SPANAKOPITA

I make no claims for the authenticity of this dish. I must have used a recipe the first time I made it but that was many moons ago and now this is the way I do it. It uses quantities of ingredients that are as I buy them so there are no annoying left over bits of packets of stuff apart from the filo - I use exactly half a packet so just freeze the remainder for the next time you make this - and I think you will. We are confirmed meat eaters but this has such refreshing yet comforting flavours you don't miss the meat.  The combination of irony spinach, with notes of dill and mint and the salty tang of feta with the crunch of the pastry and pine nuts is just lovely - I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

INGREDIENTS

450g spinach
I onion sliced finely
25g mint chopped
20g dill chopped
200g feta, broken into walnut sized lumps
Olive oil
135g filo pastry
Handful of pine nuts

7" non stick round cake tin

Heat the oven to 180 degrees

Thoroughly wash the spinach then cook until just wilted. I do this in a large frying pan, it usually takes two batches. Add a tiny bit of oil to make sure it doesn't stick, put the washed spinach in and leave on a low light for 4-5 minutes, turning as it cooks.  You won't need to add any water - in fact, after it has cooked, turn into a large sieve of colander and press until you have extracted as much water as possible. Chop finely and put in  large bowl.

Cook the onion very gently in a splash of olive oil for 7-20 minutes until it has almost melted.

Add the onion, dill and mint to the spinach, mix thoroughly then gently fold in the feta.

Pour about 3 tablespoons of oil into a small bowl and take the filo out of its packaging. If you're a fast worker that's ok, if you're not then over the filo with a damp tea towel to stop it drying out.

Use four sheets of filo, each brushed with oil, to line the cake tin.  Spoon in the spinach mixture then use another couple  of sheets, also brushed with oil, to cover. Trim and fold the filo so that the filling is totally encased. use any left over bits of filo to scrunch up and decorate the top of the pie and sprinkle over the pine nuts.

Bake for around 30 minutes. If you need a side a simple tomato and cucumber salad goes rather nicely.

BLACKCURRANT POLENTA CAKE

Along with a lot of people I am a huge fan of Dan Leppard and am the proud owner of his book 'Short and Sweet'. His Lemon and Poppyseed Cake is a triumph and should be made by everyone immediately but I am also a huge fan of his Cherry Polenta cake.

I don't make cakes or pudding very often but this Sunday I just felt like baking. As I hadn't actually planned anything I had a rake through the freezer where I found a bag of blackcurrants bought frozen from a Garden Centre on the way back from Bath in May - whenever I see blackcurrants I always snap them up as they rarely make it to grocers or supermarkets, I believe Ribena snaffles most of them up and I do love blackcurrants. We are probably talking about around 500g of blackcurrants. I pondered the idea of making a mousse, or perhaps a blackcurrant crumble but then I remembered the cherry polenta cake and thought - why not?

I halved the amount of mix for this cake as there are only 2 of us on a Sunday - I used a correspondingly smaller tin. The addition of pine nuts, as recommended by Dan, really make the cake - adding that bit of crunch to an otherwise sumptuously moist cake. I haven't given you the recipe - you'll have to go and buy the book!

CHICKEN CHILLI

I am slowly getting my cooking mojo back after a combination of events - my Dad dying in August, being crazy busy at work and getting rushed into hospital at the end of December with dried up kidneys and a digestive system in freefall. But here we are, just about back to full fitness and getting my appetite back, for both eating and cooking. I find my tastes have changed though - I can no longer eat, or particularly enjoy, large amounts of red meat, in fact large amounts of anything are a struggle.  I am making more salads, more fish and old favourites like a lump of roast lamb are taking a back seat.

One of our regular Saturday night meals was chilli con carne but in looking for something lighter I decided to use chicken thighs in the same kind of seasoning and served with an avocado relish and brown and wild rice. The end result was delicious, light enough for me but tasty enough for Mr Redding.  I used chicken thighs because I think it needs to be cooked for a while to meld the flavours and breast would become tough.

