I struggle with lunchtimes generally. I can’t eat sandwiches into infinity, the mundanity and repetition blows my mind. So when I’m offered something a little different to try to pep things up I nearly bite their hand off.

I was sent a selection of “Skinny One” ready meals. Let me get this out of the way: I don’t like the phrase ready meal, it implies a slop of sauce with a meagre piece of unnamed meat. This does not describe these little pots at all: most have a layer of perky, fresh looking veg; some rice, pasta or noodle; and a vibrant sauce. You microwave them for a few minutes with a brisk stir. I managed to try them all bar the Thai coconut chicken, which I was assured is pleasantly spicy and creamy. I started with Bombay Spiced chicken, which started fairly plain but after a few mouthfuls the flavours start to build and it ends up a very satisfying “curry”. To its credit a Bangladeshi colleague also tried one and really enjoyed it, which surprised me! I thought it might be a case of coals to Newcastle but it seemed to be a well-received lunch. The prawn and orzo pasta was very tasty, leafy and fresh with a lovely fruity sauce. I found the Tuscan chicken pasta a bit disappointing. It’s somewhat bland and not particularly satisfying. What is consistent about all the meals is the texture of the meat: so tender! You wouldn’t expect it in this kind of pot but it’s very welcome. That combined with a dose of veg means that at 350 calories each makes them a relatively guilt-free meal.

On the whole I really enjoyed these lunch pots. While I won’t be having one every day it has inspired me to make similar lunches by parboiling noodles, pouring over a sachet of stir-fry sauce, throwing a handful of mixed veg on top and taking to work in a lunchbox ready for microwaving.

To find out more about the range visit their Facebook page.

Just the other week I was bowled over by Jamie’s empire chicken. I was also taken by his prediction that if you ask the British public what their favourite meals are, they’ll say “roast chicken” and “a curry”, hence his Imperial mash-up. But my mind wandered to that other pinnacle of British food, the fish and chips. What would this look like as a crossover?

As it turns out, hilarious fun. Spicy yet familiar.

Empire fish and chips (serves 2):

For the chips:

2 – 3 medium maris piper potatoes

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon nigella seeds

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon madras curry powder

For the fish:

150g plain flour

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon honey

Carbonated water (enough to make a gloopy batter, approx 300ml)

2 cod fillets

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Cut the potatoes into nice fat chip shapes and drop them into salted boiling water. When tender drain them and allow to steam dry a little. Toss in the spices with a big pinch of salt, toss in oil and pop in the oven for 45 minutes until crispy.
2. Meanwhile make the fish. Heat some rapeseed or vegetable oil in a pan or fryer to 180°C. Whisk up the batter ingredients and then lay the fish in the batter. Allow the excess to drip off and fry the fish for approx 8 – 10 minutes until golden brown on both sides. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.

I took a rare trip to Waitrose armed with gift vouchers, which meant I could spoil myself a bit buying things I wouldn’t usually reach for. I picked up some of this which at £2.29 for a little sachet of sauce is bit pricey. I picked up some sirloin steak too and thought it would be a good match. So I pan-fried the steak and while it rested warmed the sauce through in the same pan, and served it with some potato wedges.

Stone me it was good. Lick-the-plate good. A smooth mustardy flavour but packing seven shades of umami moreishness with each mouthful. According to the man himself it’s a version of sauce Robert bolstered by one of Heston’s favourite ingredients, konbu. I’d love to try making this at home sometime, but if I couldn’t be bothered I’ve been convinced this is worth the money for a special dinner.

What’s that you say? You have leftovers from Christmas Day? Unheard of.

Previously I’ve made Jamie’s sweet leek pie with leftover poultry and it’s brill. Using that as an inspiration I made a mushroom version and it’s just as good.

Turkey and mushroom pie (serves 4 – 6):

1 onion, diced

1 sprig rosemary, leaves picked and chopped

300g chestnut mushrooms, sliced

Christmas dinner leftovers, about 800g (I had turkey and stuffing)

500ml stock (ideally turkey stock made from the carcass, but chicken would be fine)

300ml creme fraiche

A sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

1. Heat a little oil in a large casserole dish, then add the onions, rosemary and mushrooms. Stir fry a little and cover with a lid to sweat for about ten minutes. Add the turkey leftovers, stock and creme fraiche and simmer for ten further minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Pop a sieve over a saucepan and tip the turkey mix into the sieve. When the creamy gravy has all strained off transfer the mushroomy meat to a baking dish and cover with the pastry. Brush with the beaten egg and bake for 30 minutes or until golden. Serve with the creamy gravy that has been warmed through over the hob.

