Absolut lavender (lavender vodka)

Ingredients 1 litre of vodka, 1/2 cup lavender

Preparation: 3 days

This seems hardly worth mentioning as a recipe as it involves no cooking, just the ability to pour vodka over lavender and leave to infuse for at least 3 days in the fridge... but infusing vodka is something that I used to enjoy doing during my mispent youth. Skittle vodka, rose vodka, vanilla vodka, Werther's original... pretty much anything will work!
I will leave more sophisticated mixologists than I to come up with cocktail ideas - personally I'm happy to just pour in a dash of lemonade and sip from it! Watch our for my lavender lemonade recipe coming soon too...

Gnocchi

Ingredients Potato, pasta flour, egg, plain flour Sauce 1) Onion, red wine, bell pepper, basil, passata, butter Sauce 2) Garlic, vodka, marscapone, cream, cheddar, butter

1) Bake 2 large potatoes in their skins, remove the skins and then allow to cool.
Add them along with 4oz of pasta flour to a blender and mix thoroughly - adding 1 beaten egg part way through the process until it forms a ball of dough.
2) Prepare a large surface area by dusting it with plain flour and dropping the dumpling dough into the centre. Roll the mixture out into a sausage and divide into even sections with a knife. Roll up each section into a ball and drop into a pan of boiling salted water. When the dumplings rise to the top of the water and float (rather than bob up and down) they are ready to be removed with a slotted spoon.
Gnocci is equally divine when served with zingy or creamy sauces - here I have combined the two because I'm in an indulgent mood!
3) Vodka sauce
Mince 4 cloves of garlic and sautee with butter in a pan. Add a shot of vodka and stir through. As the vodka begins to cook off add 2 tablespoons of marscapone, grate a generous knob of cheddar into the pan and finish with cream or milk.
4) Tomato and pepper sauce
Finely dice half a white onion and sautee with butter in a pan. Add a good glug of red wine and stir through. Remove the core from 3 bell peppers, slice into small pieces and roast in the oven. Blend the peppers and then pass through a sieve to separate the flesh from the skin. Add this to a pan along with some chopped basil and passata tomatoes.