INGREDIENTS

CHICKEN CHILLI

500g chicken thigh fillets, cut into 2cm cubes
I onion, finely sliced
Couple of cloves of garlic crushed or grated
Tin of black eyed beans
4 jalapeno chillies, red or green or a combination, chopped
Dessertspoon of sweet smoked paprika
Teaspoon of ground cumin
Tablespoon of flour
Handful of chopped coriander
Salt

AVOCADO RELISH

I ripe avocado, chopped
I ripe tomato, chopped
I shallot, finely chopped
Juice of a lime
Handful of chopped coriander
Salt

Slowly sweat the onion and garlic off in a generous tablespoon of olive oil until soft and translucent, probably about ten minutes.  Add the chicken, turn up the heat, and when it has all changed colour and browned a little add the beans, chillies, paprika and cumin. Give all that a good stir, then stir in the flour making sure it is all distributed, then stir in half a pint of water, bring to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes.  Taste, season and stir in the coriander just before serving.

To make the avocado relish just combine all the ingredients 10 minutes before you want to eat and chill. I served it with  combination of wild and brown rice. The picture really doesn't do it justice!

ARTUSI

The lovely thing about being on Twitter in a place like Peckham is that there is a huge foodie and other stuff Twitter community here, so as soon as a rumour starts it gets spread round like a flash and eventually someone who actually knows what is going on chimes in. And so it was with our new Italian restaurant Artusi on Bellenden Road. Waters were muddied for a while as apparently an Italian café is opening up in what was Chaz the Hairdressers but  it soon became clear - Jack Beer, ex Clove Club  and Peckham Bazaar, our very own Balkan grill-fest (sadly closed at the moment whist it is being transformed) was opening an Italian restaurant called Artusi in our midst. There was no 'soft launch', no fanfare, they just opened with a picture of their menu on the chalkboard to whet our appetites posted on Twitter. And what a menu - three starters, two pastas, three mains, two puddings.

The restaurant is an old shop, and is now long and thin extended back into the store rooms with the open kitchen at the back. On arrival the wine list was proffered and I can recommend the house white, the Vermentino and the white vermouth - others can tell you about the natural wines on the list. My first visit was with my friend Tony, better known as award winning food blogger Theskintfoodie - we hadn't seen each other for a while and needed to catch up on new jobs and stuff.   My second visit was with another friend Heather Jordan, a local Chef and Masterchef quarter finalist and my third was with Mr Redding - at last!

The atmosphere is relaxed with very trendy but extremely efficient and friendly service. Slices of Peckham Rye sourdough from The Brick House Bakery arrive with a slab of butter. Dishes I and my companions have loved include excellent squid ink pasta filled with squid; grilled baby artichokes with the smoothest garlicky anchovy bagna cauda I have ever tasted, and, on another occasion, with the greenest tasting salsa verde I have ever enjoyed; melting octopus with wild garlic and asparagus; pork chop cooked in milk and lemon to delicious unctuousness; pappardelle with pancetta and fresh peas; pork belly with broad bean broth and glit head bream. Puddings are equally lovely - olive oil cake, proper tiramisu and ice creams including chocolate, mascarpone and salted honey.

Three courses each with a bottle of wine and a couple of vermouth comes to around £80 for two plus service, which refreshingly isn't included. Since Jay Rayner reviewed the restaurant booking is essential a bit in advance but do give it a go - thoroughly recommended.

GREEN MAN AND FRENCH HORN

We don't eat out very often, mostly due to straightened financial circumstances and family responsibilities. However, my friend Amanda has been known to entice me out from time to time and, to celebrate my last day on a fundraising contract (I HATE fundraising), we went to Green Man and French Horn, a restaurant that we both remembered had fabulous reviews when it opened.  Its sister restaurants Braun, Terroirs and Soif  are nearby and also heavily influenced my local ToastED in Lordship Lane, East Dulwich.  All good stuff.

We started with a bottle of sparkling Vouvray which was slightly off dry and very lovely  and the perfect thing to drink as we caught up on the last couple of months and decided what we wanted to eat. This took rather  a long time as we were tempted with so many great things but in the end we decided to go for five of the small plates, one of which we shared - we are both very territorial about food.

