Little Strawberry Cheescakes

BBC Good Food web site is a brilliant source of fresh cooking ideas and updates with impressive regularity. www.bbcgoodfood.com/ If you look today you will find little strawberry cheesecakes in the bottom right hand corner as "cake of the week"

The clever part of this recipe is that the butter and digestive biscuit base topped with a ricotta, lemon, vanilla, egg and cream mixture is placed into muffin cases which give the delicate and appealing crinkled edge. The cakes are baked for 30 minutes then left to go cold in the tin. Strawberry jam and half a strawberry complete the dish.

Serve with more strawberries, a sprinkling of icing sugar and cream.

Barbecue Time

Long hot days and warm nights at last and the Barbecue has been working overtime. Marinaded pork and chicken, king prawns, kebabs of monkfish and salmon and of course Korkers sausages have all featured over the last few evenings.

The new (in the sale) barbecue frying pan from Lakeland was put to good use in a delicious scallop and chorizo combination. The Rye bay scallops were brushed with olive oil and cooked for a minute or two on each side, diced chorizo was added and a sprinkling of salt, pepper and fresh chives.

From my substantial library of recipe books I often refer back to Ainsley's Barbecue Bible first published in 1997 this is packed full of easy to follow outdoor cookery ideas from around the world. The section on marinades, rubs and sauces gives unusual suggestions to flavour meat and fish using ingredients you will probably already have in your cupboard.

Lakeland is pretty much at the top of the list when it comes to shopping for cooking equipment and those handy utensils that you never even realised you needed. Their Windermere flagship headquarters is a delight to visit. In a handy situation adjacent to the railway station and close to the particularly high quality Booths supermarket.

My local Canterbury store is pretty good too and Lakeland mail order service excellent www.lakeland.co.uk

My latest purchase is a victoria surprise cake set made by Silverwood www.alansilverwood.co.uk on the front page of the link you will see this with instructions. Basically it has an additional base which is raised leaving extra space for deep soft fruit and cream fillings.

There is a simple recipe that comes with the tin and here is the finished cake first whole and then sliced.

Nizuni

Great service, a fine selection of good value Japanese dishes in a contemporary setting all make Nuzuni at 22  Charlotte Street W1 an excellent choice.

Starters including deep fried squid with wasabi mayo sauce, vegetable and fish tempura and crispy deep fried chicken with chilli sauce were all pleasingly presented, generous portions and very tasty.

My main course was blackened cod with soy and possibly most aptly cooked piece of fish I have eaten. 

Friends choose sizzling steak and a selection of sushi and sashimi which were also excellent

The sushi was so good that I enjoyed a small salty eel and sea urchin sushi plate in place of dessert