The children and i eat a great deal of gluten-free meals together but sometimes they need a dish that will stick to their ribs. Even in the summer they will eat Toad in the Hole (adapted from Nigel Slater's Real Food); a dish of perfectly puffed, crispy batter above dense, satisfactory pancake, studded with pork and herb sausages. I don't have to cook potatoes to go along side - they will fill up on a glory of stodge.

Mix 2 eggs, 125g plain flour, 1 tablespoon grain mustard, 150ml milk and 150ml water with a whisk or wand blender until the consistency of double cream. Leave (to allow the gluten in the flour to swell) for about 15 minutes.

Heat 3 tablespoons of sunflower oil (goose fat or lard is preferable, if to hand) in a oven proof pan. Add 6/8 sausages and allow to brown for 10 minutes in a very hot oven (220ºC). When the fat is smoking pour the batter around the sausages in the pan and put straight back in the oven for 25 minutes 'til golden brown.

For mummy, a quick and simple salad; a fistful of green beans cooked as you like them and drained well. Finely chop half a garlic clove and 3 fresh mint leaves. Add to a bowl with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and mix until well combined. Put beans in the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Crumble 70g of firm goat's cheese over the beans, and add 2 tablespoons of pine kernels (first toasted in a dry frying pan).

From Buonissimo! by Gino D'Acampo.

Off to a summer party, armed with cider, cheese and Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Mint Cookies, still ever-so-slightly warm. I made this in my electric mixer, quickly and simply. They smell divine as they cook and are a perfect after-supper sweet mint treat for grown-ups and children alike.

100g soft butter and 150g light brown sugar, creamed together.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 1 egg.

Using the mixer on pulse, beat in 150g plain flour, 35g cocoa powder and a 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder.

Finely chop 200g dark chocolate and fold into batter.

Using a dessertspoon, scoop spoonfuls of dough onto a lined baking sheet leaving a little space for expansion. Bake in an oven for 12 minutes at 180ºc, remove and allow to sit for 2 minutes before moving cookies to a cooling rack.

Glaze: 75g icing sugar, 15ml cocoa (sieved), 30ml boiling water (you may need a little more) and 1/4 teaspoon of peppermint extract, warmed in a saucepan until blended.

(sorry - no photos of this stage as i was otherwise distracted at the time)

Drizzle glaze over the cookies as they cool.

US quantities and official method here.

A simple yet delicious burger*

500g minced beef (or lamb/pork)
2 roasted red peppers (i keep a jar in the fridge), finely chopped
chilli flakes to taste
1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup
4 tablespoons of chopped parsley

Put all the ingredients in a large bowl, season with pepper and mix to combine (i always use my hands). Divide into four balls and shape into 3 inch thick burgers.

Heat a little oil in a pan and cook burgers for 6 minutes on each side for medium rare beef, or 8 minutes for well-done pork

A good minced beef burger is a robust dish and doesn't need bulking out with binding agents or fillers to ruin the light texture. The roasted peppers keep these patties wonderfully moist, with a touch of sweet and heat. I prefer not to add uncooked onion or pepper to my burgers - use either or both if you wish but i recommend cooking until onion is soft and pale before adding to the meat.

*Adapted from Gino D'Acampo's Buonissimo!

I can't fully describe the satisfaction of having a batch of home cooked baked beans filling the kitchen full of savoury bliss with almost no effort on my part. I was driven to regular stir (and test) the transforming stew and can testify that the sweet herb/pork/tomato combination is irresistible, the anchovy is negligible but adds an level of intensity, and the final amount is never quite enough. I don't suppose that leaving out the pork would diminish the overall moreish effect - add some dijion mustard instead, perhaps.

Exceedingly simple, they keep for several days in the fridge, although my first batch was eaten for supper (with cold ham) and the remainder devoured for the following breakfast (with hot toast) with relish by children who usually refuse the tinned variety.

I tried a variation from here combined with this which works well.

Soak 375g of haricot (or cannellini, or navy) beans overnight in plenty of cold water, drain.

Chop and cook in a little olive oil: one onion, a large carrot, a celery stick, a large sweet pepper, and a small fresh chilli until onion is soft. Add 4 rashers of chopped bacon (or 100g pancetta, if you insist) and cook until slightly crisp. Add 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, 2 anchovy fillets, chopped, and a pinch each of dried thyme and oregano. Cook and stir for a minute.



