Shared Kitchen

Sunday Night Eggs

Eggs along with a couple of peppers and a bag of spinach makes a tasty supper dish. You’ll need bread, or lentils or cannellini beans or something similar, to make the dish more substantial. The trick – and I can’t stress this enough – is not to overcook the eggs. You are better to undercook them, removing them from the oven while nice and wobbly, as they will continue cooking in the few minutes it takes to faff around with garnishing and getting them served.

Moroccan Meatballs

I love this recipe, colourful and bursting with flavour, and with lots of different options – serve as a nibble with drinks, or transfer to a gratin dish and smother with crumbs and cheese and bake till golden, or add lentils to make it stretch further for family meals.

Walnut Chocolate Bars

Use the freshest nuts you can find for this slice as old tannic walnuts will ruin the flavour.

Vegetable & Cannellini Bean Soup

This soup is a beauty. It used up half a dozen cans of my Covid stock of beans and tomatoes in the tests, and I was thankful for that, but it is the flavours I love, especially the day after making. It seems richer and tastier then. I’ve given options for finishing it off with toasted crusts of bread, or Italian style with parmesan and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Smoked Fish & Chorizo Pie

Potato-topped pies are a family favourite. To make a good pie topping, season potatoes generously with salt, whip in a generous lump of butter to add flavour and prevent the purée becoming dry, and whip in enough hot milk to make it fluffy, but not so much that it becomes shapeless and sloppy. It’s the middle road you’re after for a pie topping!

It’s also important to use moist smoked fish, not dried out leathery fish. The choice of fish is yours – use stronger flavoured fish if you are sure everyone likes it (not me!) or opt for milder fish if unsure.

!SHATTERED!

Can an oven door explode? Yep.

Spinach Pies from Crete

Look at these! They might look hard to make, but with a little finger and thumb dexterity, you’ll get there. And you’ll get ‘ohhs’ and ‘ahhs’, too. Make them centre stage of a Greek feast, or a decadent platter with drinks, or just chow down with a good mixed salad.

Hot Cross Bun Baked Pudding

Hot cross buns cooked in a creamy vanilla-scented custard is exceptionally decadent. It would be perfect served on a lazy afternoon following a light soup lunch – it’s a rich and filling dessert.

I had to cook the pudding shown in the photograph in a small bench oven and could not fit in a water bath. I reduced the heat to 150°C (300°F) and cooked it for 30 minutes. I also had no grill, so I scorched the top with a small culinary blow torch. The glass in my oven door had exploded and was out of action, but where there’s a will there’s a way!

Corn Chowder

This is one of my favourite corn chowders adapted from a summer sweet corn soup recipe I used to make for the kids when they were little. They couldn’t get enough of it! I use frozen mini corn cobs and after cooking and removing the kernels, I throw the cobs back in the pot to make a corn broth for the soup.