Although I’ve made pesto many times before, I’ve generally haphazardly chucked the ingredients into the food processor and left it to chance. Despite the results usually being good, I thought it was about time I consulted the mama of authentic Italian home cooking, Marcella Hazan and see if she had an angle on this classic sauce. And indeed she did … double cheeses and butter.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: none
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2
Recipe: ‘The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking’ by Marcella Hazan

Ingredients

• basil leaves – 50g
• 1 clove of garlic – finely chopped
• pine nuts – 1½ tbsp
• extra virgin olive oil – 4 tbsp
• butter – softened to room temperature – 25g
• parmigiano reggiano – finely grated – 25g
• romano cheese – finely grated – 1tbsp
• coarse sea salt

Quickly soak the basil leaves in water and gently (but thoroughly) pat them dry with kitchen towel.

Put the basil, oil, pine nuts and a good pinch of salt into the food processor and process to a smooth creamy consistency. (If wanted, the pesto can be frozen at this stage.)

Incidentally, have you seen the price of pine nuts these days? They’ve always been costly but struth, pound for pound they are now worth more that life itself.

Transfer to a bowl and thoroughly mix in the two grated cheeses.

Next mix in the softened butter.

Taste and season if necessary.

When serving with pasta, loosen with a spoon or two of the hot pasta water

Dogs can’t look up

Verdict: Once again another excellent recipe from Marcella Hazan – it’s almost as if she knows what she’s talking about – she ought to write a book. A perfect pesto with (unsurprisingly) a buttery finish.

Drink: A variety of 6 for £5 Polish beers.

Entertainment: ‘My Wrongs #8245-8249 And 117‘ on DVD. A very short film directed by Chris Morris about a troubled man referred to as ‘Him’, a talking Doberman called Rothko, a decapitated duck, a kidnapped baby and a Routemaster destined for ‘Shit Off’. 10 minutes of Chris Morris’ warped genius. Watch.

However the arrival of Yumblog Junior and the resultant responsibilities of fatherhood have left me a changed man. As I held my child aloft for the first time and thanked the heavens for their precious gift of life I was transformed into a caring, nurturing and tolerant metrosexual male devoid of any cynicism, bitterness or class hatred. So well done Dave! The thought of my daughter growing up in a country governed by you and your deserving kind fills me to the brim with unbridled joy. I sleep soundly at night safe in the knowledge that you are striving to create a fair and just society in which all children will be given the opportunity to reach their full potential irrespective of geography, class or six million quid nest egg.

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Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: 1 cake
Recipe: Nigel Slater

Ingredients

For the cake:

• butter – 200g
• caster sugar – 200g
• plain flour – 100g
• baking powder – ½ tsp
• ground almonds – 100g
• 4 large free-range eggs
• 1 lemon
• thyme leaves – 1 tsp

For the topping:

• sugar – 4 tbsp
• 2 large lemons
• thyme leaves – ½ tsp

Start by lining a 19cm x 9cm loaf tin with baking parchment

Preheat the oven to 170C (gas mark 3).

Cream together the butter and the sugar until pale and soft.

Sift together the flour and baking powder, and mix with the almonds. Lightly beat the eggs, then fold them into the mixture in 2 or 3 goes, beating them in thoroughly each time.

Grate the zest from the lemon and pound together with the thyme leaves. Add to the cake mixture with the flour, baking powder and almonds.

Spoon into the lined cake tin and bake for 45 minutes.

While the cake bakes, dissolve the sugar in the juice of the lemons over a moderate heat and stir in the thyme leaves (including a few flowers if you can). As soon as the cake is out of the oven, spike the surface with a skewer and spoon over the syrup. Leave to cool.

Verdict: It is moistness itself. Dense moist lemon with a twist of thyme.

Drink: Tea in finest bone china.

Entertainment: Granny playing with YJ.

Please exit through the giftshop

If you had any doubts about the half-arsed nature of Dandruff Dave’s BIG SOCIETY, visit the official website.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 25 – 35 minutes
Skill level: easy
Faff level: 1/10
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 2 large cod fillets (about 250g each) – or other firm white fish – *as already mentioned, we opted for the much cheaper whiting
• 8 tiger prawns – heads removed, cleaned and deveined
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 1 small red onion – thinly sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic – thinly sliced
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tin of butter beans – drained and rinsed
• dry white wine – 100ml
• extra virgin olive oil
• S&P

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (gas mark 6)

Grate the tomatoes (on the course side of the grater) into a bowl and set aside. Discard the skin.

