Another retro thought …

and another candidate to dunk in the mayo – Stromboli – it would also be perfect to pop on a buffet table, especially if you've got younger guests – it's just rolled up pizza after all!

Stromboli

400g prepared pizza dough or ready-made base

4 tbsp tomato paste

100g thinly sliced salami

120g baby spinach

100g thinly sliced mozzarella cheese

1 tbsp olive oil

Generous sprinkle of oregano or garlic Italian seasoning

Pre-heat your oven 220fan/200c/Gas 8. Place a large baking tray in the oven.

Place a dampened J cloth on your work surface. Place a piece of baking parchment on top of the cloth – it will stop it sliding – make sure you leave enough to get hold of – you're going to lift it onto the hot baking tray that's in the oven at the moment. Unroll the pizza dough gently on the parchment.

Spread the tomato paste onto the base. Add the slices of salami, followed by the spinach and then the mozzarella and sprinkle with the oregano or garlic Italian seasoning. Roll up the base from the shortest side and brush with the olive oil - make sure it's seam-side down when placed on the tray.

WITH CARE remove the tray from the oven and then carefully lift the parchment and the rolled up pizza onto it. Place back in the oven for 20/25 minutes until golden brown – check at 20 minutes.

When removed from the oven slice into portions to suit and serve.

Choose any of your favourite pizza toppings to create your own Stromboli – the fastest pizza ever.

You'll need an oblong base for the Stromboli – it looks like the biggest sausage roll ever that you'll then slice! I'd suggest Asda's own brand - found in the chiller cabinet - for the prepared pizza dough - £1.00 per 400g pack.

Another perfect emergency item for your freezer stash.

The holidays are short this year – they fall in the middle of the week – however there's a weekend to follow after New Year so still time for a final festive treat or two before reining in the waistline!

Alternatively ...

… you could add two small items to your shopping list – a 1kg bag of Charlotte potatoes and a jar of Schwartz Paprika and Onion Classic Chip Seasoning ready to make your own wedges. Wedges give you “double dunking” with both the mayo and the Baked Camembert. Charlottes are excellent for wedges and dunking – they retain their shape.

How many you want is entirely up to you and whether you are serving 2 or want a huge bowlful as part of a buffet table.

Here's a basic recipe :

1kg of Charlotte potatoes – skin on

cut each potato into 4 – try to make sure

they are of a similar size

tip the wedges into a large mixing bowl

add 1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil and – using

your hands – mix the oil through the potatoes

until covered

tip the potatoes onto a large non stick baking

tray

place the tray into a pre-heated oven 200fan/220c/Gas 7

and bake for 20 minutes – set your timer and turn

after 10 minutes until cooked and have crispy

skins

tip the cooked wedges back into the large mixing

bowl and sprinkle over the seasoning – I'd suggest you

wear gloves – toss the seasoning through the wedges

Serve them in a large bowl with the mayo in a small

bowl in the middle or

serve a baked Camembert in the middle

Scale down depending on how many guests you

are serving

These are delicious, moreish, inexpensive and, last but by no means least, quick and easy!

Memory Lane favourites …

All these ideas for New Year will work whether you're entertaining or whether you've decided to shut up shop and have a duvet day/evening – you can make these treats work, large or small quantities.

Remember the Stick Blender mayo? Make up a batch of the smoked version. Check out the Sauce label Matt's Mayonnaise 7/9/19 on the blog for the recipe.

If you're expecting a gang of guests then throw a large bag of French Fries into the oven – they take approximately 18 minutes - transfer to a large bowl, place the mayo in the middle and watch both disappear. The best French Fries I've used come from M&S – they cost £2 for a 1kg bag – here's a photo :

If you're not a French fries fan but love tortilla chips they'd work too.

Alternatively …

P.s. Happy New Year!

Retro ideas for New Year – easy peasy too!

First up an absolute favourite and it has been a while since I mentioned it – Baked Camembert.

