaporated milk rather than water. Set in fridge and when ready, go mad on top. Eat in a tree house on a quiet, plane-free sunny day.

Ingredients:

• Jaffa Cakes
• Vanilla ice cream

Method:

Put the jaffa cakes in the freezer for an hour or so. Take the ice cream out of the freezer to soften, and stir to make what my children call ‘ice cream cream’. Remove jaffa cakes when frozen and smash with a rolling pin. Fold the jaffa cake bits into the ice cream.

I would have included a photo but it didn’t last long enough to take one.

Boil 2 small cans of condensed milk for 90 minutes. Have faith they will not explode, and use an old saucepan – when we did this a bit of the paint came off the tins. Better still try and find tins with paper labels.

Crush about 250-300g biscuits to a medium fine crumb – either digestives or ginger or some of each. Add 125-150g melted butter, push firmly into the base of a dish, making a layer about 1cm thick. Leave to set.

Chop enough bananas to make another layer 1cm on top of the biscuit base. Open the tins of condensed milk – the contents will have magically turned to toffee. Spread over the bananas, top with cream and grate chocolate on top.