Pastel de nata

Ingredients Custard: 3 tbsps plain flour, 1 ¼ cups milk, 1 ⅓ cups caster sugar, ½ tsp vanilla essence, 6 egg yolks, 1 tsp cinnamon.

Dough: 220g plain flour, 7g yeast, 160ml milk, 2 1/2 tsp caster sugar, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tbs vegetable oil, 150g butter.

Serves: 9 Preparation: 2 hours (plus overnight)

As part of the World Cup Food Challenge 2014, this recipe represents a traditional meal of Portugal. Pastel de nata are stunning little cinnamon custard tarts, with a gorgeous flaky croissanty crust that has to be tasted to be believed. It's a LOT of work to make these, but they're well worth it and they freeze well.

1) To make the dough for the pastry case, please see up to step 5 of my croissant recipe.

2) To make the custard, bring the sugar and cinnamon to the boil in a pan with 2/3 cup of cold water until a syrup forms- don't stir it!

3) Separate the milk with 1/4 in a bowl and 1 cup in a pan. Whisk the flour in with the bowl of milk until smooth and set aside. Meanwhile, scald the milk in the pan, then whisk in the flour-milk mixture.

4) Add the cinnamon sugar syrup into the hot milk and flour whilst whisking furiously (you might want to ask someone to help!) then take off the heat once it is a smooth, just pourable consistency. Stir in the vanilla and set aside.

5) When the mixture has cooled just enough for you to comfortably touch it without swearing (about the temperature of a cup of tea if that helps!) whisk in the egg yolks and set aside to cool.

6) Pre-heat the oven to 290 degrees celcius and grab your pastry from the fridge. Roll it out on a lightly floured surface to about 1cm thickness and cut it into squares the approximate size of your chosen muffin tin dimples. Wet your fingers and press the dough into the muffin tin, moulding with your fingers until you've created a "lip" about 1/2cm above the muffin tin surface and pour in the custard.

7) Bake until the edges of the pastry are brown and the custard has a good wobble on. Serve warm, sprinkled with icing sugar and cinnamon.

Fufu

Ingredients 1 yukka/cassava root, ½ cup butter, 2 plantains.

Serves: 4 Preparation: 1 hour

As part of the World Cup Food Challenge 2014, this recipe represents a traditional meal of Ghana. Fufu is used as a side dish in the way we would eat mashed potato, but also in place of bread to scoop up soup. The plantain gives it a wonderful sweetness which I find works wonderfully with traditional peanut soup.

1) Peel the rough bark from the yukka/cassava root with a knife and chop off the ends. Dice into chunks the way you would a potato.

2) Bring to the boil in a pan of cold water and leave to simmer for 30 minutes until soft.

3) In the meantime, add the whole plantain to a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Leave to simmer until you see the skin begin to split, then remove and peel.

4) Add the cooked plantain and the yukka/cassava to a blender with the butter and puree until smooth and elastic.

5) Allow to cool just enough to handle, then serve with soup.

New England Clam Chowder

Ingredients 1 lb potatoes, 1 lb clams, 1 pint vegetable stock, 4 bay leaves, 1/2 tsp dill, 50ml double cream, 2 tbsp butter, 2 stalks celery, 1 white onion, 1 tbsp plain flour. Bread

Serves: 4 Preparation: 1 hour

As part of the World Cup Food Challenge 2014, this recipe represents a traditional meal of America. If, like me, you're vegetarian then separating a portion to add sweetcorn to just before the clams go in makes this really easy dual-chowder! It's a lovely hearty soup, just the thing to comfort one on a cold day (please ignore the fact that it is June!) - especially if you serve it in a bread bowl!

1) Peel and slice the potatoes into inch cubes and set aside, peel the onion and dice it along with the celery.

2) Add half the butter to the pan and sautee the onion and celery until completely soft (about 10 minutes), then add the remainder of the butter along with the flour and whisk until a roux has formed.

3) Add the potatoes, bay leaves and vegetable stock to the pan and stir through. Once the potatoes are cooked, add the clams and dill and allow to simmer for a further 5 minutes.

4) Hollow out a bread bowl by cutting a circle into the top of the crust and scooping out the soft centre with your fingers. Stir the cream into the soup, season to taste with salt and black pepper, then ladle into the bread bowl.

Bratwurst with braised cabbage

Ingredients 1 white cabbage, 1 onion, 1 tsp cloves, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp white wine or cider vinegar, 1 tsp mustard, 4 bratwurst sausages.

Serves: 2 Preparation: 30 minutes

As part of the World Cup Food Challenge 2014, this recipe represents a traditional meal of Germany. It feels like such a cliche and so unimaginative to instantly associate Germany with sausage, but if you look past the meat (typical vegetarian, eh?) and simply delight in the utter fragrant glory of the bed of cabbage, I can promise you that this dish is a national treasure for a very very good reason.