For ease of reference here's the recipe :

Baked Camembert

250g Camembert

1 clove garlic or garlic paste

olive oil

Bread of your choice

Pinch of sea salt

Bowl of chopped dried cranberries

Bowl of chopped mixed nuts

Preheat your oven 160f/180c/Gas 4. Leaving the Camembert in the box, score around the top about half cm in and cut off the top layer of skin. Slice the garlic clove and poke into the top of the cheese. Drizzle with a little olive oil then bake in the oven for 15 minutes – or until gorgeous and oozy in the middle.

Serve the Camembert with warmed flat bread or French bread – dunk the bread into the cheese and then into the cranberries and nuts – repeat!

Tips x 3 :

Make sure you buy a Camembert with a stapled box – not a glued version – it's not a good look!

Treat yourself and buy a fresh loaf of sour dough bread – freeze immediately. Sour dough is as good as the day you bought it, taken out of the freezer and defrosted. It's perfect for dunking, sliced and cut into quarters.

I used chopped Honey Roasted Cashews instead of mixed nuts – delicious.

There's more ...

Flaky pastry foto guide

Microplane graters are a great piece

of kit!

The butter in its foil jacket with the grater

over the bowl of flour and salt – you can just as

easily use the grater vertically if that's more

comfortable

The grated heap of butter

The ball of pastry sitting in the bowl

The empty mixing bowl – not a crumb left behind

Fingers crossed they enjoy their gifts – I'll let you know what they say - in the meantime I wish you a very Happy Christmas and thank you so much for your support.

Up next – fancy some easy peasy retro ideas for New Year?

The Cheese, potato and onion pie filling

Serves 2

2 medium sized baked jacket potatoes

approximately 400g – peeled and cut into cubes

measuring 1.5cms/½”

1 medium onion, finely diced and

sautéed with a knob of unsalted butter and

a drop of rapeseed oil until softened – 5 minutes

add 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard to the onion

150g of grated cheeses – 50g each of Mature

Cheddar, Red Leicester and Gruyere

Black pepper

1 amount of Fast Flaky Pastry

1 egg, beaten for egg wash

1 foil pie dish – 18cms/7” in diameter and

4cms/1½” deep

Using a large mixing bowl add the potatoes and onions and mustard – season with black pepper. Fold in the cheeses.

On a lightly floured surface roll out your pastry – dust your rolling pin too. Roll out as evenly as you can turning the pastry as it takes shape – always roll backwards and forwards and quarter turns so that it keeps to a circle. If you roll side to side you'll stretch the pastry and it will shrink when cooking!

Tip the filling into the pie dish – it will seem like a lot – pack down firmly. Egg wash the rim of the dish and then gently lift the pastry lid on top of the filling. The egg wash will glue the pastry in place and you can press the lid onto the filling gently. You can use a sharp knife to remove any excess pastry then, using a pastry fork edge the pie. Egg wash the pastry and add two cuts in the centre of the pastry to vent the pie.

Bake in a pre-heated oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6 for 35 minutes.

Flaky pastry foto guide up next …

Fast flaky pastry – recipe

You will need :

75g of unsalted butter – chilled in the freezer

110g plain flour

pinch of salt

4 tablespoons of ice cold water

Plan ahead - before you begin weigh out your butter, wrap it in foil and put it in the freezer – 30-40 minutes. Place the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. You'll need a cheese grater on stand-by. Remove the butter from the freezer and fold back the foil – it's easier to control when you grate the butter into a heap in the middle of the flour and salt. You can dip the butter into the flour to stop any sticking.

Using a round bladed knife mix the butter into the flour and salt. Sprinkle two tablespoons of water into the pastry and mix well. Add another two tablespoons and continue to mix. Finally use your hand to bring together – you're aiming for a clean bowl so no bits of pastry left in the bowl. Have a sheet of cling film ready – you can now use both hands to mould the pastry into whatever shape you require. Place on the cling film and wrap.

You can now rest in the fridge before use or place the cling filmed pastry in a bag and freeze.

Next up – the recipe for the filling ...

Would you like the recipe?

I know you're used to me saying buy a ready to use puff pastry sheet … if it's good enough for chefs to use it's good enough for me.