A little gem from Nigella Christmas. I am firmly with her on this one: I don’t know how anybody manages much more than toast on Christmas morning. And while I didn’t make these on 25th December they were perfect for a couple of days later.

From Nigella Lawson’s Christmas Morning Muffins.

Cranberry muffins (makes about 12):

250g plain flour

2½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g caster sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

good grating of fresh nutmeg

Zest and juice of 1 orange

125ml milk

75ml vegetable oil

1 egg

175g dried cranberries

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Bung all the ingredients except the cranberries in a food mixer and blend until smooth, then fold in the fruit. Dollop into cake cases and bake for about 12 – 15 minutes until golden and risen.

Nigella just made Christmas dinner completely awesome for me this year. Along with her failsafe recipe for turkey, this yule log saved me from one of the things I don’t much care for: Christmas pudding. I do however, love chocolate and one more tweak converted it into one a riff on one my favourite things in the whole world: black forest gateau. Yummy.

(There was one thing stopping this being Christmas perfection for me: decorative pine cones. Could I find pine cones in the woods of Maldon, Rayleigh and Hockley combined? Could I ‘eck as like.)

This recipe is adapted from one in Nigella Christmas.

Black forest yule log (serves about 10 – 12):

For the sponge:

6 eggs, separated

150g caster sugar

50g cocoa powder

3–5 teaspoons icing sugar to decorate

For the filling:

1 jar black cherry jam

For the icing:

175g dark chocolate, chopped

250g icing sugar

225g soft butter

2 tablespoons kirsch

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Whisk the egg whites until thick and then whisk in 50g sugar. In a separate bowl whisk the yolks and remaining sugar together until thick and creamy, then stir in the cocoa. Fold in the whites a third at a time.
3. Grease a large rectangular baking tray, put a generous sheet of baking parchment on top then grease that too for good measure. Pour over the batter and bake for 20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Turn out the cooked sponge on to another piece of parchment and roll up gently to keep it’s shape for later.
4. For the icing melt the chocolate gently in the microwave. Beat the icing sugar and butter together until smooth then stir in the cooled chocolate and kirsch.
5. Unroll the sponge and spread over the jam, then roll back up again. Put on your serving dish or board at this point and then smooth over the icing. (You might want to trim off an end here to make a branch if you can be bothered). Use a fork or toothpick to make pretty woody lines in the icing, then store in a cool place until needed. Sieve over some icing sugar before serving.

Waitrose very kindly sent me Delia’s Christmas Cake in a box. I gleefully unwrapped it, opened the box and took out the contents.

Erm, is that it? Some fruit, some flour, some sugar, some nuts, some spice… and that’s about it. £10 for a box of store-cupboard ingredients where you have to provide your own icing / marzipan etc… So I dutifully made it (goodness that batter’s dense) and served it up on Christmas day. It was fine but no more special than any other rich fruit cake you care to make at this time of year.

I’m really glad they sent it to me as at full price it’s a swizz. At the moment they’re clearing out Christmas stocks at £2.50 while stocks last, which seems a bit fairer to me.

Perhaps surprisingly I’d never cooked a whole turkey before: on previous years when hosting someone else provided the turkey on another occasion I went for chicken. So on your maiden voyage into turkey cooking, what technique do you follow to ensure no-one is disappointed (least of all me!) ?

I was initially tempted by Matthew Fort’s method for slow-roasting the bird, especially given my previous success with long roasting times. But I just couldn’t take the risk and instead went for the technique of that doyenne of domesticity, Nigella. I grabbed a copy of Nigella Christmas from the library and swotted up. She favours a brining followed by a hot, quick roasting. I’m a big fan of brining poultry and with trusty meat thermometer in hand I had to follow this one. And I’m so glad I did. It was no bother to prepare as it is done a couple of days beforehand, and by using a foil roasting tray I could chuck it on the recycling pile and not have to scrub the pan after cooking. I had a 5.5kg bird and anticipated a cooking time of 2½ hrs and bang on then it was done. In fact I probably could have removed it 15 minutes earlier as the very outer skin was a little tough and the internal temperature was in the mid 80s, well within the safe range. That aside the flavour was lovely and texture great, so I was very pleased with bowing down to Queen Nigella’s recipe.

