Healthy chips

Chips don't have to be deep fried. Take some potatoes, cut them into chip shapes, put them on a baking tray with a drizzle of oil and a few grinds of pepper. Flip the chips around a bit to make sure they are coated in the oil, then pop them into a hot oven (about 200/gas 6). Check on them from time to time, turning them over so they brown on all sides. Remove from the oven after about 30-40 minutes and sprinkle with salt.

Lamb steak 'n' chips

I served them with sliced lamb steak and frozen sweetcorn (glazed with a little bit of butter). Make lots, because there WILL be requests for seconds.

I like Tesco's new carrier bags

You say "burger", I say "steak haché"

Iced ginger biscuits

Further inspired by my trip across La Manche, I decided to re-create steak haché (our French friends' answer to the turkey twizzler). Mince was not sold in France until relatively recently, as the consumer preferred to pick out a piece of meat themselves and watch the butcher mince it. A canny way to avoid the accidental ingestion of cows' lips and other rubbery bits. 

Steak Haché

I bought 500g of lean minced beef, tipped it into a bowl and added a generous amount of seasoning. I then squished it all together wearing my best Marigolds, formed it into 4 patties and fried them for a few minutes on each side. Served with sugar snap peas, broccoli and oven chips.My steaks were rather thick and inelegant (and looked like burgers, I admit). Try and make yours as thin as possible.

Steak haché frites

Iced Ginger Biscuits

For pudding, we ate some iced ginger biscuits made by child 2. 

12oz plain flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

4oz butter

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
6oz soft light brown sugar

1 egg

4 tablespoons golden syrup (warm it gently for ease of handling)

Heat oven to 190/gas 5. Put butter, flour, ginger and bicarb in a food processor and whizz until it reaches the breadcrumbs stage. Add sugar and whizz again for a few seconds. Beat the egg and golden syrup together in a separate bowl, and add them to the dry stuff. Whizz yet again until it forms a dough. Roll the dough to about 5mm thick and cut out as many shapes as you can. Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on how large your biscuits are. Leave to cool and decorate with tubes of writing icing.