For my home-made Christmas gifts I wanted to make all the elements myself and so I made the flaky pastry – quickly – from scratch.

To clarify “flaky pastry” is another name for “rough puff pastry”, in other words it's lumps of butter mixed with flour and traditionally rolled and folded – a similar method to puff pastry. The following recipe does not involve all the faffing around of folding and resting etc., rather a throw it all in a bowl method! I've not made this pastry for ages, so much so I can't even remember where I found it. It does remind me of a similar pastry recipe contained in my series on Cornish pasties posted in June this year – that pasty pastry recipe was the strangest I'd come across but said at the time, “not only does it work I'd say it's the best result I've ever had”. If you're interested check out The Cornish pasty – the recipes 1^stJune 2019 and the series with a photo guide.

The following fast flaky pastry recipe falls into the same category. It's kind too. You can use it, having rested for 30 minutes or make up a batch and then freeze it. All you need to remember is to form the pastry into a shape of your choice before wrapping in cling film and fridging or freezing.

Recipe up next ...

A Christmas gift with a difference

Do you have lovely people that you want to say thank you to? I do and it struck me that they must get truck loads of chocolates, biscuits and bottles of wine – that they don't really enjoy but would never say.

I have two friends who have their own businesses locally and who have become friends over the last year – they are also on my list of taste testers so I know what they like to eat!

I know that one friend is a diabetic and they both prefer savoury to sweet and cheese in particular. Instead of buying gifts I thought they might prefer a savoury treat that could be eaten on the day of delivery or frozen.

Here are the photos of my gift to each - a Cheese, Potato and Onion Pie, to serve two :

the pastry lid, taken from the freezer

the filling in the portable foil tray

the pastry lid – rolled out, edged, vented

and egg washed

the pie straight from the oven

inside the pie

Would you like the recipe?

December thoughts – Posh Chilli – step by step photo guide

Sealed diced steak in the slow cooker

softened onion and garlic

the four “c”s – cumin, coriander

cinnamon and chilli

the four “c”s cooked out with the onion

the chilli – ready to slow cook and perform its magic!

glistening with the beans and a blob of

sour cream

ditto with flat breads

Coming up … a Christmas gift with a difference!

December thoughts – Posh Chilli method

Seal the diced steak in batches in a large frying pan using a drop of rapeseed oil then set aside in your slow cooker.

Gently fry your onion and garlic, using another drop of rapeseed oil if necessary. Add the spices and cook together so that the spices are able to release their deliciousness!

Add the passata and the chilli sauce and bring to the boil. Add to the sealed diced steak and then slow cook for 4 hours. Turn off and then leave to cool. Freeze in boxes to suit your needs – remember – you can pull out two boxes if you need to, rather than have to throw away from a larger quantity.

Defrost thoroughly in your fridge. Re-heat gently on the stove adding your kidney beans, sweet baby peppers or chorizo.

For the optional extras :

Use a large frying pan and fry the chorizo gently so that it releases its oil. Set the chorizo aside, leaving the oil in the pan.

Sauté the sliced, sweet baby peppers in the chorizo oil.

If you enjoy a spicy hit you can use mixed beans in a chilli sauce instead of ordinary red kidney beans.

Serve with rice if you like but I think it's fab in a bowl with a blob of sour cream served with some rustic bread of your choice on the side or with wraps with bowls of relish of your choice – mango would work well.

Freezing serves dishes like chilli or curry very well – the freezing process allows the spices to develop. Here's a thought – you could double the recipe and serve as a supper or as part of a larger supper buffet. Hot food seems to go down so well and it's easier to cook and serve.

A great New Year Party idea – but you might want to double the recipe!

Step by step photo guide up next ...

December thoughts – and what's forgotten

We're so focused on the day that just when you thought it was safe … there are the days leading up to and those in-between too.

Here's a dish that will suit either of the above and it uses your favourite friend – the slow cooker.

Make a chilli but not any old chilli - when I think of chilli I think of minced beef. Another confession – I hate minced beef. What makes this chilli special, nay posh, is it uses diced steak and slow cooks it. The only remaining task is to add the red kidney beans and any garnishes. A word of warning – just in case you've forgotten – do not slow cook the kidney beans.

