CHOCOLATE CHIP BUNS

We got this recipe from the Guardian food section. We had a bit of a technical glitch as we poured the melted butter over the dough with chocolate chips while the butter was very hot, so some of the chocolate chips melted a bit making the buns go brown. As it happens they are lovely like that, so feel free to make the same mistake if you wish.

You need:
250 gr chocolate chips
2 pinches of salt
25 g sugar 

375 ml  milk
100 ml water
1 sachet of fast-action yeast
75 g butter 
625 g bread white flour
1 beaten egg

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees.
Boil the milk and add the water to it. Add the yeast and let it rest for 5 minutes. Separately mix the flour, sugar and salt and add it to the milky yeast mix. Add the chocolate chips. Melt the butter and add it to the mixture until you get a soft dough. Cover it with a tea towel and let it rest for ten minutes. Knead it for a few seconds, divide it into 15 balls and let it all rest (still covered) for an hour. Put them on a tray lined with baking paper, brush them with the beaten egg and bake for 20 minutes. 

LEFT OVER CHICKEN PIE

This is great with left overs from a roast chicken, though you can of course cook the chicken from scratch if you prefer it.

You need:
- two leeks
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 table spoons of olive oil
- 20 gr of butter
- 100 gr diced bacon or ham
- left over roast chicken (whatever you have)
- frozen peas (to taste - we added a couple of handfuls)
- salt (a pinch)
- ready made puff pastry
- 1 egg beaten
- two spoonfuls of creme fraiche or double cream

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees.
In a shallow pan heat the olive oil and butter. Add the leak cut in rounds and the garlic (in slices). Let it cook over a low heat until the leaks become translucent. Add the bacon. Increase the heat to medium and add the chicken (cut in chunks) and then the peas. Add the salt. Let it all cook for 5 minutes. Add the cream and let it bubble up for a could of minutes.

Put the chicken and leek mixture into a pie dish. Cover it with the ready rolled puff pastry. Prickle it all over with a fork and paint it with the beaten egg so that it gets a nice golden colour. Put the dish into the oven and after 20 minutes it should be ready.  

KIDS TIRAMISU

This is a very fake version of tiramisu. It takes just minutes to prepare it and children love it. I had six boys at home today and had to fight so that they would wait to eat the last cup until we had taken a picture...

You need:
- savoyard biscuits (one and a half per bowl/glass)
- decaffeinated coffee (one cup)
- a tub of double cream
- two tablespoons of mascarpone cheese
- icing sugar (two table spoons, though this depends on your children's taste)
- drinking chocolate powder (we use Cadbury's)
- a little bit of dark chocolate

Dunk the biscuits into the coffee and put them at the bottom of the bowl. Whip the cream a little bit (soft peaks only)add the mascarpone and the icing sugar and spoon this on top of the biscuits. Sprinkle the chocolate power on top. With a knife or vegetable peeler make a few shavings of dark chocolate and sprinkle them on top of the whole thing. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Making this is easy for the children. You need to double the amount of biscuits as they keep eating them as they go.

MEATLOAF

There are lots of different recipes for meatloaf. We used one from Martha Stewart though we changed a few ingredients (and most of the quantities):

- 250 gr minced beef
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 2 cloves of garlic
- a handful of parsley
- 2 handfuls of breadcrumbs
- 100 gr bacon
- 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 egg
- salt and pepper

- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons of tomato ketchup

You can also add a bit of celery or red pepper or any other kind of herb.

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees.
Wash and peal all the vegetables and herbs. Mince the veggies and herbs very finely in a food processor. Mix them well with the meat and all the other ingredients except for the sugar and tomato ketchup. Put the mixture into a non-stick loaf tin. Separately mix the sugar and tomato ketchup and paint the meatloaf top with it. Bake it in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

Provided you let them use a fork or wooden spoon to mix the ingredients with the raw meat, children like helping to prepare this. Mine like to eat it with mash potatoes and (even more!) tomato ketchup.

FISH AND CHIPS THE SPANISH WAY

In Spain people tend to eat a lot of fish. Fried fish is normally cooked in a thin (not crunchy) batter. In Spain people use hake but cod works well too.

You need:
- 4 slices of cod (1-2 cm thick)
- salt
- plain flour
- 1 beaten egg and a little bit of milk (a couple of spoonfuls)
- plenty of olive oil

Heat the oil (high heat) in a small frying pan. Salt the fish, dust it in the flour (on all sides). Shake it to get rid of the excess flour. Coat it in the egg and milk mixture and fry it for a couple of minutes on each sides ( reduce the heat to medium once you put the fish in) Fish is better underdone than overdone, but if the slices of fish are too thick and you are concerned that the children may be put off by slightly underdone fish get the for 20 seconds (no more) into the microwave oven.

CHORIZO PINWHEELES

This is a very quick snack for the children.

You need:

- one sheet of puff pastry
- 150 gr chorizo cut into small cubes (some supermarkets sell this already cubed)
- 3 handfuls of grated cheese

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees.  Extend the puff pastry. Sprinkle half of the chorizo and half of the cheese on top. Fold the pastry once and pass the rolling pin overity so that the cubes of the chorizo stick to the pastry.  Sprinkle the rest of the chorizo and cheese, fold it again and press again with the rolling pin. Then roll the pastry so that you end up with a cylinder. Put in into the fridge for 15 minutes. Cut it in slices (1 cm thick more or less) and put them on a tray covered with baking paper pressing them down gently. You may paint them with egg yoke if you wish but it is not really necessary. Bake for 20 minutes until golden.

Children love this, especially if you serve them warm.

SAILORS' CLAMS

The real name of these clams in Spanish is 'almejas a la marinera'. Good clams are difficult to get (and also expensive) so it is a pity to ruin them with a creamy sauce (chowder and alike) This sauce is subtle and not too tick. Many Spanish people eat this dish for Christmas or New Year's eve.

You need:
- 300 gr clams (clean)
- an onion chopped very finely
- a table spoon of parsley (also chopped very finely)
- half a glass of white wine
- 1 -1.5 glass of water
- a bay leave
- half a lemon
- salt ( not too much as the clams are naturally salty)
- 1 table spoon of thin breadcrumbs

You are meant to cook the sauce first and then the clams on it. However, if you are, like me, paranoid about rotten seafood do this first: heat a pan until it is rather hot. Put the clams in it with two tablespoons of water and wait for a couple of minutes until they open up. Discard those that remain closed. Do not throw away the liquid at the bottom of the pan (sieve it as sometimes there is a tiny bit of sand in the clams)

In a different pan fry the onion very slowly until it gets soft and a little bit golden. Increase the heat and add the wine. Wait while it bubbles away and add the juice of the lemon, the water, the liquid from the clams, the breadcrumbs, parsley and the bay leave (and the salt if you think it is needed) Let it all boil for 4-5 minutes.

When you are about to eat heat the sauce until you see bubbles coming up, add the clams and take them off the heat almost immediately (otherwise they will get rubbery). Serve it immediately with plenty of bread.

The children enjoyed seeing the clams opening up. They initially looked at me weirdly as they thought the clams were alive. The sauce is so good though that they forgot all their worries about the clams as soon as they tasted it.