Smoked salmon, courgette and vodka pasta

Ingredients:

1 courgette

3 shallots

1 clove of garlic

farfalle pasta

3 slices of smoked salmon, cut into strips

100g creme fraiche

25g grated parmesan

25g grated gruyere (optional)

tbl spoon cream cheese

handful of fresh parsley, chopped

50ml vodka

salt and pepper

olive oil

• Cook pasta according to pack instructions.
• In a bowl, mix the creme fraiche, cream cheese, parmesan, gruyere and parsley. Season with salt and pepper.
• Whilst the pasta is cooking dice the shallots, garlic and courgette and fry in a little olive oil until soft.
• Add the vodka to the courgette and shallots and allow to bubble away for 5 minutes or so. Then add the soft cheese mixture and stir everything thoroughly. Then add the smoked salmon strips and stir again.
• Drain the cooked pasta and add to the sauce. You may want to add a spoonful of the pasta cooking water to the sauce to loosen it a little.

Duck and red wine risotto

Ingredients: (serves 2)

1 duck leg

4 rashers of pancetta

1 red onion, finely diced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

8 chestnut mushrooms, sliced

small handful of mixed greens (optional)

1 tbl sp fresh thyme leaves

risotto rice (1 cup full)

200ml chicken stock

glass of red wine

tea sp redcurrant jelly

salt and pepper

olive oil

• Slow roast the duck leg in advance. We did this the night before. Once cooked, remove the meat from the bone, shred the meat into bite size pieces and set aside.
• In a non-stick frying pan saute the pancetta, onion and garlic in a little olive oil. After 5 minutes or so add the sliced mushrooms and fresh thyme and allow the mushrooms to soften slightly.
• Add the rice and stir through thoroughly.
• Start to add the stock and wine (alternating between the two). Keep adding liquid until the rice is cooked.
• Once the rice is almost cooked add the shredded mixed greens, cooked duck, redcurrant jelly and season with salt and pepper.
• Allow to cook for another 5 minutes or so before serving.

Lamb Tava

This recipe is a Cypriot dish taken from the book Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros. We've adapted it ever so slightly.

It's great in the fact that everything gets cooked all together at the same time in one dish, so there's very little washing up.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

4 lamb chops

1 red onion, roughly chopped

1 red pepper, roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

4 large tomatoes, cut into large chunks

A handful of chopped flat leaf parsley

2 tea sp cumin seeds

1/2 tea sp ground nutmeg

olive oil

salt and pepper

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
• Place the lamb chops in a deep casserole or baking dish.
• Add the potatoes, pepper, onion, garlic and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper before adding the herbs and spices. Add a large glug of olive oil (good quality olive oil is best for this) and mix everything up really well.
• Pour about 100ml of water over the top and mix again.
• Cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven for about 1 hour. At this point remove the foil and place back in the oven for another 1.5 hours or so. Give it a good mix every half an hour or so.
• Sometimes we serve this on its own but on this occasion we added a handful of mixed greens to the dish for the last 15-20 minutes or so of cooking. Tessa suggests serving it with salad or sauteed vegetables.

Scallops with leeks and pancetta

Ingredients: (serves 2)

6 large scallops

4 rashers of pancetta

1 leek

small knob of butter

olive oil

• Trim the leek and finely dice. Saute in a little butter and olive oil until soft.
• Dice the pancetta into bite sized pieces and add to the frying pan with the leeks. Cook for another 5 minutes or so.
• Meanwhile heat a separate non stick pan (either a regular frying pan or a griddle pan). Once the pan is very hot, add the scallops. Cook the scallops for approximately 2 minutes on each side, depending on their size.
• Spoon the leek and pancetta mixture onto a plate and top with the scallops. Season with black pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice if you like.

Celery, stilton and thyme soup

Ingredients (makes 2 large bowls):
5 celery stalks

50g stilton, broken into small pieces

a handful of fresh thyme leaves

1 potato

1 leek or onion

800ml veg stock

olive oil

pepper

• Finely dice the celery, potato and leek/onion and fry in a little oil for 5 minutes or so, until soft
• Add the veg stock and allow to simmer for 10 minutes
• Season with black pepper and then add the thyme and the crumbled stilton
• Allow to simmer for a further 5 minutes before serving