1. My second favourite cheese is Edam.
2. My wife is Danish.
3. I look great in a kaftan.
4. I have three bad habits. One of which is very popular.
5. I have a tattoo.

There you go then. I feel sort of naked now. Is that normal?

For some extra girth, you will need

• 85g pudding rice
• 150ml (1/4 pint) water
• 500ml (1 pint) milk
• 1 teasponn of vanilla essence
• 2 to 3 punches of sugar
• 50g almonds (whole and blanched)
• 300ml (just over 1/2 a pint) whipping cream

You need to be quite precise with these measurements. So investing in scales and a measuring jug would be a good thing. Alternatively, you may know of a “girl” that has “domestic equipment”. Be not afraid of them, they will help you. What’s more, 85g of pudding rice really doesn’t look like much but do not be fooled into adding more. This rice will soon absorb all the liquid.So, to get going, in a pan large enough to hold the ingredients, add the rice, water, milk and sugar and bring to the boil. When bubblation is reached, turn down the heat for some simmeration.

2/. Just simmer it for about 40 minutes or until the rice has absorbed the liquid. Not sloppy either mind, or you will end up with some kind of pudding / soup hybrid. Either way, the pudding needs to be cold for the next bit. With method 1 you will have a cold pudd but with method 2 you must wait.

Do not worry if it looks a bit stodgy, Stodgy at this stage is good, when we add the whipped cream, it will loosen up. Whip the cream in a manly fashion with a whisk, or use an electric version. Get the cream nice and stiff but don’t go to far or you will end up with butter. Next you must gently fold the whipped cream into the rice. Fold?, I hear you ask. The idea is not to mix it to hard. This will just get rid of the air you just beat into it. You just want to combine the rice and cream.

Finally, crush up the almonds keeping one whole one to the side. Best way is to put them in a clear plastic bag and beat them with a rolling pin, or a wooden spoon. You will end up with crushed nuts. Take a while to get your breath back then carry on. Fold your nuts into the pudding gently, including the whole one. Whoever gets the whole almond, wins a prize, usually a car, or a smallish country.

This pudding is traditionally served with a cherry sauce and, there is fierce debate in Denmark as to whether it should be a hot or a cold sauce. How the long winter evenings must fly by. Don’t get involved – use your favourite jam. Cherry, blackberry, raspberry…. whichever you fancy. You can even heat some up and join the debate. Careful you don’t burn your tongue though.

Incidentally, this pudding goes rather well with the following choons: B52′s – “6060-842″, The Clash – “White Man in Hammersmith Palais” and Ian Dury and The Blockheads – “Sweet Gene Vincent”

Also, whilst this may look a touch involved, it is infact fairly simple. Take your time, do each bit in the order that it is written and keep the recipe to hand. The hardest bit is the custard but all you need to remember, is to pour slowly and keep stirring.

here’s what you’ll need…

• 1 Large orange zest
• 50g sultanas
• Grand Marnier/Brandy/Whisky (just one…)
• 200g Brioche
• 150ml milk
• 150ml double cream
• 50g Maya Gold orange spiced chocolate (or just good quality dark chocolate)
• 1 medium egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 50g sugar

Take the zest from the orange using the really small “setting” on the grater. You can get a special tool for the job, which is great but only if you do a lot of zesting. Put half of the zest in a bowl with the sultanas or raisins if you prefer. Pour in a large measure and a splash more of booze. Grand Marnier is great because it has orange essence in it, but Brandy is good and so is Whisky. If you have none of these or refrain from alcohol you could warm them in a pan with water. The idea is to get them nice and plump. If you’re going the boozy way, you can do this bit the day before but a couple of hours is enough.

