I never used to have a sweet tooth (or should that be teeth) but now I do.  Savoury was always more my thing, starters not puddings or crisps, cheese and a glass of wine to be entirely honest – I could make a packet of chocolate buttons last at least a week.  Since I have had children however, I adore cakes, chocolates and puddings like never before.  My father loved a pud and my son doesn’t think a meal is complete without one so it must be hereditary!  These little tarts came about because a) something sweet was required and b) the wherewithal (half a pack of pastry and half a jar of lemon curd) was in the fridge and needed using up.

These are as easy or as hard as you want to make them really.   With (really good) bought pastry shells or pastry and lemon curd they are fabulous.  If you make your own sweet pastry and use some home made lemon curd then they will sing out even further.  I am happy to take either route but in truth am more likely to make pastry than lemon curd – you must do as you please.

However you get there, sweet crisp pastry filled with a smooth lemon filling and topped neatly or tumbled with raspberries is a thing of beauty.   Having made these little ones I also had a go at a larger tart which was just as delicious but somehow it is the baby ones which win my heart.  So, a really easy summery pudding and one which I’m sure will garner you many ooh’s and aah’s.  By the way, should you come across some passion fruit curd, grab it and make these, it is a sublime combination.

Because this was a case of using up leftovers my recipe is annoyingly unspecific – what I used was half a pack of sweet pastry which I rolled and cut out, baked blind for 10 minutes at 180 and then for a further 5 minutes without the baking beans.  I mixed half a jar of lemon curd with half a tub of marscapone, put a blob in each cooled pastry shell and topped with raspberries.

This recipe is entered One Ingredient June 2013 hosted by Franglais Kitchen and How to Cook Good Food and Simple and in Season hosted by Ren Behan.

My daughter spends much of her time dressed as an evacuee.  You know, shorts, tank top, luggage label, that sort of thing – her fascination with all things to do with WW2 knows no bounds and she is often keen for me to cook accordingly.  Woolton Pie, Murkey (mock turkey for Christmas) have all been requested but met, I must admit, with a little reluctance by me.  These biscuits however, get the full thumbs up or should that be V for victory.

I’m sure you know the reason for the name, Australian and New Zealand Army Corp biscuits, made without egg so they wouldn’t go off too quickly when sent to the soldiers at the front.  Originally from WW1 I know but let’s not be picky.

The main ingredients being oats allow me to put these into the category of healthy treat.  I have also pared down the sugar as much as possible – yes, yes I know a biscuit is by its very nature sweet but I like to keep these things to a minimum where possible so you can enjoy them without guilt, ie have two.

Anzac Biscuits

100g plain flour

100g desiccated coconut

150g porridge oats

100g butter

85g soft brown sugar

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

Preheat the oven to 180/160 fan and line a baking sheet with parchment. Mix the flour, coconut, oats and salt in a large bowl.  In a small pan melt the butter, golden syrup and brown sugar.  It is easiest to dip your tablespoon into hot water so the syrup slides off.  Mix the bicarb with the boiling water and then add to the pan, it will whoosh up a bit, give it a stir and then add to the bowl with the dry ingredients.

Drop tablespoonfuls of mixture onto the baking sheets and put in the oven for 10-15 minutes, check after 10 they are done when a dark gold colour.  Cool for a minute or two before transferring to a rack.  This will make about 30 biscuits.

I don’t mean all at once obviously, but if you think about it, each year we have to think of more or less 365 things to eat and that is just for supper.  Start adding lunches and children’s teas and the number becomes enormous.  No wonder many of us resort to the same old favourites evening after evening.  Nothing wrong with that at all, indeed I look forward to something tried and tested which I know will please tummy and soul – like seeing an old friend, no disappointing surprises and a good evening all round.  That said though, I do try new things, feel almost compelled to.  Whether to justify the library of cookbooks, magazines and cuttings I have or inspired by something I have seen in the farm shop, I try to extend my repertoire by at least one new thing a week.