So that was the main event. The roast potatoes, well you might recognise that recipe. Sprouts were also cooked to a previous tradition in my house, while carrots were simply steamed – there’s more than enough flavours going on to bother with tweaking these too much. There were also maple-roast parsnips, Jamie Oliver’s “get-ahead” gravy which I’ve made before and is absolutely terrific (a friend of mine commented that it “tastes of everything you put into it”), and on this occasion raised its game with turkey roasting juices and a quick turkey stock.

Other people may raise an eyebrow at packet stuffing, but I grew up on the stuff and a roast poultry dinner just isn’t the same without it. Yes, I know it is little more than a packet of dust mixed with water making it no more sophisticated than a Pot Noodle but I love it.

I can’t remember ever having bread sauce before but read this recipe on Recipe Rifle which, reading between the lines must be a Josceline Dimbleby recipe and therefore failsafe. However after hours of cooking it was watery. The flavour was gorgeous but unfortunately just too wet. I suspect I used rubbish bread which wasn’t in the mood to absorb liquid but I would definitely like to try it again.

Bread sauce, all in all a success! Very pleased with the results. Merry Christmas!

(I’ve presented it below as an itinerary as a reminder where I saved time for next year. I aimed for a 2.30pm dinner)

Roast turkey with all my trimmings  (serves 7 with leftovers):

For the gravy:

6 chicken pieces (wings, thighs etc)

3 onions, quartered

3 celery sticks, chopped

3 carrots, chopped

2 sprigs rosemary

2 tablespoons flour

1 pint boiling water

Turkey giblets

For the turkey & brine:

5.5kg turkey

10 pints water

125 grams table salt

3 tablespoons black peppercorns

1 cinnamon stick

4 cloves

2 tablespoons juniper berries

4 star anise

2 tablespoons mustard seeds

200g caster sugar

2 onions, quartered

1 piece ginger

4 tablespoons maple syrup

4 tablespoons clear honey

1 orange, quartered

For the bread sauce:

1 large onion, very finely diced

150g wholemeal bread, crusts on

6 cloves

4 cardamom pods

½ a nutmeg

75g butter

900ml milk

300ml double cream

For the yorkshire puddings:

4 eggs

4 heaped tablespoons flour

Milk

Vegetable oil

For the potatoes:

1kg potatoes

200ml goose fat

3 cloves garlic

Peel of 1 orange

1 sprig of rosemary

For the maple parsnips:

6 parsnips, peeled and quartered

2 tablespoons maple syrup

Red wine vinegar

For the brussels sprouts:

500g brussels sprouts

2 rashers bacon, diced

1 vac-pack of chestnuts

Etc:

