This is a Spring pavlova to make the most of early season rhubarb and the end of the citrus season, well before any of the soft fruits or stone fruits are in season in Europe. I love desserts with fruit, much more than with chocolate, so Spring and the Hunger Gap can always feel challenging for puddings

Last year Erin worked with a group of young teenage girls teaching them some basic meals to cook at home. It’s fair to say a lot of the girls were pretty sceptical about cooking and eating vegetables, but then they met Erin!

Corn tortillas are a staple food in Mexico – in every neighbourhood in every town or city you will find a tortilleria, a shop or sometimes just a local house where the tortilla makers will be soaking and grinding the corn to make masa and then transforming the masa into fresh corn tortillas. Customers buy dozens fresh every day, as they feature in almost every meal. Masa (the ground corn dough) and tortillas are considered so important to the stability of Mexico that the price of both is controlled by the Government.

This was our first full year of growing at our smallholding on Middle Road. When we first moved in last October we hired a turf cutter and basically decimated one half of the front garden, cutting out six 9×3 metre vegetable beds. This allows us to have a six year crop rotation – so my life will now be divided up into six year chunks and by the time the alliums are in the bed nearest the house again I’ll be 41! We’ve chosen to grow all our vegetables organically using the no-dig method, which means we don’t dig down into the soil but instead allow the plants roots and the activity of the worms and other creepy crawlies to gently create an aerated soil structure over time.

These fishcakes (Tod Mun Pla ) are a Thai classic, but they are easy to make at home after a trip to your local Asian supermarket to pick up a few ingredients – tapioca flour is essential here as it gives the fishcakes their uniquely springy and spongy texture.

The weather has been so miserable and rainy today that I’ve been craving warming, autumnal flavours in the form of something I can eat on the sofa while watching the Great British Bake Off on catch up.

I think nettle soup sometimes gets a bit of a bad rap, perhaps it just seems a bit too worthy or maybe people are put off by remembered childhood stings on knees and elbows. When collecting nettles you should probably wear thick gloves to prevent any stings (unless you are much hardier than me), I find heavy gardening gloves are good for picking them and then rubber gloves for washing and stripping the leaves off any thick stems.

A hearty classic, delicious fresh flavours and double carbs, what else could you need?

A wee Irish Twist on the Italian classic.

This is my recipe for Thai Sticky Rice with Mango or Khao Neow Mamuang as it is known in Thailand. This is a classic Thai dessert, I’ve spoken to people who claim the main reason they go to Thailand is to feast on this recipe every single day of their holiday.

These muffins are refined sugar-free as the sweetness comes from the apple sauce, a ripe mashed banana and some maple syrup. With the raisins added in you could almost count these as one of your five-a-day.

This will keep for months in an airtight container.