Butter Poached Lobster (sous vide), with Girolles and Hazelnuts

Girolles and hazelnuts are just the most glorious combination - both sweet, nutty and earthy, they complement each other well.  The lobster was actually just a vehicle for the girolles, and it could just as easily have been baked squash I made last week, or any number of roasted vegetables.

Girolles are a beautiful colour - they look (and are said to smell) like apricots.  They generally grow in a group together, and are best picked a few days after rain, to allow a decent amount of growth.

Braised Ox Cheek

In January I found myself tucking into a braised ox-cheek, in the middle of a horrific snow storm.  We were in Cheltenham to shoot, a shoot which would subsequently be called off due to 5ft snow drifts. We'd lunched at the fabulous Le Champignon Sauvage and were supposed to have an early dinner in the dining room at the Ellenborough hotel.  With the storm raging around us however, the chef had abandoned us in a fit of pique - apparently he had set up for a conference of two hundred people, and the whole thing had been cancelled at the last moment.

Sweetcorn Fritters

It must be autumn, I'm craving all manner of autumnal veg, from pumpkin to sweetcorn, and every variety of squash and mushroom I can find.  I genuinely think we eat too much meat in our diets, and there is no reason not to have a delicious warm lunch, where the star is the vegetable.

One of my favourites is sweetcorn fritters - but I tend to mix an additional ingredient in, just to add a little variety.  Today's variation was raw orange pepper.  I love raw peppers, but some people find it indigestible, so you could add anything else you fancy.  Crab perhaps? Always delicious. Spring onions? Grated courgettes?

Lemon Drizzle Cake

All bow to Mary Berry, the queen of baking.  And it's true, if I'm looking for a traditional bake, I'll usually look at her recipe first and then move on to check out any variations.  In this case we've never moved beyond Mary's recipe, and it's the cake the children ask for most.  If made using the all-in-one method in a food processor, it literally can be in the oven in five minutes... C'mon - who doesn't have time for a five minute cake???