So continuing on my quest for straightforward, delicious everyday things to eat that won’t take hours to make or cost a fortune and are both easy and appealing (hopefully) for all the family, what about chorizo and chickpea stew.  I hope it might make your list of regulars and here is why.  Using mainly storecupboard ingredients which are transformed into a rich, spicy comforting dish with very little effort on your part.  A bit of chopping, open a couple of cans and then let the stovetop perform a little alchemy.  What a treat.  I have been cooking this for many many years.  Of course, as is my wont I have tinkered with the recipe from time to time but this is my favourite version.  It is an easy and delicious supper (or lunch) and one that when I serve it, my daughter eyes the pot anxiously for seconds.

It is equally at home as a winter warmer or a sprightly spiced supper for cooler summer evenings.  Whatever the weather, whichever month you are in, please give it a go, I have never known it not please.

Chorizo and chickpea stew

Chorizo, cooking sausages, around 150g

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon paprika

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tin chickpeas, drained

1 glass white wine or dry sherry

1/2 bunch of parsley, chopped

Cut the chorizo into rounds and fry gently in a medium size pan until it renders its oil in which you now fry the onion until soft.  Add the garlic and paprika, stir for a minute or two and then add the tomatoes, chickpeas and wine or sherry.  Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  You can serve this is as it is or if you like a slightly thicker sauce,  squidge some of the chickpeas against the side of the casserole until they fall apart.  Season well with salt, give it another stir and then sprinkle over the parsley.  This doesn’t really need anything with it but a sliced crusty baguette works a treat as does a simple green salad.  Serves 2 but easily doubled.

My kitchen smells of garlic, I mean really smells of garlic.  There is a huge bunch of wild garlic in a jar, the wild garlic pesto has just been made and now the wild garlic caldo verde is on the go.   Wild garlic and local salami pizza to follow…. phew, I imagine I might smell as much as my kitchen right now.

The roadsides, hedgerows and woods around here are now full of wild garlic and the heady oniony aroma ranges from a gentle whiff to a full on garlic breath pong.  Hundreds of pointy green leaves cover the ground and the buds are fat and papery, any minute now the white flowers will explode bringing with them a sight (and smell) particular to our Spring.  Should you decide to pick a little to take home there awaits before you a choice.  A light and fragrant broth or perhaps a pungent stir fry, the leaves adding both flavour and colour.   A little shredded, softened in butter and added to some mash is a new, unauthentic I admit, take on colcannon.  With peas and stock you get a new petit pois a la francais.   The caldo verde I am making is a version of the Portugese soup with chorizo and potatoes – here the wild garlic replaces the usual cabbage.

I have tempered this wild garlic pesto slightly with parsley, rather than diluting the flavour, I think it enhances it.  This version still has a wallop of flavour but is not so mouth puckeringly strong you don’t want to finish it.  It is amazing with pasta but also try  spreading it on some lightly toasted sourdough – a real treat with drinks this long and hopefully sunny weekend.

Wild Garlic Pesto

40g wild garlic, chopped

10g parsley, chopped

25g pine nuts, lightly toasted

20g parmesan, finely grated

3-4 tablespoons good olive oil

Salt and pepper

Lemon juice, optional

You can do this in a mortar with a pestle or a small food processor.  Whizz or pound the wild garlic, parsley, pine nuts, parmesan and olive oil.  Don’t process too much as it is nice to have a bit of texture to the pesto.  Add a good pinch of salt and some pepper, taste and adjust any seasonings to taste.  You may like to add a squeeze of lemon juice just before serving.  This amount would be enough for pasta for 4.

I have entered this wild garlic pesto into Herbs on Saturday recipe sharing blog, check it out for lots of wonderful seasonal ideas.

http://www.delicieux.eu/?p=1798     http://www.lavenderandlovage.com/herbs-on-saturday

My original notes on this recipe, or rather my scribbled reminder says Salmon, Chickpeas, Prawns and Harissa – a bit of a mouthful I thought – so Fish Stew with Harissa it is, more casual anyway which I prefer.  The name doesn’t however, convey the fabulousness of this dish, rich, sweet and pink by way of the salmon and prawns, chilli spiked and spiced from the harissa and filling, in a good way, with the chickpeas.

I had promised I wouldn’t mention the weather again but it seems, I can’t stop myself and unable to wait any longer for Spring to arrive I decided to cook something sunny instead.  I wanted something redolent of lunch by the sea, toes in the sand, a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket, a plate full of fish and spice to eat with some good crusty bread on the side to mop  up the sauce.