Next, Brioche. Brioche is a french bread made with butter. It’s quite sweet, so good for a pud, and because there is butter in it, it saves us having to spread it on. The loaf I got was 400g and I used half of it cut into slices a little less than a thumbs width. Then cut those slices in half. Smear the bottom of an ovenproof dish with a finger scoop of butter (or a little oil) and cover the bottom with half the bricoche.This is so it will not stick. Then put half the sultana/booze mix on top, the rest of the Brioche in another layer and finally the rest of the sultanas.

I used a 20cm cake tin which fit the pud perfectly. But it doesn’t have to be a round dish, it can be any dish, as long as it’s ovenproof and about the same size. If you’re not sure, do a dry run with the bread to see how well it fits. So long as half the bread covers the bottom, you’re on to a winner.

As the liquid begins to boil, turn down the heat and add the chocolate, a few chunks at a time, whilst whisking. When it has all been mixed in, slowly add the chocolte milk to the pale and frothy egg mix, whisking all the time. If you can get someone to help here, it would be a bonus. One pour slowly, one whisk fast. If not, just take your time. When you’ve combined the lot pour it over the Brioche, fill all the litlle gaps and don’t forget the top. Now just leave it on the side for t least 15 minutes, preferably longer. You want the bread to soak up all the liquid.

Ingrediants

• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 pumpkin (half the size of a football)
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 big leeks
• 1 green chilli
• 1 thumb of ginger
• A punch of curry powder (madras, or whichever you fancy)
• A pint of chicken stock
• 2 dollops of sour cream

First things first – 1/4 the pumpkin and take the seeds. Then chop it into chunks, 2 to 3 inches should do it. Put it on a roasting tray and cover with olive oil. Use your hands and get familiar with the pumpkin to make sure it’s well oiled up. Then chuck it in the oven at about 180′c. I am afraid I have no idea of the gas equivalent so I would think medium. Which is probably about half way round the dial. If someone could post up what gas mark that is…. Roast the pumkin till its starts to brown, I reckon about 15 to 20 mins, but keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn.

Dice the onion and put in a pan with some hot oil. Turn the heat down low, put a lid on it and sweat it off. This should take about 15 minutes. While it sweats, finely chop the chilli (seeds and all), the ginger and the garlic. Add this to the sweated onions with a punch of curry powder. Sensi deemed that we would use madras, but you can use the curry of your choice. Roughly chop the leeks and chuck these in the pan when the onions have sweated off.

Add the roasted pumpkins to the sweated onions and spice and mix in 1 pint of chicken stock. cook it all up on low heat for abot 30 minutes, by which time it will all of softened up well. Bung it all the blender and whizz till it’s smooth. Back in the pan and add two big dollops of sour cream and stir. There you go, soup.

Madras is a hot curry and this was a very spicey soup. So if your palate is a little scared, use something milder, or just use a bit less. And you could just fry the pumpkin instead of roasting but, I think it’s a touch sweeter when roasted.

Ingredients

• 250g (or a couple of D-Cups) of Dried Chickpeas (soaked overnight)
• 5 garlic cloves
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 dollops of tahini
• A punch of ground coriander
• A punch of ground cumin
• 1/2 bunch of fresh corriander
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt and Pepper

Put the dried chickpeas in a big bowl and cover with plenty of water. Soak them overnight. Drain the water from the chickpeas, lob them in the blender and give them a swift whizz to roughly chop them. Chop the cloves of garlic and throw them in with the chickpeas and whizz again. Then toss in the diced onion, 2 dollops of tahini, a punch of ground corriander and a punch of cumin. Give it another blend. Roughly chop the fresh corriander and add this to the mix.

Sqeeze the lemon juice out into a bowl. Tip the chickpea mix into another bowl and give it a stir with a wooden spoon. Now you need to add the lemon juice to the mixture but don’t do it al at once. You need to bind the dry ingredients together but you don’t want it too wet. You need to be able to form it into shapes about the size of a ping pong ball, without it falling apart. Don’t worry if it gets to wet, you can always add some chickpea flour or garam flour to firm it up.

