I’m thinking raspberries would go down well and some blackberries from the freezer, or even poached pears, which are still available in the supermarkets although not in season here.

We’ve got friends for dinner this Sunday and I wanted a change from the traditional Sunday roast.
So with the dessert taken care of, I’m thinking of cooking sea bass, well, Baz cooking sea bass, so I needed to find a good food network for the main course.

After some extensive searching for the right result, It has to be the BBC Food website, where most of the top chefs promote their recipes.

I wasn’t disappointed. Gary Rhodes has a brilliant recipe for Roast Sea Bass with Glazed Crab Mashed Potato.

We’ve made it before and served in on a bed of spinach, and although he suggests using a crab bisque we made it with a lobster one as there happened to be a tin at the back of the cupboard. It’s such a stunner, can’t wait!

So, I have to follow the Wild Boar Sausage, ok no probs!
Maybe, even do a pasta dish with it?

We’ve had lots of requests for easy pasta dishes, most people have a packet or two of dried pasta in the cupboard, and although I prefer the fresh, which freezes well, I still get left with nearly out of date stuff, stuck at the back of the cupboard.

Last night we did a twist on Rick Stein’s Pasta with tomatoes, capers and mint, I like mint, but much prefer it sitting alongside a nice leg of lamb.

Not really a huge fan of capers either, however, using them in this dish changes the flavours completely, and it gives it a definate Italian feel. Okay, now I'm a caper fan. (Washed and drained first though, gets the salt out).
You can add salt to season, but I think the 8 tsps Rick uses in cooking the pasta is too much for me!

I’ve put a few recipes together; we usually use them for quick midweek meals, when there’s not a lot of waiting time!
Just serve with a crispy green salad with a little extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar drizzled over. Ciabatta goes well with these dishes, just cut a small loaf or roll in half, toast both sides and rub a garlic clove over, then drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil on top.

If there’s any leftovers, they go down well for a cold lunch the following day.

Pasta with tomatoes, basil and capers

Pasta with broccoli and peas

Tomato and pancetta pasta

Capellini with Asparagus

Use a heavy saucepan with a lid, add 30ml olive oil and put on a medium heat.
Add one large onion and a clove of garlic, finely chopped and cook until the onion is translucent.

While this is cooking, prepare the sausages, take each sausage (8 in a packet), gently squeeze in the middle and twist, you end up with 16 small sausages.
Add the sausages to the onions and gently stir, cook for 5 minutes.

Next, take 6 medium sized WAXY potatoes (Charlotte potatoes), peel, cut into ½ inch (12mm) cubes and add to the sausages and onion, gently stir to coat the potatoes with oil.

Finely, add 120ml of water, bring to the boil, turn down the heat and cover the pan with the lid.
Cook for 20 minutes, the potatoes should be soft but not broken.

If the idea or availability of wild boar sausages is a bit too much, try using good quality beef sausages.

Today it is part of the traditional English Sunday Roast with no plate complete without it.

Instead off the old method of using a large baking tin, most off the time, smaller ‘bun’ tins are used, which provide individual Yorkshire Puddings and can also be frozen.

This simple recipe was passed to Les some 15 years ago and always works.

Set the oven to its highest heat.
Put 1 tsp of oil into each bun hole (4 bun holes for this recipe)
When oven has reached its highest temperature, pop the bun tin in the oven on the highest shelf to heat up.

Meanwhile make the batter.

1 Egg
Plain - All purpose flour
Semi skimmed milk
4 tsp Olive oil

Using a small cup, break the egg into it, take note of where it comes up to in the cup (mark the outside of the cup if it helps)
Tip the egg into a mixing bowl, now pour the milk into the same cup and fill up to the "egg line" then tip into the mixing bowl.
Do the same procedure with the flour.

Whisk all three ingredients on fast speed with electric whisk or mixer.
Pour 4 equal amounts into the hot bun tin and bake for 15-20 minutes in a hot oven on the top shelf (the highest temperature your oven has)
Make sure you leave room in the oven for the puddings to rise.

Puddings should be well risen, light, fluffy and crispy round the edges.

A superb Indian curry with all the trimmings.

I only have one torn and battered cookbook on curries, The Curry Secret by Kris Dhillon; it’s the one Indian restaurants use. I have found over the years that this book is all you need, good ingredients and instructions that have never let me down.

The basic sauce is best made on a warm day, simply because you’ll need to open all the windows (and I mean all the windows) to let the smell out, as it consists of onions, ginger and garlic, boiled for 25 minutes. (all authentic Indian dishes start out with this sauce).

