Want to see something scary? Take a look at ‘People of Walmart‘

Preparation time: 15 minute plus an hour or two to set
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: more than we could possibly want
Recipe: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Ingredients

• granulated sugar – 500g
• icing sugar – 1-2 tbsp
• cornflour – 1-2 tbsp
• a little vegetable oil – for oiling
• 1 small, raw, peeled beetroot (optional)
• gelatine powder – 25g (about 2 sachets)
• 2 egg whites

Sieve the icing sugar and cornflour into a bowl. Take a 20cm x 20cm cake tin, rub with oil and shake in some of the icing sugar mix to coat.

Grate the beetroot into a bowl, pour on 125ml of near-boiling water and leave to quickly infuse for 30 seconds. Strain into another bowl and stir in the gelatine to dissolve.

Over low heat, warm the sugar and 250ml water and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Using a sugar thermometer, boil fiercely to 122C.

Remove from the heat, pour in the beetroot/gelatine mixture and stir.

Put the egg whites in a mixer bowl and beat until very stiff. With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour in the sugar solution and beat until really thick but still pourable.

Pour into the tin and leave to set in a cool place (not the fridge) for an hour or two.

Thoroughly dust a board with the remaining cornflour/icing sugar mix. Coat a knife with oil, and use to ease the marshmallow out on to the board.

Cut into squares, and store in an airtight tin lined with parchment.

Verdict: Well they taste like marshmallows so if you like marshmallows you’ll like these. Personally I’m not fussed so these were made more out of curiosity than desire (I would certainly pass the marshmallow test). They are much softer and less dusty than the shop bought (or farmed) variety and tend to melt rather than toast.

Drink: You’ll need a gallon of tea to wash down these sweet sticky confections.

Entertainment: Sitting around the camp fire singing Ging Gang Goolie and telling ghost stories.

The marshmallow contact sheet

‘

Another HF-W recipe from the Guardian magazine. His ability to tap into the Blogger-D taste-psyche is uncanny.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 50 – 60 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: So much you’ll end up feeding it to the squirrels
Recipe: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Ingredients

• medium oatmeal – 340g
• plain flour – 185g
• soft brown sugar – 2 tbsp
• ground ginger – 3 tsp
• freshly ground nutmeg – ½ tsp
• salt – ½ tsp
• stem ginger – roughly chopped – 65g
• golden syrup – 250g
• black treacle – 250g
• unsalted butter – 125g
• milk – 70ml
• bicarbonate of soda – ½ tsp

Pre-heat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3.

Butter a 22cm baking tin and dust with flour. Then line with baking parchment and butter that too.

Place the oatmeal, flour, sugar, ground ginger, nutmeg and salt in a bowl and mix together. Stir in the stem ginger.

Warm the syrup, treacle and butter until the butter has just melted.
In another pan, warm the milk to blood temperature and then stir in the bicarb.
Pour both the milk and treacle mixtures into the dry ingredients and mix together.

Spoon into the tin and bake for 40 minutes, until just firm to the touch.

Leave to cool a little, then cut into squares or indeed wedges if you baked in a round vessel.

An East End squirrel enjoys a bit of parkin

Verdict: Enjoyed by man and beast alike. A sort of substantial spicy gingery soft flap jack… very tasty and very filling.’

Drink: Puddle water.

Entertainment: During the 2 weeks it took to eat we probably watched half a season of  ‘The Shield’ and far too many old episodes of QI on Dave. Also on at least two occasions we left the house and went to the theatre to see Marcus Brigstocke and ‘We are Klang‘ (The image of a naked man with his cock tucked between his legs pretenting to be Debbie McGee still haunts).

Preparation time: Put aside about 2 hours
Cooking time: 30 – 40 minutes
Skill level: Medium to a bit tricksy
Makes: Enough for 2-3 people

Ingredients
For the pasta:

• pasta flour – 200g
• 2 free-range eggs – beaten
• squid ink – a sachet (about a tsp)
• a pinch of salt

For the filling: (you will probably have plenty left over, but it is difficult to work with smaller quantities)

• sustainable cod or other white fish – 150g
• 2 anchovy fillets
• half a medium onion – very finely chopped
• white wine – a slug of
• ricotta – 100g
• 1 egg yolk
• butter
• s & p

Our Cylon pumpkin***

To make the pasta, sieve the flour into a mound in a bowl (or kitchen surface if you want to be authentic), make a hollow in the centre of the mound and drop in the beaten egg and squid ink. Gradually collapse the sides of the flour mound into the egg mixture and mix to form a dough. Depending on the size of your eggs, you may need to add a little water.