1) Peel and chop the onion into 1/2cm slices. Pop out the rings and add to a pan along with the butter and cloves. Sautee gently until the onion is completely soft and translucent and take the pan off the heat. Pick out the cloves and discard.

2) Cut the cabbage into 1/2cm slices, then slice into thin strips. Parboil for 5 minutes, drain and add to the pan of onion.

3) Return to the heat, add the vinegar and mustard and stir through until the cabbage becomes soft, adding a little extra butter for glossiness if desired.

4) Grill or fry the sausages for 6-8 minutes, then serve atop the cabbage.

Spinach, feta & beetroot cannelloni

Ingredients 1 beetroot, 200ml passata, 1 leek, 1 small white onion, 1 carrot, 400g spinach, 150g feta, 50g cheddar, 1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg, 12 cannelloni tubes, olive oil, 1/2 tsp rosemary, 1/2tsp basil, 1/2 tsp oregano, 1/2 glass red wine.

Serves: 4 Preparation: 30 minutes (plus overnight)

Words fail me to describe just how luscious this dish was. Spinach, as you know, is my absolute favourite and I would genuinely eat it three times a day without ever getting remotely bored of it. Mmmm spinach. But even those without my passion for it, will love the combination of tangy feta and fresh juicy spinach, smothered in a rich tomato and beetroot sauce. For best results, prepare a day in advance. By allowing the pasta to rest overnight, the juices from the spinach will begin to soften it, meaning it can cook for less time in the oven and avoid that horrible "leathery" texture that can happen when the sauce isn't sufficient enough to "boil" it, as dried pasta really does require this.

1) Combine the fresh spinach, nutmeg and feta in a food processor until a thick puree has formed. Fill the cannelloni tubes using a teaspoon and a little patience and transfer to an ovenproof dish. 

2) Use the grate option on your food processor to blitz the onion, leek, carrot and beetroot together, then transfer the soffrito/mirepoix to a pan with a glug of olive oil and allow to sizzle for 5 minutes until soft and juicy. I like to add a glass of red wine for extra flavour and cook it off at this stage, but this is entirely optional.

3) Add the herbs and passata, then simmer for a further 10 minutes and set aside to cool down to room temperature before pouring over the cannelloni. Allow to rest in the fridge overnight.

4) Top with the cheddar cheese, cover with foil and bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 200 degrees. Remove the foil for the last 5 minutes, then serve hot.

Cauliflower mac & cheese

Ingredients 1 cauliflower, 100ml double cream or almond milk, 1 leek, 200g cheddar and gruyere, 2 cups macaroni, 1 tsp mustard, 1 leek, 1 tbsp butter.

Serves: 2 Preparation: 30 minutes

Mac and cheese and cauliflower cheese are both, individually, comfort foods of glory. In typical fashion for this greedy, cheese-obsessed foodie, I like to have my cake and eat it too, but this dish is surprisingly light and needn't be too cheese heavy, for those who may wish to cut down on their fat intake and it's a genius way of getting vegetables into children or adults who may be fussy about vegetables for reasons best known to themselves.
Cauliflower and almond are perfect partners, the nutty flavour of the almonds goes so beautifully with the cheese and by ramping up the savoury notes with leek and mustard, less cheese is necessary to achieve the desired results. Oh if you wish you can use double cream, but seriously - the almond milk gets a massive thumbs up from me here!

1) Prepare the cauliflower by removing the leaves and slicing the stem to the base. Slice around the stem to release the florets and add to a pan of boiling water. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until the cauliflower is soft and yielding, but do take care not to overcook it or the taste will be impaired and let's face it - you're killing off the nutrients!

2) Slice the leek, add to a pan along with the butter and sizzle until soft. Transfer to a blender and pulse thoroughly, adding the almond milk, mustard and drained cauliflower bit by bit until a smooth puree is formed.

3) Simmer the macaroni for 6-8 minutes in boiling, salted water, then drain and return to the pan.

4) Pass the cauliflower, leek and almond mixture through a sieve and into the pan, adding half of the cheese (grated) to stir through the mixture.

5) Transfer to and ovenproof dish and top with the remaining grated cheese. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes at 200 degrees and then serve hot. I personally prefer a gooey cheese topping to a crispy golden one, and besides you don't want the gorgeous, unctuous macaroni to dry out, but this is of course a matter of taste. Should you be the sort of person who prefers a solid slab of pasta, then by all means cook it for longer! (I'm afraid I must judge you just a little though, especially if you also like mac and cheese pies... *rolls eyes*)

Chicken risotto

Ingredients 1 pint chicken stock, a good handful of roast chicken, 1 stalk celery, 1 carrot, 1 small white onion, 1 tbsp butter, 1 glass white wine.

