BASIL AND GOAT'S CHEESE LOLLIES

This is a crazy recipe. It comes from  Juan Mari Arzak who is truly outstanding Spanish chef. One of the very best-est  - not just in Spain, but in the world. These lollies are not the kind of thing that you would like to be served every day for lunch, but children like experimenting in the kitchen and trying novelty ingredients makes the cooking look a bit more like chemistry, which they enjoy. Arzak does this with parsley, but we tried with basil.
You need:
- 400 gr goat's cheese (cut into thick slices)
- 300 gr basil
- water
- skewers
-4 gr kappa  (Kappa is a natural vegetable ingredient that 'jellydifies' extremely quickly. You can buy 250 gr of kappa for &10.95 at http://www.amazon.co.uk/CARRAGEENAN-KAPPA-PREMIUM-QUALITY-POWDER/dp/B00G0RVEOI  It has a shelf-life of two years)

Blend the basil until it becomes liquid and add water until you get 200 ml of  'basil liquid'. Mix it with the 4 gr of kappa, put it in a pan, bring it to boil and as soon as it boils take it off the heat and let it cool down for 4 minutes. While it is getting cold, pierce  each piece of goat's cheese round with a skewer (as in the picture). When the kappa is cold, coat the cheese with the basil and kappa mixture. It really is magic: it solidifies in seconds. By the time you put the skewer on top of the table it would have already become solid.

The kappa coating  has a bit of a weird texture (but there again I do not like jelly). In any case, the flavour is good and it is fun to make. We'll try a sweet red version next with strawberries, cream cheese …  and the 246 gr of kappa that we have left!

RICE WITH VEGETABLES

This is a good way to prepare a lunch for the family on a budget. You need:

- an onion (diced)
- a red pepper (diced)
- a carrot (diced)
- 3 or 4 florets of broccoli (cut into bite size portions)
- half a courgette (diced)
- a couple of handfuls of frozen peas
NB.-except for the onion, the vegetables above are purely indicative, just use any leftovers you have in the fridge: beans, courgettes, green peppers, yellow peppers, butternut squash…

- a pinch of saffron  (if you do not have this of cannot afford it try yellow powdered food colorant instead, which is what most Spanish people use for paellas)
- a clove of garlic (do not peel it)
- half a lemon
- a pinch of parsley (chopped)
- salt
- a bay leaf
-3 tablespoons of olive oil
 - 400 gr rice (either the '10 minutes cooking' long rice that most supermarkets now sell or the normal long rice american variety)

Heat the oil in a shallow wide pan (medium heat). Add the onion, wait for a couple of minutes, then add the peppers and carrot and toss it all for a minute more or less. Add the other vegetables and parsley, reduce the heat and let it all fry for 6-7 minutes until the vegetables start burning on the edges.  Then add the half a lemon (with the flesh side down), wait for a minute and add the unpeeled clove of garlic. Add the rice and let it all fry for a minute or two. Add 580 ml of hot water, but before you add it put a bit of the hot water in a cup and dissolve the saffron or colorant in it. Add all the water to the rice. Add the salt and a bay leaf and let it all simmer for 10 minutes if you are using the 'fast rice' variety or 20 minutes if you are using normal rice. When all the water has evaporated take the pan off the heat and cover with a clean kitchen towel for a couple of minutes so that the rice rests. Discard the lemon and open the garlic clove (which should have become a garlic paste that you can mix with the rice) before serving it. Serve it with lemon wedges and if you wish with a  bit of mayonnaise mixes with a tiny but of grated garlic (which makes a fake 'alioli').

ARTICHOKES WITH HAM

Artichokes are a great vegetable and are delicious with ham.

You need:
- 2 kg of artichokes (it seems a lot but for this recipe you need to get rid of all the leaves, which you can used for a soup)
- 200 gr serrano/iberico ham (diced) - you can also try with parma ham.
- olive oil (4 tablespoons)
- salt

Clean the artichokes: get rid of all the leaves, cut the tails and chop the artichokes in fourths. You can rub them with lemon if you do not want them to get dark - personally, I find that rubbing them with lemon alters their flavour and do not mind if they get a bit dark.

Heat the oil in a big pan. Turn up the heat to its maximum setting. Add the artichokes, and wait for 5 minutes (stirring from time to time). Then add the ham, lover the heat and wait for another 5-7 minutes until the artichokes get tender (the exact timing depends on the quality of the artichokes: as a general rule, more if the artichokes are round and less if their are pointy) Serve immediately.

PRAWN 'LITTLE SALAD' - ENSALADILLA DE GAMBAS

This is a version of the 'Ensaladilla Rusa/Little Russian Salad'  (see our recipe) that is typical from the South of Spain (from San Lucar de Barrameda, by the beautiful natural park of Donana in Cadiz, to Huelva).  They have  some of the best prawns in the world there. My children prefer this to the Little Russian salad that you can find all over Spain -  probably because it has more potatoes and less vegetables. You can do a summery lighter variation of this with white melon and prawns - it sounds like an odd combination but it is delicious.  You need:
- 500 gr potatoes
- 350 gr prawns (un-shelled)
- mayonnaise (1 egg, 200 ml sunflower oil, salt, juice of half a lemon)
- water
- salt

Fill a pan with lots of salty boiling water. Put the unshelled prawns into the pan, lower the heat and let them simmer for 2-3 minutes (the prawns should be pink - but do not over boil them or they will become dry). Take the prawns out of the water, but keep the water. Un-shell the prawns (don't get impatient because it just takes 3-4 minutes and the kids can help on this) cut them into mouthful chunks, and put the shells (including the heads of the prawns) back into the pan. Add the diced potatoes to the water and boil for 7-8 minutes until they are tender (the exact amount of time depends on the kind of potato that you may use). Take the potatoes our of the water and drain them well but keep half a glass of the liquid. Mix the potatoes  with the prawns. Prepare a mayonnaise (see our '2 minutes mayonnaise' recipe) with the egg, sunflower oil, salt and lemon. Mix half a glass of the boiling water with the mayonnaise and finally mix the mayonnaise with the potatoes and prawns. Put it all into the fridge as it should be served cold.

