My Little Belly

This Asian broth is a great way to use up whatever veg you have in your fridge. I used peppers, mushrooms and spring onions, but you could also just toss in the odd broccoli left-overs or beans.

Monkfish is a beautiful – but pricey – ingredient. It has a meaty texture a little bit like chicken and is perfect when wrapped in pancetta. I combined it with lentils and a light sauce.

This recipe is from BBC Good Food and my sudden desire to find different ways to use lentils in dishes. This one is an Asian version of this versatile and inexpensive ingredient.

This is actually a dish I’m really proud of. The sweet but acidic taste of the onion marmalade mixes really well with the nutty flavour of the cauliflower, the fresh bite of the courgette and of course – the duck.

Brussels Sprouts are majorly underrated. At this time of the year, they are extremely cheap and you can get them almost everywhere. It’s best if you can get them still on the stalk. They are fresher and they keep for longer.

A lovely dish with ravioli that are not made from pasta, but from vegetables!

Red Velvet Cupcakes are one of the bestsellers in the Hummingbird Bakeries in London. In their cookbook they stress the importance of using the correct red food colouring for the sponge and full-fat cream cheese for the frosting. Again, I reduced the icing sugar a little bit for the frosting, because the 600g icing sugar that were supposed to go into it, would probably have given me a serious sugar-overload.

After having watched almost all of the admittedly sometimes drama-overloaded Hell’s Kitchen episodes, there was only one thing left for me to do. Find out how hard it is to actually cook a perfect Beef Wellington. Well, I have to say, it is not the easiest task. Although I had no problem with the meat itself, I did struggle a bit with the overall look of the result. It wasn’t the prettiest dish in the world, but it surely tasted very nice. The following recipe is adapted from Gordon Ramsay.

This recipe was adapted from the Hummingbird Cake Days Book which enables to recreate some of the most deliciously indulgent cupcakes to can be found in London. We reduced the sugar a bit in this recipe and they still turned out really sweet. So just use your own judgment with this.

Situated at one of the entrances to the busy London Borough Market is the fish shop and restaurant Applebee’s. It prides itself on serving – whenever possible – wild and line caught fresh seasonal fish.

If you have – as I often do – cravings for rich mushroom flavor, this soup will make you smile. I do admit, that this is probably more of a winter dish, but I just had to make it. If you are lucky enough to find some chanterelles or porcini mushrooms, do use them. They are going to be great in that soup.

Quiche is great. You can fill it with almost anything that you fancy. If you want to make the dough in advance, you’ll have a very quick delicious meal that can also win you praise at a dinner party (with lots of time left to spend time with your invited friends).

Well, what is there that is so much better than a nicely cooked duck breast? No, there isn’t really! I love the sweetness of the meat with a crispy skin and a perfect tender texture. Although, one might be tempted to think that the red wine and stilton will overpower the subtle duck flavour, this is not the case. Both those flavours mix together beautifully and give you a feast in your mouth.

This is an amazing light, yet filling dish. It is perfect for a special occasion as it does take time and attention to detail. You can add little twists like crispy Enoki mushrooms to garnish your plate.

Again, one recipe from Carluccio’s and Contaldo’s book “Two Greedy Italians”. This is a great starter. I made the mistake, that I sliced the courgettes too thinly and they stuck to the oven tray – apart from one thicker slice where I didn’t control my knife properly. They should be at least 5 mm thick – remember that!