Posh Chilli

Serves 4

500g diced steak

A glug of rapeseed oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of roasted garlic paste or 2 cloves crushed

tsp = teaspoon

half tsp ground cumin

half tsp ground coriander

half tsp ground cinnamon

quarter to half tsp chilli powder (to taste, depends how much of a kick you like – I used a quarter tsp)

500g jar of passata

60ml sweet chilli sauce

390g can of red kidney beans, rinsed

optional extras :

150g small dice or sliced chorizo

sweet baby peppers, de-seeded and

finely sliced

Method up next …

December thoughts – the lemon meringue “pie” photo guide

the piping bag – cut to measure

17cms or 6”½ in old money

the piping bag filled with curd -

snip the end when you're ready

the first layer of biscuit

the curd piped on top

the biscuit and curd layers repeated

topped with crushed meringue

the meringue drizzled with the Lemon, Gin & Tonic

sauce

For non alcoholic alternatives sprinkle with plain chocolate drops or crushed flake if you prefer milk chocolate or add if you like chocolate!

Next, an idea for the “lead up to” or “in-between” days.

December thoughts and your emergency dessert kit … the orange meringue “pie”

For the orange version you may want to try the Clementine Curd from M&S. Your recipe is the same as the lemon. If you want to add alcohol then you can try any of the orange liqueurs – Cointreau, Grand Marnier or Triple Sec to name but three!

If you are a Cointreau fan there's a Cointreau Noir – the original liqueur with Cognac and a Blood Orange version too.

If you're not bothered about Clementine Curd then use orange curd – Waitrose make an excellent product.

If you wanted to extend your emergency dessert kit then serve either version with a side scoop of vanilla ice cream – home-made, straight from your freezer.

You can scale this dessert up or down to suit your family and guests and taking into account the size of glasses you're using.

If you don't own shot or shooter glasses you could rummage around in the depths of your cupboards trying to locate those Martini glasses you know are in there somewhere. They would do nicely.

There's no skill required for these emergency desserts and the other bonus is that the ingredients are in your pantry ready for whenever the festive mood takes you!

December thoughts and your Emergency dessert kit

- what to do next!

You have two alternatives – a lemon and an orange – retro miniature versions of a Lemon Meringue Pie. You can serve these with or without alcohol.

For the lemon version :

begin with 2 crushed Amaretti biscuits – they

weigh 5g each approx so 10g in total

pipe 50g approx of lemon curd on top of the

biscuit

repeat the biscuit and the curd layers -

another 10g of Amaretti biscuits and 50g of curd

crush two mini meringues and place on top of

the layers

drizzle with lemon, gin and tonic sauce

alternatively, decorate with plain chocolate drops

for the grown-ups or bashed milk chocolate flake for the kiddies

If you want to add alcohol then add 1-2 teaspoons of Limoncello to the lemon curd before piping.

For the orange version …

December thoughts … stress free desserts

and your emergency kit!

I mentioned prawn cocktail shots … here's another use for your shot or shooter glass. You can get different sizes and shapes of said glass. In this instance I'm using an example which is 100ml. It measures 11cms high x 7cms (4½”x 2¾”) in diameter and looks like this :

My suggested essential ingredients for your emergency kit are:

A tub of meringue kisses – available in most supermarkets

Sicilian Lemon Curd - M&S

Clementine Curd – M&S £2.50 and part of the

Christmas Food Range

Lemon, Gin & Tonic Sauce – £2.00 M&S

The Sicilian Lemon Curd is the best shop

bought version and I always keep a jar in my pantry – best

of all it's an all year round product

The Clementine Curd is part of the Christmas Food Range

The Lemon, Gin & Tonic Sauce first appeared as a grown-up

topping for pancakes – it went like hot cakes and is back by

popular demand

For the following emergency desserts you'll need another staple I've mentioned many times – Amaretti biscuits. You will also make life easier if you have disposable piping bags too.

Read on for my speedy antidote to trifle which doesn't contain cream or custard!