Details were good - great bread and butter happily replenished without asking. Still or sparkling free 'tap' water. Service throughout was great. But the food...that was divine. Crispily fried fresh anchovies with aioli disappeared within minutes - beautifully fishy and rustled on their paper. Asparagus with fromage blanc, bitter leaves and walnuts was the kind of salad that only the French seem to carry off with the combination of bitter, creaminess, nuttiness and the glorious flavour of asparagus all highlighted by beautiful olive oil and salt. Snails with parsley root and hedgehog mushrooms were declared to be the most tender ever encountered (I didn't indulge, not a huge snail fan). Leek, crab, egg and horseradish was an absolute triumph. A brown crab sauce with horseradish provided a base for gently poached leeks, all topped off with grated egg and white crab meat - simple, beautifully seasoned and a very generous plateful. We shared the chopped raw beef with radish and hedgehog mushrooms - true beefy flavour accentuated by the vegetables and dressing. We shared a 500ml carafe of some rather gorgeous very light red wine but the name escapes me - the waiter recommended it so I am sure he will recommend it to you.

The bill came to £118 for five dishes, a bottle of sparkling wine, a carafe of red, water and limitless bread. For the standard of cooking and the excellence of ingredients I call that great value.

A lovely Italian Restaurant in Liverpool

I love Italian food. I am not a huge fan of pasta but the way Italians deal with meat, fish and seafood makes me smile - a gorgeous bit of protein, a sauce or dressing with vibrant flavours, and that's it. If you want potatoes or vegetables then order them separately. Great. So, when we ventured up to Liverpool, and fancied some fish, we googled 'fish restaurant' and one of the top results was San Carlo. So off we went. It is a splendid restaurant, with a gorgeous cocktail bar greeting you on arrival. We were a bit early for dinner so sat at the bar for cocktails and there we had nibbles of huge olives, socca and arancini to keep us occupied. We ordered sardines and seafood salad for starters - beautifully fresh, well cooked and plentiful....mains were five kinds of grilled fish and seafood and veal scallopine with a wild mushroom sauce. The side of sauté potatoes were crisp and delicious. We were so impressed by the generosity of the servings and the quality of the ingredients and the service was warm and helpful. Our desired digestif wasn't available so we were recommended Amaro Montenegro - warm with violets it made Fernet Branca seem very harsh. This restaurant may not suit those looking for an ultra modern experience but for good honest but refined Italian food it was fabulous. £120 for two courses each, three cocktails, a bottle of wine and two digestifs. Thoroughly recommended.

www.sancarlo.co.uk

FISH PIE

Another comforting classic for this chilly weather.  There are endless variations - some people use prawns and scallops as well as fish, some include chopped up boiled eggs or capers but mine is very straightforward. Just smoked haddock and cod in a parsley sauce topped with mashed potato and a sprinkling of parmesan.

This is something I make quite often so I will just give an idea of quantities as we go along.

I generally make this pie in advance as I find that it is best to let the sauce/fish mixture cool a bit. If you put the potatoes on top of the sauce whilst it is hot the potato seems to melt into the sauce and it all becomes a bit of a gooey mess. If the potato goes on the sauce when it has cooled the layers stay more distinct.

First of all the fish. I allow a medium sized fillet of fish per person and generally a third smoked fish to unsmoked. Put the fish in a wide shallow pan with around 500ml milk. Bring up to the boil and simmer for five minutes until just cooked. Remove the fish, break up into big chunks and put in the bottom of a buttered baking dish. Season with salt and white pepper.

Make the white sauce with the milk that the fish has been poached in.  I use around 50g butter and the same of flour for a four person pie.  Melt the butter, stir in the flour and cook that through then gradually add the milk, bring to the boil and whisk until smooth and thickened. You may need a bit more milk if the sauce is very thick as it needs to be the texture of thick custard. Stir in the juice of half a lemon and a big handful of chopped parsley. Pour over the fish.

Peel some potatoes, allowing a large potato per person. Cut into chunks and boil for 20 minutes until tender. Strain, mash the potatoes, add a splash of milk, a knob of butter and a generous shake of white pepper and beat until smooth.

As the fish and sauce mixture is quite unstable it is best to take spoonful's of the potato and dot over the top, then gently join the dots of potato up with a fork.  Leave a hole in the potato in the centre. Sprinkle the top of the pie with a little cayenne pepper and finely grated parmesan.

Cook at 180 degrees for 45 minutes until bubbling. This pie takes a long time to cook through so use the hole in the mash topping to check that it is hot all the way through.

I think peas are an ideal accompaniment to this dish and perhaps some broccoli.