Courgette and ricotta tagliatelle

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Perfect Piccalilli

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Paprika Aubergine Salad

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All the condiments salad

Show an interest in cooking and chances are you will have condiments, biscuits and oils coming out of your ears by the time Christmas is over. I’m not complaining. It’s the best excuse to try things you would never normally buy and to experiment a bit more with some of the products out there.

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Battered Olives with Sun-dried tomatoes

I’ve been gawping in awe over the pages of the Terre a Terre cookbook ever since Christmas. It’s flesh-free, food art at its best. Although the recipes look like a big challenge they’re a welcome one that I’m really looking forward to having a bash at soon.

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Sweet red cabbage

A kind of sweet polish cabbage, but without the piggy in the middle, is always needed at this time of year. A big pot of it was forever on the go in our house when I was growing up, most likely, back then, to go with yet more ham. These days I leave out the bacon and replace it with some sun-dried tomatoes to give it that extra sweet kick.

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Hazlenut Sprouts

No groans and moans, think of them less as sprouts and more as baby cabbages. Sautéed with butter, hazelnuts and finished with a little dusting of Manchego – Brussels sprouts can be the stars of the show.

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Basil, lemon and parmesan spaghetti

I can’t call this pesto. There’s no pounding in a pestle and mortar involved. This probably is a sin in an Italian kitchen but how I see it is, it’s much better than buying the ready made jars of pesto that lose all the fresh zing of herbs and lemon. When I have time I’ll bash the basil to within an inch of its life to make the real deal, but this super quick fix is streets ahead of any of the jars in the flavour stakes and is so speedy it takes about as long as opening a jar of the stuff.

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Gingerbread Chocolate Bites

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Basil, Sultana and Feta stuffing

Don’t know about you, but I fancy stuffing to fill my own cavity, not some dead birds first. It'd be a sad day to banish stuffing from your menu over Christmas just because you don’t eat meat.
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