Add 2 x 400g chopped tomatoes and the drained beans and sufficient water to cover all the ingredients. Bring to a simmer, then transfer the pan to an oven at 180ºC and bake for 3 hours until beans are tender. Stir hourly and add extra water if needed.



A drizzle of maple syrup and chopped parsley to serve is an extra flourish that you may or may not consider necessary. Don't add salt until the dish is about to be served.

A repeat of last week's succulent lemon cake, but replacing the 50g of plain flour with 4 dessertspoons of gluten-free flour, one spoonful added after each egg is beaten into the batter. The mix may curdle very slightly, but don't add extra flour - gluten flour requires more moisture than wheat flour. I also replaced the almond extract with the same amount of lemon extract, for the extra citrus hit.

Leaving the cake for two days, wrapped in foil and out of sight, was a true test of my restraint but worth the frustration. Once revealed, the crumb was meltingly soft and moist with a rounded hit of lemon; sweet yet sharp and refreshing.

The cake keeps superbly well for at least *counts fingers* 4 days, and probably a little longer.

Rocky Road, adapted from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express

I use a mix of 100g marshmallows (large ones, cut in half), 100g glace cherries, 100g nuts (walnuts or pecans) and a handful of dried fruit or perhaps some crystallized ginger (a total of about 350g). Use whatever you wish - substitute crushed biscuits for the nuts if preferred.

Add to a mix of 300g good dark chocolate, 125g butter and 45ml golden syrup which has been slowly melted in a heavy saucepan.

Stir ingredients together carefully, and pour into a tin (i use a 20 inch round cake tin) lined with cling film. Shake to distribute molten goo and refrigerate for 2 hours, or overnight.

Dust with a little icing sugar to serve.

A platter of summer vegetables (carrots, fennel, butternut squash, turnips, peppers), whole garlic cloves and fresh basil, a big glug of olive oil.

Half an hour in a hot oven and the edges of the vegetables are soft and charred.

A kilo of unsmoked gammon, poached for an hour in pineapple juice.
Leave to cool in the stock.
If serving hot, drizzle with maple syrup with a dusting of english mustard powder.

Bake in the oven (with tray of vegetables underneath) until glaze is dark and smokily caramelized; approximately 40 minutes at 180ºC.

Nigella Lawson's Damp Lemon and Almond Cake
Cream together 225g soft, unsalted butter and 225g caster sugar until white and creamy. Beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, adding a quarter portion of 50g of plain flour after each egg addition.




Gently stir in 225g ground almonds, 1/2 teaspoon almond essence, lemon zest and juice of 2 lemons.

Don't do what i did, which is use my handy strip zester rather than a microplanner, otherwise you risk the criticism that the cake is 'not lemony enough'.


Use either a 21cm springform cake, or a loaf tin, lined, and bake at 180ºC. After half an hour cover the cake with foil to stop the top darkening too much. Check with a cake skewer after an hour - it should not be clean, but without buttery batter clinging to the wire. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire tray to cool completely.

Wrap well in foil and leave for 2 days, during which it will become more fragrant .. dust with icing sugar before serving.

For supper i have the remains of yesterday's roast chicken which became a paella with plenty of green pepper, fine beans and chorizo sausage. i used the dark, sticky gravy saved from the roasting pan for stock - the stripped chicken carcass simmered to make another stock for tomorrow.

Last night's supper, eaten with jersey royal potatoes and buttered marrow.

When I saw this recipe on Joy The Baker.com for Lemon Cloud Tea Cookies on the eve of a child-free weekend, i had to attempt a wheat free version.




Love these blue eggs. It is all mixed in one bowl, simply and quickly. I replaced the wheat flour and corn flour combined with a slightly smaller volume of gluten-free flour, but added some extra flour after the first tray of cookies, to stiffen the mixture.






Batch 1: the mixture was too soft and the biscuits spread out very flat, but were fragrant and slightly cakey while warm. The children eat the whole tray.

Batch 2: a stiffer batter, which just holds the pattern of the fork tines once baked. Gluten-free cookies can often be dry with an unappealing mouth-feel, but the texture of these biscuits lends themselves to the slightly gritty feel of rice flour - bite through the crisp shell and the texture is just light, lemony crumb that dissolves on your tongue. Make them small enough that you feel justified in having yet another.