Lavender & hazelnut baklava

Ingredients Filo pastry, hazelnuts, lavender jam, butter

Preparation: 1 hour

I love the sticky, crispy combination of Baklava, but whilst honey and pistachio is an incredible combination... it's Autumn and my cupboards are full of hazelnuts, so I thought I'd experiment a little! Typically for me, lavender was first on my list in terms of a sweet, sticky syrup and I think this works really well.

1) Finely chop your hazelnuts or grind in a mortar and pestle until fine crumbs have formed.

2) Stir in a little melted butter to form a relatively dry nut paste.

3) Line a roasting dish with a sheet of filo pastry and top with a layer of the hazelnut paste, a sheet of filo, another layer of the hazelnut paste and repeat for at least 8 layers, pressing down firmly to ensure that they stick.

4) Trim the excess filo from the outside, and cut a cross-hatch through the filo to form diamond shaped portions. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for about 50 minutes, until the pastry is golden bubbly.

5) Pour the lavender jam over the hot pastry, allowing it to soak through the layers.

Butterbean croquettes

Ingredients 400g butterbeans, 1 tbsp Rachel's Organic Greek Yoghurt, 1 leek, butter, parsley, 1 lemon, 1/2 tsp mustard, old bread, 1 egg

Serves: 6 preparation: 45 minutes

Greek cuisine is magnificent. I love the combination of fresh herbs and citrus flavours with savoury ingredients. These croquettes are so simple but they're packed with flavour and the beans make a nice change from potato.

1) Simmer the butterbeans in hot, salted water for 5 minutes, then strain in a colander.

2) Pulse in a blender and then parse through a sieve, leaving the shell behind and a thick almost pate like consistency in the bowl below.

3) Chop the leek and sautee in a little butter until completely soft. Stir into the bean paste along with a squeeze of lemon juice, salt, freshly chopped parsley and a little mustard and Greek yoghurt.

4) Roll the mixture into croquettes. At this stage, if you're preparing ahead you can refrigerate them until you're ready to cook.

5) Whisk an egg into a dish and pulse some stale bread in the blender to form breadcrumbs. Dip the croquette in the egg, then roll in the breadcrumbs until thoroughly coated.

6) The traditional Greek method of cooking is to fry them until the breadcrumbs crumbs are crispy. Personally I find baking them in the oven for 20 minutes at 200 degrees to be more than satisfactory and certainly more healthy!

Apple roast vegetables

Ingredients 10 Exquisa potatoes, 2 carrots, 2 parsnips, 2 apples, olive oil, parsley, basil.

Serves: 4 preparation: 1 hour

French, or haute cuisine would have us believe that the success of a dish, depends on the quality of the sauce. Whilst a good sauce can absolutely transform a dish and demonstrate the skill of the chef... it doesn't need to be anything complex to impress. This cooking technique is a combination of Italian-style olive oil roasting and steaming which retains every bit of the flavour of the ingredients and forms a wonderful, tangy apple sauce. Perfect when served with pork as part of a Sunday roast.

1) Slice the potatoes in half, peel the carrot and potato and cut into chunks roughly the same size as the potatoes.

2) Peel and core the apple, then slice into small chunks

3) Toss the apple and vegetables in olive oil, salt, black pepper, freshly chopped parsley and basil, then roast for an hour in a covered dish at 200 degrees. I toss the dish half way through, then again at the end of the hour, causing the softened apple to coat the vegetables like a sauce.

Mulled wine cake

Ingredients 250g butter, 250g plain flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 250g icing sugar, 4 eggs, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1 3/4 cups red wine, 1/4 cup stem ginger, 2 tsp allspice, 2 tsp ground ginger, 3 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, 150g marscapone, juice and zest of 1 orange

Serves: 10 Preparation: 1 hour

The lovely and fabulous @tiger_tea and I were recently discussing alternatives to Christmas fruit cake this week. Quite frankly, I love a nice slice of fruit cake at Christmas, especially with a slice of cheddar on the top (oh come on, you know by now that for me, cheese goes with everything!) but as not everyone likes it, I present this magnificent alternative. After all, what is more Christmassy than mulled wine? Booze, spice, citrus, warmth. OH MY LORD! GET IN MY BELLY! This cake is rich and dark with a layer of creamy orange marscapone in the centre.

1) Sift together the dry ingredients and chop the crystallised ginger.

2) Cream the butter and sugar together, and then whisk in the eggs, wine and orange zest.

3) Beat in the dry ingredients and the ginger bit by bit.

4) Pour into two cake tins and bake for 40 minutes at 175 degrees, until a skewer comes out clean. Set aside to cool. Your house will smell incredible. You're welcome.