Knead for about 8 minutes until the dough is soft, flexible and black.

The squid ink is very thick and initially it looks like it will never mix in properly to form a black dough … don’t worry, it does.

Wrap your dough in cling film and put aside in the fridge until needed.

For the filling, sweat the chopped onions in melted butter for a few minutes until translucent.

Add the anchovies and continue to cook for a minute or two until fully dissolved.

Chop the fish into half-inch cubes and add to the onion mixture.

Pour in the wine and simmer until virtually all the liquid is gone (takes about 10 minutes).

Turn off the heat and set aside to cool. When cool, mix in the egg yolk and ricotta.

Season.

Butter innocently melting in the pan … or the ghostly silhouette of a bulldog?****

Remove the pasta dough from the fridge, divide into four and roll each piece into a flat thin sheet. If you own a pasta maker you should already know how to do this.

Use a pastry cutter to cut the pasta into circles (or any other shape you fancy).

Place a small amount of filling in the centre of half the circles, wet the edges and top with the other half. Pinch together to form a tight seal.

Place on a well floured surface until needed.

Boil up some salted water in a large pan and add the ravioli.

Meanwhile, melt some butter. Cook for 3 – 4 minutes, drain, plate up, pour over the melted butter and serve.

* Seems well made and solid enough.
** Apart from the onion goggles, all this crap is available online from Lakeland.
*** Actually a Cylon melon as we couldn’t find a pumpkin in Bethnal Green.
**** Probably just melting butter.

Verdict: These are good. In the past my hand-rolled ravioli pasta has been a bit on the thick side (No, no, it has … oh you’re too kind) but this, thanks to my new gadget, was perfect. The filling was light and creamy with just the right amount of fishiness. Overall this was possibly worth the 2 hours it took to make.

Drink: Finished off the bottle of cooking white along with a rogue beer from the fridge.

Entertainment: A second viewing of ‘In the Loop’ – “Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult” still funny, funny, lemon funny.

The Black Hallowe’en Ravioli contact sheet

Phwaaaar!

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 1.5-2 hours
Skill level: easy

Ingredients

• 1 small pumpkin – 1-1.2 kg
• emmental – 140g – grated
• gruyère – 140g – grated
• 1 garlic clove – crushed
• plain flour – 1 tbsp
• white wine – 175 ml
• lemon juice – 1 tsp
• kirsch (optional) – 1 tbsp
• nutmeg – ½ level tsp
• s & p

Preheat the oven to 170C (gas mark 3)

Cut the top off your pumpkin (so that it can be put on again) and remove all the seeds and fibrous bits.

Put the cheeses, flour and wine in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and gently heat until the cheese has melted.

Add the lemon juice, kirsch, garlic and nutmeg and stir to a smooth sauce. Season to taste.

Pour the sauce into the pumpkin and replace the top. Place on a baking tray (the fondue may spill over slightly) and bake in the oven for one and a half hours.

Serve with a good bread of your choice – GREGG suggests a dark rye bread, we had some homemade baguettes.

* Assuming of course we haven’t yet descended into a ‘Children of Men’ style dystopian madness.

Verdict: Well it’s cheese melted in wine so it can’t help but be delicious and comforting. The fondue is rich and flavoursome and the pumpkin soft and easily spooned away from the sides.

Drink: A pair of interesting lagers and the rest of the white wine used in the fondue.

Entertainment: Our current DVD viewing consists of alternating between series three of ‘Blake’s 7′ and series one of ‘Between the Lines’. In the former, Blake has gone missing/left the series to do serious drama, and the crew of The Liberator are joined by semi-clad weapons expert Dayna Mellanby and curly-permed posh-boy mercenary Del Tarrant. In the latter Neil Pearson shags and smokes his way through every scene and ends each day with a bottle of Scotch. It all looks more dated than its 13 years, but is still worth a viewing. Best line so far, referring to someone who is very pleased with himself, “He thinks he has a solar ringpiece”.