Back to reality then, this is an easy weekday supper.  The chickpeas simmer in the wine and  harissa which form a fragrant broth to cook the fish in.  It sits happily on the hob whilst you do something else and then ta, da, a delicious healthy supper appears with almost no effort at all.  This is enough for 2 but is easily doubled.

Fish Stew with Harissa

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 large garlic clove, finely chopped

2 teaspoons harissa (see note)

100ml white wine

350ml fish or vegetable stock

400g tin of chickpeas

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

300g salmon, approx 2 fillets, cut into chunks

100g prawns

Juice of a lemon

A small bunch of parsley, chopped

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion gently until soft, add the garlic and stir for a few minutes.  Then add the harissa followed by the white wine and stock.  Mix this together then add the chickpeas, half a teaspoon of salt and simmer for 20 minutes.  Put the salmon into the pan and cook for a further five minutes turning the pieces over half way and adding the prawns for the final few minutes of cooking.  Add the lemon juice and taste, you may need more lemon or salt.  Strew with parsley and serve.

Note – I like this reasonably spicy so use two teaspoons of harissa, if you wish to be a little more cautious, add one and a half and then after tasting at the end swirl the extra through before serving if you want.  Also, I find recipes with chickpeas need a fair amount of salt but do reduce the amount if you wish.

I don’t know if it is twinkly eyed Paul Hollywood who has got us going or if we just want to make our own so we know exactly what we are eating but everyone is making bread.  Yesterday I was collecting my children from a friend’s house when I realised I would be a couple of minutes late because I  had a loaf in the oven.  When I arrived to pick them up and explained my delay, my friend said she too had a loaf cooking.

I must admit to using the big mixer often for kneeding my dough, not that it is in anyway arduous but just a matter of time – while that is chugging away I can be getting on with something else.  Time is the main consideration when making a loaf of bread.  For sure, putting ingredients in a bowl and mixing them is easy but before you start think about when you want to eat it.  I have on occasion had to go to bed later than planned to allow for the second rising and then the cooking.  Equally, you can’t start making it much less than three hours before you want to eat it.  Unless you make my seedy soda bread.

There are times when you need to produce an almost instant lunch from ingredients you have to hand and also times when you just want to rustle up a loaf of bread pronto and this is just the ticket.  No kneeding, no proving, almost no work at all and yet – when it comes out of the oven, the smell, the feel, the taste of it…..  Such a monster result for minimum effort.

You can find tubs of buttermilk fairly easily in the shops usually next to the cream or creme fraiche.  Failing that yogurt thinned down with a little milk will work just as well (aim for 250ml yogurt thinned  with milk to just shy of 300ml).  You can use wholemeal or white flour, I tend to go for a mix of the two.

Partner this heavenly loaf with some soup and cheese for a truly good lunch and bask in the glow of your homemade bread.

2020 update – you can use just plain flour if that is what you have or a mix of flours up to 300g – soda bread is very forgiving and I know some flours are difficult to come by.  Remember if you haven’t got buttermilk then yogurt and milk (see intro) work a treat.  By all means leave out the seeds if you prefer.   Also why not try my quick and easy flatbreads (March 2018) which use self-raising flour but you could use plain.

Seedy Soda Bread

150g wholemeal flour, plus a bit extra

150g plain flour

1 teaspoon fine salt

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 teaspoons soft brown sugar

284ml tub buttermilk (or yogurt, see introduction)

20g mixed seeds, I use sunflower and pumpkin

Preheat the oven to 200.  Lightly toast the seeds in a frying pan until just beginning to colour and leave to cool a little.  Put the flours, salt, bicarb, sugar and seeds in a large bowl and mix.  Add the buttermilk and give it a good mix together.  Sprinkle some wholemeal flour on a baking sheet, make the dough into a ball, put on the tin, sprinkle a little more flour over and cut a cross in the top with a sharp knife.  Bake for 30-35 minutes until crusty, golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.

If it lasts beyond lunch, this makes  great toast and is also unbelievably good spread with a little horseradish and topped with smoked salmon.