Chickpeas are quite dry so you need something wet with it. Peel and dice a cucumber and put it in a bowl. Finely chop a small bunch of mint – finely, or else it may stick in your throat – and mix it with the cucumber. Add two big blobs of greek yoghurt and a splash of lemon juice, 1 second of olive oil and some seasoning. There’s your wetness.

Put a frying pan on a high heat with olive oil. You’re going to shallow fry, so the oil needs to be about 1cm deep. while it’s heating up, make your ping pong sized balls of falafel. Flatten the balls with your hand so they are about an inch thick. This allows them to cook quicker. Do about 6-8 falafel’s at a time. No more, because if you put too many in the oil at once, you will lower the temperature of said oil and they may well stick. Put your oven on a low heat, so you can put the cooked one’s in to keep warm if you are doing more than one batch.

Serve your falafels with pitta bread that should be warmed under the grill. Slice open the pitta, stuff in several falafels, some sliced tomato and a dollop of yoghurty mintness. Smashing. Incidentally, tahini is made from ground sesame seeds and is easy to get hold of.

Ingredients

• 2 Red Peppers
• 2 Green chili
• 2 Red chili
• 5 chunky garlic cloves
• A teaspoon of fennel seeds
• Pinch of saffron
• 1/2 punch of cumin
• 1/2 punch of corriander
• 2 seconds of olive oil

First off turn the grill on so it gets good and hot while you halve and de-seed the pepers and chilis. Pop them under the grill to blacken and blister the skins. When they are blistered, put them in a bowl with cellophane over the top and leave to cool down. Then marvel, as hey presto, the skins simply fall away, perhaps with a little knife encouragement.

When the peppers and chilis are blackening, roast the fennel seeds. Easiest way to do this is pop them into a dry fring pan and heat them up. Keep them moving about so they don’t burn and roast them for about 2 – 3 mins, when you will able to smell the fennel. When roasted, grind them up. You could do this in a manly style with pestle and mortar (a bowl and a stick) or take a leaf from Sensi’s book and use a coffee grinder.

Next to the blender. Peel the garlic and whizz them up in the blender. Add a pinch of saffron and the skinned peppers and chilis. More blending. Then chuck in the cumin, cooriander, roasted ground fennel and 2 seconds of extra virgin olive oil. A final blend and you are left with a fiery, aromatic paste.

One taste and I can feel the Scirroco blowing accross my cheek.

Harissa is a must with cous cous, can be used as a marinade on pork or chicken, or just smeared on bread.

Ingredients

• 6 chunky garlic cloves
• 1 thumb of ginger
• 1 green chili
• 1 medium onion
• 2-3 seconds olive oil
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon ground corriander
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 tablespoon mild chili powder
• 500g Puy lentils (about 3 D-cups)
• 1 can coconut milk

First off, finely slice the garlic so you have thin slivers. Fry them off in a pan with your olive oil till they go a nutty brown colour. Peel and dice the ginger, chili and onion, then add them to the nutty coloured garlics. Add a good pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper, bung the lid on and let it all sweat.

When it has all sweated off, you can add your spices and another second of olive oil. So that’s tablespoons of; ground cumin, ground corriander, curry powder and mild chili powder. Give it all a good stir and when it has nicely mixed, shimmy in the lentils. Cover with hot water and bring to bubblation, then simmeration till its thick, which will probably be about 30 mins.Add coconut milk 10 mins from the end. Less liquid , more cooking for a thicker dahl or vice versa.

This really is pretty simple and hard to get wrong. Certainly brings the sweat out of you which is probably like a detox or something. So it can go down as health food then.

• 1 medium red onion
• About 8 – 10 mushrooms
• A splash of balsamic vinegar
• A splash of soy sauce
• 1/2 pint of chicken stock
• salt and pepper

Put a pan big enough to hold all the ingredients on the heat with three seconds of olive oil. While it’s getting hot, turn your attention to the onion. Finely slice the red onion then add it to the now hot oil with some salt and pepper and sweat it in the usual style.