6 carrots, peeled and sliced

1 packet stuffing

Sausages wrapped in bacon

• 3 days before: GRAVY – Preheat the oven to 180°C. Chuck the veg and herbs in a roasting dish and top with the chicken pieces. Roast for about an hour then transfer to a hob. Shake over the flour and stir all around until a thick paste forms, then pour over the water. Allow to bubble away for about 45 minutes and then sieve the solids off. The gravy can be frozen until needed.
• 2 days before: TURKEY – chuck the turkey with all the brine ingredients in a large lidded container and top with water until the bird is covered. Leave in a cold place (I kept mine in the garage).
• 1 day before: BREAD SAUCE – Preheat the oven to 130°C. Combine all the ingredients in a baking dish, cover with foil and bake for 2 hours. Refrigerate until needed.
• 1 day before: YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS – Whisk the eggs and flour together with a pinch each of salt and pepper in a measuring jug and add enough milk to make a thin custardy-textured batter. Cover and refrigerate until needed.
• 1 day before: ROAST POTATOES – peel the potatoes but keep the peelings. I boil the peelings with the potatoes to impart super-earthy flavour, by putting them inside my cheapest (clean) dishcloth tied at the top. Cut the potatoes into golf ball-size chunks. Get a pan of water on to a rolling boil with a hefty hand of salt and boil the potatoes + skins for about 15 mins, or until they are super-tender. Drain and return to the hot pan (off the heat) to steam dry. When cool cover with clingfilm and refrigerate until needed.
• 9am that day: TURKEY – remove the turkey from the brine, drain and pat with kitchen paper. Leave on a rack over the sink to continually drip-dry and come up to room temperature.
• 9.30am: GRAVY – put the giblets, neck, any turkey trimmings you have into a pan with a quartered onion and barely cover with water. Leave on a low simmer for a couple of hours.
• 10am: CARROTS & SPROUTS – put the carrots into a steamer, with the sprouts on the top tier. Halve the sprouts if they are on the large side. You are bonkers if you put crosses into the bases.
• 10.30am: PARSNIPS – toss the parsnips in a little oil along with the maple syrup, plus a dash of red wine vinegar. Pop them in a roasting dish until needed. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
• 11am: TURKEY – stick it in the oven. I recommend a disposable roasting dish to avoid dishwash insanity.
• 1.15pm – 1.30pm: TURKEY – you should be checking this to see whether the bird is done around this time. When ready bring it out and cover with foil and a tea towel. When it comes out, stick the goose fat in a large roasting dish and put in the oven for a couple of minute to get sizzly hot.
• 1.40pm: POTATOES – put the potatoes into the hot fat.
• 1.45pm: STUFFING – mix the stuffing mix with boiling water and leave to sit. Put the parsnips in.
• 2.00pm: LOTS – dot the stuffing with butter and put in the oven. Cover the bases of a yorkie tin with a layer of oil and get in the oven to heat up. Get the gravy and bread sauce into saucepans warming up. Tip the turkey stock into the gravy too. Depending on how salty they are, you might want to add some of the juices from the turkey roasting tray. Bung the sausages in bacon into the oven too. Give the potatoes a quick toss and add the garlic, orange and rosemary.
• 2.05pm: YORKSHIRES – carefully pour the batter into the sizzling yorkie tin.
• 2.10pm: VEG – Pop the steamer on for 20 mins.
• 2.20pm: SPROUTS – get a frying pan over a medium heat and fry off the bacon. When coloured tip in the sprouts and chestnuts, seasoning liberally. After 5 mins take off the heat and add a drizzle of maple syrup.
• 2.25pm: TURKEY – carve (or better still, get someone else to do it).
• 2.30pm: Serve and eat!

Sproutotto (serves 4):

1 onion, finely diced

1 sprig rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped

4 handfuls of risotto rice

Splash of white wine

About 1 litre vegetable stock (I tried Knorr’s herb stock pot for this one, which was very tasty)

300g Brussels Sprouts

Worcestershire sauce

Large handful of grated parmesan

1. Get the stock simmering gently in a saucepan.
2. Fry the onion and rosemary gently in a large casserole dish. When softened add the rice, crank up the heat and stir for a minute. Add the wine and let bubble away to nothing. Turn down to a medium heat and start adding the stock a ladleful at a time, allowing it to almost disappear before adding the next.
3. After about 20 minutes stock reducing, pass the Sprouts through a food processor to finely shred them. Get a separate pan on and add a little oil. Fry the sprouts for a couple of minutes and then shake over a good helping of Worcestershire sauce along with some seasoning.
4. Once the rice is tender add the sprouts, parmesan and a knob of butter. Give the rice a jolly good beating, then pop a lid on the pot and turn the heat off. Leave for a couple of minutes and check the seasoning before serving.

WordPress have really improved the sharing and following aspect of their blog networks; it promotes posts being propagated around the network and readership increases all round. I saw a post featuring potato dauphinoise fly past my nose and it reminded me how long it had been since I had a decent dauph.

The really clever part with this dish is raising the temperature of the cream up first to get the seasoning right – all too often a dauphinoise can be bland as it takes much more salt than you expect.

It comes out lovely and thick, spikes of garlic just offsetting the richness beautifully. Just make sure you don’t eat it all and save a bit for while you’re doing the washing-up, as an hour spent cooling down allows the potato to soak all that cream back up again…

Thanks to Gluttony For Beginners for the recipe!

Potato dauphinoise (serves 4 as a side dish):

1kg new potatoes, sliced about 5mm thick

600ml double cream

100ml milk

4 cloves garlic, minced

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
2. Put the potatoes into salted boiling water and simmer for 5 minutes – you just want to get them started, so drain them at this point. At the same time bring the cream, milk to a simmer with the garlic. Add some seasoning and keep tasting until it tastes right.
3. Put a splash of the cream into the base of a large baking dish, add the potatoes then pour over the remaining cream. Make sure everything gets covered, and dot with butter. Bake for 30 minutes until the potatoes are knife-tender and the top is golden-brown.