Wash, pat dry and season the fish and prawns. Place in an oven-proof dish and drizzle with olive oil.

Add the onion, bay leaves, garlic, tomato, butter beans and wine. Season again.

Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the fish is cooked.

Drizzle with some more olive oil and serve with a good bread to soak up the juices.

Verdict: Despite being a very easy one-pot recipe requiring virtually no preparation, this dish rewards with good flavours for very little effort. As a bonus there is plenty of the wine sauce which is yummy mopped up with bread. The inclusion of saffron and a spoonful of aioli* could elevate this from a good Saturday night TV dinner to something you’d be happy to serve up to guests.

Drink: A couple of post-Waitrose pints at The Cat and Canary and the rest of the bottle of white.

Entertainment: The third and final Sherlock Holmes.

* Or as the voice-over kept calling it on Celebrity MasterChef, ‘garlic aioli’

Preparation time: 10 – 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 – 35 minutes
Skill level: easy
Faff level: 3/10
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 1 red pepper – cored and cut into 1cm strips
• 1 yellow pepper – cored and cut into 1cm strips
• 1 large onion – thinly sliced
• 3 ripe tomatoes – roughly chopped
• muscovado sugar – 2 tsp
• 1 chilli – finely chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 sprigs thyme – stripped and chopped
• parsley – chopped – 1 tbsp
• coriander – chopped – 1 tbsp (plus more to scatter at the end)
• cumin – ¼ tsp
• saffron strands – ¼ tsp
• smoked paprika – ¼ tsp
• 4 free-range eggs
• olive oil
• water – up to 125ml
• s & p

First find a large deep frying pan or saucepan.

Add a good slug of oil and sauté the onion for two minutes.

Next add the peppers, chilli, sugar, bay leaves, thyme, parsley and coriander, and cook over a high heat for a couple of minutes until the peppers start to soften and intensify in colour.

Add the tomatoes, saffron, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper and cook on low heat for 15 minutes. Stir frequently and add enough water to keep everything loose and moist.

Taste, season, taste, season, etc.

This dish is going to be served in individual pans straight from the hob*, so you need find 2 small frying pans and divide this mixture between each.

Break 2 eggs into each pan (it helps to make indentations in the sauce with the back of a spoon), season, cover and cook over a very low heat for 5 – 10 minutes or until the egg whites have set but the yolk is still soft.

Sprinkle with more coriander and serve up with a few chunks of good bread.

* Obviously you don’t have to do this, you could stick to the one pan and serve up on plates.

Verdict: A sweet gently spiced dish which makes a great weekend brunch treat. The flavourings are only a guide, so experiment with different herbs and spices (riffing around a Middle Eastern theme).

Drink: A strong heavily sugared k4e.

Entertainment: Now that I’ve discovered Yumblog Junior finds my dancing hilarious, the entertainment possibilities are endless.

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: quite a few, depends how big you like your flapjack

Ingredients

• rolled oats – 250g
• butter – 50g
• brown sugar – 75g
• golden syrup – two large spoonfuls
• raspberries – 50g – mashed
• pinch o’ salt

Preheat oven to 22oC/gas mark 7. Grease a baking tin, depending on how thick you like your ‘jack, 24cm diameter should do it.

Mash the raspberries and set aside. Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Add the sugar to the butter and heat until dissolved. Add the salt and golden syrup to the mix. Finally stir in the oats until well coated with the buttery sugar. (If you would prefer chocolatey flapjacks then break 100g of plain chocolate into 1cm chunks and add to the oat mix with a quick stir so the chocolate is distributed through but not too melted. Omit the raspberry element of the next stage, unless you want chocolate and raspberry flapjack, hmm…)

Put half the oat mixture into the baking tin. Spread the raspberry mash over the oats and then put the remaining oat mix on top.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until golden, before the tell-tale burn marks appear round the edges.

Remove from oven and leave to cool, the flapjack will crisp up once removed from oven.

Devour.

Verdict: Tasty oaty morsels with a raspberry treat in the middle. Extremely moreish. They do not last long, no matter how many you make.

Drink: A nice cup of tea.

Entertainment: Trying to persuade the nipper that she wants to lie in her jungle gym while I stuff my face.