While the onions sweat, finely slice the mushrooms. When the onions start to caramelise, add 1 second of balsamic vinegar. Caramelising is when the sugar in the onions starts to go brown but not burnt. It’s a fine line, don’t cross it. In with the sliced mushrooms and a splash of soy sauce, then in with 1/2 pint of chicken stock. Give it all a good stir and keep cooking it till it is the consistentcy you require. That is to say, if it is a bit watery, reduce it a bit . It needs to be thicker than coffee but thinner than custard.

Gravy is a must with sausages but goes with just about anything dry. I think it would even be ok with a roast. Give it a try and if it doesn’t work, don’t do it again.

Ingredients

• A splash of Olive Oil
• A splash of water
• 4 pinches of fennel seeds
• Savoy cabbage (the wrinkley one)

Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the heart. That is the hard bit at the bootom which would be quite tough. So get shot of it. Then slice the cabbage quite thinly starting at either end. This way you will get lovely strips of cabbage.

Get your pan (with a lid), add a splash of olive oil and the fennel seeds then turn up the heat. When its hot chuck in your cabbage, being super carefull not to splash hot oil on your sensitive arms. This will be the frying lightly part. Keep the cabbage moving about with your wooden spoon, which achieves two goals; stirring the fennel in and not burning the cabbage. This will only take a couple of minutes.

When the lightly frying part is done, carfully add a splash of water. I say carefully, as, while the oil will be well mixed in, it is notoriously bad at mixing with water and may just spit at you a bit. How much is a splash? Enough to cover the bottom of the pan, I reckon. You can always add more. Bung the lid on, thus making your closed container. And braise away, for about, ooh 10 minutes. The best way to know if its ready is to try a bit, if you like what you taste , it’s ready.

It went really well with our Bangers and Mash. It adds a nice bit of colour and it’s good for you, so there. Try it with anything you fancy and see if it works

• 4 eggs (separated)
• 4 Tablespoons of sugar
• 1/2 a cup of double cream
• A cup of strong coffee
• A teaspoon of honey
• Packet Amaretti biscuits
• 500g Tub of mascarpone
• Vanilla essence
• 4 squares of good quality chocolate (grated)

Begin by separating the yolks from the whites. With the 4 yolks in a bowl, add the sugar and then beat the mixture until it pales. Beat the eggwhites in a different bowl until they form soft peaks. Whip the cream until thick in a suitable container. Make a cup of really strong coffee, instant or real, just make sure it’s good and strong so you get a decent coffee flavour and stir in a teaspoon of honey. When the coffee is cold (perhaps make it earlier) put it in a bowl and add the Amaretti biscuits. Cover them with coffee then put them to the side on a plate.

Now, plop the mascarpone into a bowl and add the pale yolk and sugar mix, folding in gently. Do the same with the whipped cream, folding gently, grasping the shaft of your tool firmly and working it into a crescendo. Stir in a splash of vanilla essence and then really gently, fold in the egg whites, being carefull not to beat the air out of those fluffy whites.

For the finished pudding you will need a bowl big enough for all the ingredients you have prepared. Preferably a glass one to show off this fantastic pud. Place a layer of the coffee soaked biscuits in the bottom of your recepticle and cover them with the creamy mixture. Atop of that place the rest of the biscuits as evenly as possible and then the rest of the mixture. Finally, you need to add the grated chocolate. It is easier to grate the chocolate on to a plate first and goes without saying that it will be easier if the chocolate is cold, so use it from the fridge. Also, it looks better if you grate using the finer setting on your grater. Sprinkle the chocolate on top of the pudding.
Then bang it in the fridge for as long as possible. At the very least a couple of hours but best overnight, when the biscuits will relax a bit more. My family are all wheat intolerant, so I shall try this recipe with macaroons and will let you all know how it goes.