At the end of the year and the beginning of the next I like to have a big clear out of my fridge, freezer and cupboards. For two reasons. First, and I think this is true for many people in December, there's plenty of leftovers. Second, I like to take stock of what I have ready for the next year. These are the dishes I cook which I come back to again and again: my favourite recipes for using up leftovers.
Dried Fruit and Nuts
There always seems My Favourite Recipes To Use Up Leftovers
At the end of the year and the beginning of the next I like to have a big clear out of my fridge, freezer and cupboards. For two reasons. First, and I think this is true for many people in December, there's plenty of leftovers. Second, I like to take stock of what I have ready for the next year. These are the dishes I cook which I come back to again and again: my favourite recipes for using up leftovers.
Dried Fruit and Nuts
There always seems 
There's honey, and then there's honey. I like all of it but my preference is for local honey. Delicious in so many recipes I wanted to make the honey the star of the dish; so I set about baking a honey cake.
At a market recently I tried some different honeys from a local producer. Not only were they different to each other, and commercial honeys, in colour and texture but the taste was out of this world. I chose the wildflower honey and remembered 
In my perfect world, a mince pie would be 70% pastry, 30% mincemeat. It's not that I don't like mincemeat I just don't like too much of it. That's where my mince pie crumble bars come in. A thick layer of buttery shortbread, a spiced mincemeat middle and further crumbly shortbread on the top. Let's be honest, it's mostly biscuit with a hint of Christmas. Perfect.
Ingredients
You will need (for 12 mince pie crumble bars):
300g softened 
At Christmas there are four things that I like to do: eat, go for walks, play games and watch festive television shows. I do like to plan ahead and this year is no different with my Christmas meal plan. With a plan in place there's no last minute rush to the shops for those forgotten ingredients and no blank looks when someone says "What's for dinner?". With a little bit of careful planning, some batch cooking and a few shortcuts I am looking forward 
There are different shades of green in spring; the deep greens of kale and purple sprouting broccoli and the vibrant greens of asparagus and wild garlic. It is around this time each year that things seem to come alive, the evenings are getting longer and the days warmer. Trees are blossoming and everyone seems to awaken from a winter slumber to shake off those cobwebs (literally and figuratively). I start to cook lighter meals at this time of year 
There are so many delicious cakes and biscuits which appear from the recipe books ready for Easter. Simnel cakes, hot cross buns and Easter egg nest cakes to name a few. Frankly I think it's shameful that all the Easter treats aren't served all at the same time with a huge pot of tea and some excellent company. So that's exactly what an Easter afternoon tea is all about. An excuse to scoff all the tasty cakes and biscuits along with some sandwiches 
I love a mince pie, but they have to be just right. I want the pastry to mince filling ratio to be almost 50:50; too much filling and you can forget it. Preferably my mince pies will be warm and covered in (clotted, ideally) cream. However, I can't possibly eat that every single day and I still need my mince pie fix. This is how my Mince Pie Fruit Loaf came about; designed to have all the fruity spiciness from a mince pie but without the pastry and 
When it comes to adult soft drinks there are some good options but I don't like any that are overly sickly and sweet. Fruit juices can be good but they are a little dull; I'm after something which is a bit snazzy. A drink where there has been a little effort put in. My no alcohol pomegranate mojito is so easy to make and packed full of flavour, the pinks and greens are so lovely together and using tonic rather than lemonade gives this mojito a nice 
I like to look forward to my lunches; whether I’m using up some leftovers to make a quick salad, sticking all sorts of ingredients in a sandwich or slurping on soup. Sometimes it can be very tempting to just grab the quickest thing in the kitchen but if I do that I am invariably disappointed at lunch time. So say hello to my three easy soup toppings which can all be made in less than five minutes, using ingredients you probably already have and 
I tried making a traditional Yule Log a few years ago. It was somewhat stressful. Apart from the fact that my butter is never warm enough and I always lose patience and mix it up anyway and deal with the consequential sponge that turns up the whole process is fraught with danger. The rolling up, unrolling, spreading of cream, re-rolling and hoping for no cracking then furiously patching it up with ganache, chocolate flying all over the place. It's 
