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?