5) Whip together the orange juice and marscapone and sweeten to taste with a little sugar. Leave to firm in the fridge at the cake cools, then use to sandwich the two halves together.

6) Dust the surface of the cake with a little cinnamon, cocoa powder and icing sugar mixture.

Apple, Fennel & Mozzarella salad

Ingredients 1 Apple, mozzarella, 1 fennel bulb, pork loin, bread, balsamic vinegar, cucumber

Serves: 2 preparation: 10 minutes

First things first - do not even attempt this recipe if you have chilled mozzarella. I know that I say this every time, but mozzarella needs to be at room temperature - chilled mozzarella is rubbery and flavour impaired - room temperature mozzarella is yielding, meltingly perfect and tastes wonderful. This salad works really well with layers of seared pork medallion but I went for layers of lightly toasted bread being a vegetarian and it worked beautifully. The sweetness of the apple, the fragrance of the fennel... gorgeous. This also works really well with a good sharp goats cheese.

1) Remove the core from the apple and slice finely with a mandoline. Mine allows me to slice straight into matchsticks, but if yours does not - slice the slices into matchsticks! Repeat for the fennel and the cucumber and toss together in a bowl.

2) Layer in a circle mould with the cheese and meat/bread - packing the salad down quite tightly.

3) Serve with a drizzle of balsamic glaze

Earl Grey apricot Tartlets

Ingredients dried apricots, 2 earl grey teabags, 25g sugar, Pastry: 1 tsp sugar, 250g butter, 250g plain flour.

Makes: 6 Preparation: X

I am a huge lover of Earl Grey tea. For me the traditional delicacy of assam and ceylon leaves infused with the richness of bergamot oil can only be beaten with a Provenciale twist of lavender. I keep desperately trying to like Teapigs' twist of using Darjeeling leaves, but the flavour is far too alien for me to convince my brain, unless I sugar it, which goes against my purist principles! Sweetness is the key though, and these exquisite little apricot tartlets are just perfect for the unique flavour of Teapigs Darjeeling Earl Grey.

1) Put the apricots into a pyrex jug along with your teabags, and pour over just enough hot water to cover them. Leave to soak (ideally overnight but 5 hours will suffice if you're pressed for time!) until the apricots puff up.

2) To make sweet puff pastry: Add the room temperature butter to the flour and sugar and rub together loosely. Don't mix it too thoroughly - you want to still see the butter. Add about 100ml of COLD water and mix until you have a rough but firm dough. Cover with cling film and rest in the fridge for 20 minutes. Roll out from left to right onto a lightly floured surface - you should see marbled butter at this stage. Fold in half and roll out again from left to right. Fold once more, then cover with cling film and chill for another 20 minutes before using.

3) Roll out the pastry and cut out circles of dough.


4) Pour out the tea into the saucepan, add 25g caster sugar and reduce to a sugar syrup.

3) Slice the apricots in half and add to the pan. Allow to simmer in the syrup for 2-3 minutes, then spoon a sticky, syrupy apricot half onto each pastry circle.

4) Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes at 200 degrees until the pastry has just puffed up and the apricot has just begun to caramelise in the sugar. Serve hot or cold

Spinach, Feta & Tomato pastie

Ingredients 100g spinach, 50g feta, 1 tomato, Rachel's Organic Greek Yoghurt, Jus-Rol™ or 250g plain flour, 1 tsp salt, 250g butter to make Puff pastry.

Serves: 2 Preparation: 1 hour and a half

I have long been a slave to the Greek perfection of spinach and feta pie - fine layers of crispy filo are all well and good, but sometimes I like to vary this dish by adding the sharp, sweetness of tomato and switching filo pastry for puff pastry instead so that I can make lots of individual pasties instead of one big pie.

1) To make puff pastry: Add the room temperature butter to the flour and salt and rub together loosely. Don't mix it too thoroughly - you want to still see the butter. Add about 100ml of COLD water and mix until you have a rough but firm dough. Cover with cling film and rest in the fridge for 20 minutes. Roll out from left to right onto a lightly floured surface - you should see marbled butter at this stage. Fold in half and roll out again from left to right. Fold once more, then cover with cling film and chill for another 20 minutes before using.

2) Roll out the pastry and cut into sections for your pasties. Spread a layer of Greek Yoghurt over half of the pastry and press the spinach into it. 

3) Layer the feta and spinach, pressing down quite firmly to avoid trapped air.

4) Slice the tomato in half and slice out the core and seeds, leaving the flesh. Slice into strips and rest on the top of the spinach and feta.

5) Fold the empty half of the pastry over the toppings, pressing down again to ensure that there isn't any air trapped inside, and tightly fold and crimp the edges to form a seal. Prick a hole for the spinachey steam to rise out, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 180 degrees