Adapted, if not pinched, from the Able & Cole recipe, adding Noilly Prat vermouth and using mint instead of thyme, as we have mint growing by our kitchen door but no thyme. That’s the trouble with modern life; never enough thyme.

• 450g broad beans, shelled. Peel the skins off the bigger beans.
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 glass Noilly Prat vermouth
• 2 or 3 big fat cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 500g risotto rice
• 1.7 litres of hot chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you prefer but I’m afraid this really does taste a squillion times better with chicken stock). Best if you make your own chicken stock, it’s really easy and makes you feel good. I’ll post my highly scientific method soon.
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint
• Sea salt and pepper
• Fresh parmesan shavings

Gently heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan. Cook the onion until it has softened but do not let it brown. Add broad beans and the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes. Stir in the rice and continue to cook until the grains have become translucent and glossy. Throw in the glass of Noilly Prat and inhale deeply. Life doesn’t get better than this.

Turn the heat down and add the stock, one ladle at a time. All the liquid must be absorbed before adding more. Stir all of the time. This will take no less than 20–25 minutes. Add half the mint with the last ladle of liquid. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Take the pan off the heat, cover and leave of stand. Serve hot on warmed plates and sprinkle with the last of the mint and shavings of Parmesan.

Thanks to Dave, Daisy and George in Carlisle for this.

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.

This comes from my Mum, who got it from a magazine or newspaper before Christmas.

- 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.

…to obesity and beyond!

I can’t remember where this one came from. It might have been on the side of a tin of Campbell’s condensed soup. But it might not have.

- 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!

This is adapted from “Super Soups” - a tiny National Trust recipe book I picked up years ago in Northumberland.

- 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.

This recipe comes from my Mum.

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!

This has evolved from a recipe on the side of a packet of Marmite stock cubes. I don’t think you can get Marmite stock cubes any more - it probably dawned on people that you could just use ordinary Marmite in cooking instead. It’s a basic vegetable stew, made with whatever we have to hand.

• Lots of root vegetables - potatoes, parsnips, turnips, carrots etc
• celery
• garlic
• olive oil
• large onion
• tin of tomatoes
• tin of mixed beans - kidney beans, borlotti beans etc
• mushrooms, if you have them
• tomato puree
• slug of red wine
• teaspoon of Marmite
• dried mixed herbs
• bay leaf
• 2 handfulls of small pasta (such as ditali lisci no. 58)
• teaspoon of vegetable stock powder such as Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon.

Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil. When well-cooked add the roughly chopped celery and root vegetables. Fry for a few minutes and add all the other ingredients, topping up with water as needed to cover the veg. Simmer on the stove or in the oven for an hour or so.

Adapted from ‘Stones Spells for Magic Feasts’, a veggie cookbook from a cafe in Avebury, Wiltshire - near the stone circle.

• Fresh tomatoes
• fresh basil and/or dried herbs
• garlic
• onion
• cream
• red wine (optional)
• vegetable stock
• tomato puree

Halve and roast the tomatoes with garlic and onion, scattered with oregano and basil (we used dried mixed herbs and fresh basil). When skins start to blaken, pulp in the Magimix. Put the puree in a pan with some red wine (we skipped that with no ill-effects), stock and tomato puree. Whisk to combine, reheat gently on the stove and then stir in some cream or fromage frais (we used double cream) when it simmers. Just delicious.