Serves: 3 Preparation: 25 minutes

Because I'm a vegetarian, when I roast a chicken for my husband and son, there is inevitably a decent amount of meat remaining. As I always boil up the carcass for stock, chicken soup is often the next dish on the list - but why not utilise that lovely fresh stock and leftover meat for a chicken risotto?All risottos (no matter what the ingredients) can be made in 3 simple stages. The first is called tostatura - coating the rice in fat, the second involves cooking off some alcohol and the third involves releasing the starch from the rice one ladle of stock at a time.

1) Finely dice, or blitz in a food processor the carrot, onion and celery in preparation for your soffrito/mirepoix or "aromatics" as we so unromantically refer to this magical mixture in England. Transfer to a pan along with a generous knob of butter and sizzle sizzle sizzle away until the onion, celery and carrot are completely soft. This takes around 10 minutes by which time the carrot will have bleached down to a rather pleasing golden orange.

2) Add the risotto rice and stir until the rice becomes transparent, revealing a white dot in the centre. Add a good glug of white wine and continue stirring until it has cooked off, then add the first ladleful of stock.

3) Continue adding the stock to the risotto, one ladle at a time, adding the chicken with the second to last ladle of stock. Serve hot, finishing with an indulgent dash of cream if you wish. Remember, risotto should be soupy, not solid!

Carrot, apple & cardamom salad

Ingredients 1 Carrot, 1 apple, 1/2 tsp freshly ground cardamom, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 orange.

Preparation: 5 minutes

To say a salad is supposedly a simple affair for lazy Summer days, the majority that I make involve very little of the "chuck it in a bowl and scoff it" mentality. But whilst life is too short for artfully decorating a plate with blobs of apple gel and dill emulsions at home, I do believe a little marinating goes a long way.
This salad is breathtaking in its simplicity - shaved apple and carrot with a gorgeous, zingy orange and cardamom dressing to bring out the flavour of the carrot and stop the apple from browning (should you wish to brown bag it.)

1) Peel the carrot and apple, discard the skin and then simply carry on peeling! Transfer the slivers of fruit and vegetable flesh into a bowl and set aside.

2) Combine the olive oil with the juice of the orange, season with a tiny smigdeon of salt (no, not a pinch - a smidge!), black pepper and the cardamom.

3) Pour the dressing into the bowl, toss the carrot and apple until the cardamom and pepper is evenly distributed and either serve or set aside until required.

Roast beetroot & tomato soup‏

Ingredients 1 lb tomatoes, 2 beetroots, 1 potato, 1/2 pint vegetable stock, 1/2 bulb garlic, paprika.

Serves: 4 Preparation: 1 hour

Tomato and beetroot are a lovely combination of sweet and tangy flavours and this soup has a wonderful silky texture. Great fired up with extra chillies!

1) To prepare the beetroot, wash it and slice off the stalks and leaves. Roast, along with the tomatoes and half a bulb of garlic in a covered dish in the oven for 30 minutes.

2) Peel and dice a potato and simmer in vegetable stock until soft then strain, retaining the stock.

3) Carefully peel the beetroot with the nick of a knife, then puree it, along with the potato, garlic and tomatoes in a blender - ensure all the roasting juices are used! Pass the mixture through a sieve and into a pan. Add a little water until the desired consistency is reached.

4) Season with salt and paprika to taste and serve hot.

Twice baked potatoes: kale & hazelnut pesto

Ingredients 200g kale, 100g hazelnuts, parmigiano, 1 lemon, 20g basil, basil oil, 1 small onion.

Preparation: 2 hours

Cooking the perfect baked potato is an art form, and filling it is an exercise in creativity that I never get tired of. Twice baked potatoes are glorious - a crispy shell filled with fluffy potato overlaid with gungey, creamy swirls of yumminess. Kale pesto alone is unbelievably satisfying, but adding onion really gives it an extra dimension.

1) To make the perfect baked potato.

2) Fold the kale leaves in half, slice away the stalk and discard. 

3) Add the hazelnuts into your food processor and pulse until they resemble fine crumbs. Add the parmigiano and onion (peeled and sliced into quarters), then add the kale and basil leaves bit by bit until everything is thoroughly pureed. Squeeze in a little lemon juice, salt and black pepper to taste.

4) Add the kale mixture to a pan along with the basil oil and stir on a low heat until the kale is soft and the onions are cooked. (Raw kale is wonderfully springy, by the time the onions are cooked, this quality should no longer be present)

5) Slice open the potato and scoop out as much of the potato as possible without compromising the integrity of the structure. (Oh yes, I went there!).

6) Stir the potato in with the kale pesto, then spoon back into the potato shells and bake for a further 10-15 minutes before serving.