To start, popadoms with a selection of dips: mango chutney, hot lime pickle, cucumber and mint raita

Next came Chicken Korma (not to hot, in a creamy sauce), Chicken curry (with added chillies), Aloo Gobi (potato and cauliflower) Onion Bhajee's and Pilau rice.

A simple ice cream for dessert.

Les helped by making the onion bhajee's, they turned out excellent

After much deliberation I finally decided on a carrot cake for my sister's birthday cake.

After trying out a few different recipes for this delicious cake, using a 7" cake tin, then a 9" one, reducing the quantity of carrots, adding more sultanas etc etc, I finally managed to come up with a winner.
I wanted a cake that would be easy to eat, keep well and remain moist.
I love carrot cake but I hate all the mess when I'm trying to eat it.

If you look at all the recipes on the web and in the cookery books they always put the cheesy filling on the outside. Why? Because it looks good, but when you come to eat it you need a plate, fork and tissues otherwise it gets very messy.

However, by putting the filling in the middle and just sprinkling a little icing sugar on top the problem is solved, no mess! and it still looks good.
I love the moist texture it produces with the slight cinnamon flavour, and by adding some crushed walnuts to the filling, it just gives it that extra something, and no taste of carrots whatsoever!

I felt quite pleased with the 7" version, unfortunately I left the cake on show in the kitchen, only to find when I returned Baz has arrived home from work and taken a huge bite out of it!!
I told him to stay away from natural foods; he needs all the preservatives he can get!

I usually use my old kilner jars but I'd used them for other things, so I decided to use the cheaper version we bought from IKEA last year.
Last year they worked perfectly. This year not so. Three of them broke as we
were closing them. Moral of the story-you get what you pay for!

I use a combination of three recipes for this. Reason being Baz likes loads of cauliflower in his and insists on it being crunchy. I like marrow in mine. So everyone ends up with exactly what they want.

After spending a couple of hours Sunday morning quite happily peeling and chopping the vegetables in the kitchen a "Baz person" appears with his law of physics and displacement theory for my veg and the amount of liquid that goes in the jars!
So we then end up with an experiment going on in the middle of kitchen.

He reckons if you put a shallot in a full bowl of water the amount of water that spills out will not weigh the same as the shallot, therefore my measurements wouldn't be right.
After 5 minutes I asked him politely to leave in the nicest possible way!!
Who cares if you get 1 tablespoon of liquid over?

I actually change this recipe every time I make it. It all depends on what vegetables I can get at the time.
This year's piccalilli turned out just fine.

It takes about three months to mature but I know we'll be tasting as the weeks roll on.

 So I have to ask myself why do we now need a disc with some blokes’ voice in our kitchens.

 I actually prefer to have some music of my choice and a good recipe to follow, either from a book or a print off.

 There are literally millions of great recipes on the net to suit your budget or whim and if you use the food blogs you'll probably find that most recipes have been tried and tested by the authors with helpful “rescue remedies” if things go wrong.

 Books have wonderful colour photographs and you can flick through the book at your own leisure, which is pleasurable in itself.

 Yes, I know books take up room but isn't that part of the character of a kitchen? Some of mine are 30 years old!!

 My friends will often ask to borrow a certain cookery book.

 I hardly think they’ll be asking to borrow your Nintendo DS Cooking Guide for Saturday night’s meal!

 However, I do like the fact it covers international cuisine, but I’m not quite sure where I can buy the dried kelp they suggest, any ideas?

 I think I'll stick with the good old cook books, for now anyway.

 So, for lunch it's Tomato Mozzarella & Chilli Bruschetta

Hey! not a Mario brother in site!

I expect Baz will be hugging the TV anyway this afternoon looking for the winner of the Grand Prix, so he wouldn't have time to watch a cooking guide!

 McLaren 1

 Nintendo 0

Sadly, she hasn’t had a chance to use it yet, but as family and friends arrive to check on her, they all get a chance to check their fitness on the Wii fit and check out their BMI (body mass index), whatever that is.

We are still waiting for someone brave enough to try out the yoga positions.

After my (yes, I’m a Wii addict) daily exercise workout, back to the kitchen for a quick refill of energy.

Having failed miserably to find time to cook my favourite crab cakes, crab salad it must be, a few more days and the crab in the fridge must go.

My crab salad makes a really nice starter, takes just minutes to make.
All that is needed: a 170g tin of crab meat in brine, fresh is best.
Red chilli, chives, a squirt of lemon juice, olive oil and some green salad.