This is from Rose Prince’s New English Kitchen, just published by Fourth Estate. The book has an old-fashioned binding, with no shiny dust jacket, but with two handy ribbons for marking pages. This practicality carries through to the text, which has advice on shopping for quality ingredients and extending meals in a practical sort of way. It’s a timely reminder of what food, cooking and eating should be about. There are handy notes all the way through and hints for giving recipes a clever little twist. This syllabub is quick and straightforward to make.
Zest and juice of 1 lemon 125ml white wine or sherry A pinch of grated nutmeg 90g golden caster sugar 300ml double cream Borage or heartsease flowers, or dried Moroccan rose petals to decorate (optional)Mix the lemon zest, juice, white wine (or sherry) and nutmeg, and leave to infuse for at least an hour Stir in the sugar and then pour in the cream Whisk for a minute or two until the cream thickens Spoon into small tumblers or old-fashioned tea cups.

It’s great on cold evenings and if you’ve got a friend who’s just split up with her boyfriend, it’s the sort of thing you can take round It’ll make your arse big but never mind about that. 140g pudding rice 100g butter 115g caster sugar 1.3 litres milk The seeds from one vanilla pod A pinch of saltPreheat the oven to 180°C and fetch an ovenproof pan that has a lid. Pour in the milk, scrape in the vanilla seeds, thenadd the salt, sugar and butter and bring to the boil. Next sprinkle in the rice, cover with the lid and pop it in the oven. It should take about 45 minutes or so, but check it every now and then to see if it’s gone thick and creamy – I play it a bit by ear. When it’s done, take it out, let it cool and then dive in.That’s the basic recpipe, but you don’t have to stop there You can add all sorts of things to vary it. You can stir through some cr? fra?e, honey, syrup, jam or – my favourite – chopped apple and sultanas.Jayne Middlemiss presents the final episode of ‘The Games’ tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.

The thing is, I don’t mind tricky things, but sometimes cooking can be so boring.And that’s kind of why I like this recipe – it’s pretty easy and fairly quick to get it all going, then you just put it in the oven. I love him.
Pastry’s tough too, as is most baking, to be honest. Cakes can be tricky, and Nigella’s recipes are really difficult – they just make me feel inadequate My favourite chef is Jamie Oliver. I enjoy cooking, and I do a lot of fish, but recently I got into making puddings. But then the same could be said of all North Africa’s couscous dishes, where the emphasis lies not in culinary pyrotechnics but in simple, generous hospitality..

Once the couscous has been steamed, it is mixed with butter and studded with raisins, then mounded into a conical shape before being sprinkled with lines of powdered cinnamon and icing sugar and served warm. You can ring the changes by stirring in some orange blossom water and chopped nuts – the true essence of this dish lies in its simplicity. The Jewish communities of North Africa serve couscous seffa during the festival of Chanukah. Each country along the North African coast – and each family – has its own version.One thing remains true for all of couscous’s many incarnations: it is a sociable dish, one that is meant to be eaten at a gathering of friends or family or, preferably, both It fits in perfectly with the Arabic ideal of hospitality. It also makes it a perfect dish for busy Westerners who like to entertain, for it is infinitely flexible. Alongside the platters were small dishes of what I soon discovered was a fiery paste made of pounded chillies and garlic, flavoured with caraway and coriander – it was my first taste of harissa.Although the meal I ate that day was, I later discovered, a fairly standard Moroccan interpretation of couscous, the dish has as many identities as it has cooks. By the time the stars are out, you have to queue for a seat at the most popular cooking areas, each one surrounded by tidy rows of tables and benches.