Add some crusty bread and a green salad and that is lunch done.

BIRTHDAY CHOCOLATE CAKE

It was the birthday of my youngest this week and we celebrated with a chocolate cake (after one of those 'crazy-mum moments' when you find yourself baking a cake at 23.30 and icing it at 6.30 the following morning). I took the recipe from the BBC website (which is still running, despite all the political hysteria against the BBC earlier this year).

You need:
- 225 plain flour
- 350 sugar
- 2 eggs
- 85 g cocoa powder (I did not have any so ended up using drinking chocolate powder and it worked very well)
- 2 tablespoons vanilla essence
- 1.5 teaspoons baking soda
- 1.5 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 250 ml milk
- 125 ml sunflower oil
- 250 ml boiling water

For the icing I changed a bit the recipe and used 300 ml double cream and 230 ml dark chocolate.

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees. Grease and line 2 round cake tins. Mix all the ingredients except for the boiling water with a wooden spoon. Add the boiling water in little bits and mix well (the mixture is very liquid but don't worry). Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake for 35 minutes. Once they are baked wait until they are completely cold and take them off the tin.

heat the cream and dark chocolate (cut into pieces). Once the chocolate has melted let the mixture get cold for around an hour. Ice the cake (the first layer, top and sides)

It was far too late at night for the children to help - but they loved the cake.

OUR BOOK 'MADE IN SPAIN" AND BISCOTTI

Have been for a week in Italy (what a gorgeous country) and came back to the news that the publication of our book 'Made in Spain' by Hodder has been announced  - how is that for a nice return?! … (it almost compensated for the dismay of seeing the government incompetently all over the place on the EU…oooppss!)

This is the first time I deal with publishers (though probably not the last as I am also writing a book on politics in Spain). I have 'devoured' books over the years but it is only after this experience that I realise how much work goes behind each one of them - I am truly humbled by all the efforts Hooder is putting into the book.

This is a recipe for biscotti from Italy, to be enjoyed with a cup of strong coffee and a nice book (the one in the picture is 'Ex Libris' from Anne Fadiman, a truly delicious book)
For the recipe you need:
Preheat the oven at 175 degrees
- 3 eggs
- 275 gr sugar
- 285 gr plain flour
- a teaspoon of baking powder
- a couple of handfuls of pistachios and another couple of handfuls of  almonds (you can replace this by whatever you want: any other nuts - hazelnuts being particularly good - raising, cherries, chocolate chips, zest of orange or lemon, aniseeds…)

Mix the eggs and sugar until they double their volume. Add the flower and baking powder and mix well. Make 6 cylinder rolls (wet your hands first or you will end up with dough everywhere). Put the rolls on a baking tray lined with baking parchment, flatten a bit the rolls and bake for 20 minutes. Then take them rolls out, lower the oven temperature to 150 degrees,  wait for 10 minutes and cut each roll diagonally into the biscotti. Put the biscotti back on the tray and bake for another 8-10 minutes.

This is a really simple recipe for children. Make sure the wet their hands well before touching the dough as it is really sticky. They also like cutting the biscotti as the nuts (which are warm by that point) cut into two really nicely and they make pretty patterns. One of my children does not like nuts, so we did not put many on them. In any case, as you may have guessed, they all prefer to make the biscotti with chocolate chips (and orange peel) rather than nuts.

CAULIFLOWER SOUP

This is one of my favourite soups for winter. Very easy to make. Good for lunch and also a nice starter for dinner parties. You need:
- one cauliflower (around 1-1.2 kg)
- 1.5 onions ( diced)
-750 ml water
- 700 ml milk (we always use semi-skimmed but you can use any other kind)
- salt
- 100 gr of serrano or parma ham (cut it into thin short stripes) - needless to say that this is better if the ham is iberico...
- 50 gr of hazelnuts (chopped)
- olive oil (4 tablespoons)

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees. Clean the cauliflower, cut it into florets, mix it well with 2.5 tablespoons of olive oil and salt and put it into a roasting tin (it has become fashionable to coat vegetables in oil by putting them into a plastic sealable bag - but coating them with your hands takes no time at all, so why bother with the bag?). Roast the cauliflower for 20-25 minutes until the edges are brown.  When this is done fry the onion in the remaining olive oil for 8-9 minutes, add the roasted cauliflower and wait for a couple of minutes. Then add the water and milk, a bit more salt and let it all simmer ( without boiling)  for 10 minutes. If it boils you may get some curds, but do not worry because the taste will be still great. Blend it all with a hand held blender (we like this soup rather thick but if you prefer it thin then add a bit more water with milk).

Before you are going to serve the soup heat the ham on a frying pan (do not add any oil) for a minute or so. Then put the hazelnuts on the pan until they get golden (one minute to a minute and a half). Sprinkle the ham and hazelnuts over the soup before you serve it and add a drizzle of olive oil if you wish (not needed for taste, but it looks prettier) .

Children can help easily with it all. Mine like this for lunch, except for the hazelnuts - but regardless of my children's taste, hazelnuts, ham and cauliflower are a superb combination.