TOMATO & POMEGRANATE

Tomato, pomegranate & sumac salad (Serves 6)

Recipe from Purple Citrus & Sweet perfume, Silvena Rowe

* 6 ripe plum tomatoes, sliced

* Seeds of 1 pomegranate

* 1 tsp sumac

* ½ tsp ground cumin (or cumin seeds)

* 4 tbsp olive oil

* 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses

His goal was to see if he could live an outwardly plain life but inwardly rich existence

Alan de Botton; Status Anxiety

ALE & LEMON

Ale sorbet shandy

Sorbet

* 500ml Ale

* 50g Icing sugar

Gradually stir in the ale to the sugar, churn in an ice cream machine before freezing

Lemonade

* 1 lemon, squeezed

* Sparkling water

* 2 tsp honey

Scoop the sorbet into the homemade lemonade

If he walks too slowly in the middle of the road he will fall down in a heap and will have to be lifted into motion by some extraneous party. This is an unfortunate state the postman has cycled himself into, and I do not think he will ever cycle himself out of it.

Flan O'brian; The third policeman

PEANUT & ROSEMARY

Peanut & rosemary cookies (makes 20)

* 100ml rosemary infused avocado oil

* 120g golden caster sugar


* 40g light muscavado sugar

* 1 tsp honey


* 2 tsp rosemary, finely chopped


* ⅓ tsp mixed spice


* 1 medium free range egg


* 150g salted peanuts


* 200g white spelt flour


* ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Beat the oil, sugar, honey, rosemary and mixed spice together

Add the egg and peanuts

Sift in the flour and bicarb & mix all together

Roll the dough into pingpong ball sizes & flatten them spaced apart onto a lined baking sheet

Bake at 180C for 12 minutes

Books that one dips into but never reads through, books that one reads at a single sitting & forgets a week later

George Orwell; Books v. cigarettes

ROSE & LEMON

Rose & lemon salt

* 1tsp dried rose petals

* ½ lemon zest

* 100g pink Himalayan salt

Store in a jar for at least one week to let the flavours infuse

'Nip it in the bud' was the best advice I could dish out

ALE & TOMATO

Fruity ale & tomato ketchup

* 1kg ripe tomatoes, chopped

* 2 onions, chopped

* 2 garlic cloves, chopped

* 1 eating apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped

* 1 cooking apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped

* 2 tsp mustard seeds

* ½ tsp mixed spice

* 3cm piece fresh ginger, grated

* 100g sultanas

* 200g light muscovado sugar

* 300ml cider vinegar

* 300ml ale

* Salt & pepper

Bring all slowly to the boil & simmer for a couple of hours

Blitz to a smooth sauce 

It was copied in other countries.

ALE & CHOCOLATE

Ale truffles (makes 16)

* 75ml ale

* 20g light muscavado sugar

* 120g dark chocolate

* 120g milk chocolate

* Cocoa powder

Warm the ale & sugar together in a saucepan then stir in the chocolate until melted

Cool in the fridge then roll into balls & roll in cocoa powder

When I was in my early teens I used to sink luxuriously into a romantic novel as though into a hot bath.
Diana Athill; Somewhere towards the end

PINEAPPLE & PEANUT

Roasted pineapple, peanut & rum

* ½ pineapple, cut into rings


* 1 tbsp chunky peanut butter

* 1 tbsp agave syrup

* 2 tbsp rum

* Ground allspice

Roast all for 15 mins at 190C

Presently our hostess appeared looking, I thought exactly the same as she had some twenty seven years ago, at Hampton. She had been in her fifties; she was now in her eighties; she had seemed old then & not a day older now. She must once have been pretty.

Nancy Mitford; Don't tell Alfred