Having talked earlier about how we rarely accept items to sample, I’m going to talk about another item I happily said yes to now. This time it was tea and the new range from PG Tips.

I love tea and I drink loads of it. I like it strong and I like it to be Twinings English Breakfast. I will drink other tea but I don’t like it as much. I do however like this new PG Tips tea. Of the three, I naturally preferred The Strong One, it’s very similar to the English Breakfast I favour and is the one I reach for first thing in the morning. Later on, I move on to the The Fresh One which has a lighter flavour and is fruitier. The Delicate One I’m not so keen on. It’s decaffeinated (although it’s pretty good for decaffeinated tea actually) and just doesn’t have as much flavour as the other two.

Since we have so much of it and since I didn’t like it as much as the other two, I decided to use The Delicate One in a cake. This recipe from BBC Good Food is one of the first hits on Google and was perfect since I also had some old, dry raisins that needed using up – the recipe requires them to be soaked overnight in tea and orange juice so that they become plump and juicy.

It was easy to make and it rose well, something I was worried about since I’m not a confident baker. I added some cinnamon, ground cloves and vanilla extract to the mixture too which worked really well with the savoury flavour of the tea.

The comments on the original recipe say it keeps well and I can imagine eating it later in the week spread with butter and maybe some honey. With a cup of tea to accompany it, obviously.

When we were last in South Africa, we went to Sirocco a few times for coffee. We could never resist their croissants despite usually always having had breakfast already. They served them with olive oil, which I thought was strange until I tasted it and grew to love them. I was lucky enough to be away for my birthday and, when Stephen asked me where I wanted to have breakfast, I knew immediately.

Sadly, they don’t serve the croissants with olive oil anymore (although I’m sure I could have asked for some on the side) but just with butter and jam. The croissants were as good as I remember though and I even tasted and enjoyed some of Stephen’s omelette. It was served with feta cheese and mushrooms and had a serving on toasted sourdough with squashed avocado on the side. One to repeat at home, definitely.

Oh, and you see those guys up there? They played happy birthday to me as I returned from the toilet. A lovely, sunny birthday.

So, as I mentioned, just after Christmas, Stephen and I flew out of freezing London to sunny South Africa. We arrived to bright sunshine and heat that peaked at 40 degrees. It was glorious and very difficult to get back on the plane to come home.

The first real meal we ate was fondue, to celebrate New Year’s Eve. When Stephen was growing up, this was the traditional dish and one which I was really looking forward to. Along with the chocolate fondue that I’m familiar with for dessert, there was also a savoury fondue which wasn’t cheese. I don’t know a lot about fondue but I was under the impression that savoury = cheese, apparently not. This kind of fondue is oil with a selection of stuff to fry in it. Genius! We started with salmon trout which is similar to the salmon we have here but meatier and then followed up with steak. There were also potatoes (which weren’t supposed to be submerged in the oil but I couldn’t resist) and the “veggies” which we ate at every meal and were generally a combination of cooked vegetables and salad. It was great, such a sociable way to eat and also perfect for people with different tastes since it’s so easy to cook the meat to your preferred doneness.

I meant to ask Stephen’s mom what kind of chocolate she used for the dessert fondue since it didn’t have that oily texture I’ve experienced with the chocolate fondue I’ve had before. We mostly ate fruit with this, since we were all quite full of fried stuff but there were some marshmallows too, at Stephen’s request and the cake worked very well, just so long as you didn’t leave it in the chocolate for too long.

You have no idea how hard it was for me to leave that beautiful red and white fondue set behind. If I’d have had more space in my bag then I would have begged Stephen’s mother for it. I’ve been busy scouring charity shops for a set since I got back so you can expect to see more fondue very soon. I’m definitely keen to try a cheese one.

One of my favourite things about Christmas are the traditions that go alongside the presents and the turkey.  I like a big tree with too-many decorations on it (I get this from my mum, her tree is so overloaded that you can’t really see the branches and it often falls over), I like strings of fairy-lights covering every available surface and I like decorating the house while listening to Christmas music and eating mince pies.  We did that yesterday and baked the first batch of mince pies from the mincemeat we made a couple of weeks ago.  We used the same recipe we use every year but this time, the spicing was a little light and there was too much apple coming through.  Easy enough to rectify though and a good job we checked in advance of the big day.

Hettie Potter’s suet-free Mincemeat
Makes about 2kg

250g soft dark sugar
250ml medium dry cider
1 kg cooking apples, peeled, halved and quartered
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
250g currants
250g raisins
75g glace cherries, roughly chopped
75g blanched almonds, finely chopped
rind and juice of 1/2 lemon
6 tbsp brandy or rum

In large saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the cider over a gentle heat. Add the roughly chopped apples to the saucepan. Add all the ingredients, apart from brandy/rum and simmer for around 30 min until everything has a pulpy consistency. Take off the heat and when it has cooled slightly stir in brandy/rum.

As is now traditional, whenever we arrive home from a holiday, we cook roast chicken. It’s a comforting dish and one we always look forward to, particularly when we’ve been away and eating unusual foods.

Neither of us particularly wanted roast potatoes – it was hot and we had eaten a lot of bad foods while we were in Sweden so I opted for a salady dish of broad beans and peas with spring onions. I made a loose salsa-verde to dress the whole lot too.

This was just exactly what we needed, a good balance between comforting and interesting. The chicken looked after itself while I got on with the suitcases full of washing and I got a well-earned rest in the garden while I shelled the beans and peas.

The chicken would have been better shredded and added to the salad instead of sliced on top but it didn’t matter too much, we were both so grateful for something other than herring (well, I was) and Daim ice-creams (Stephen).

So, onto the USA, which is of course well known for burgers, amongst other things. As it was such a lovely day, we continued the barbecue theme. My sister and her husband came round to visit and brought my little niece along, who ran around a lot and tired everyone out, but it was a lot of fun.

The burgers were made from mince from our local butcher, which we have used before and was really good. It probably didn’t need a lot of seasoning, but we put in some Tabasco and some Worcester sauce along with salt and pepper and a little chopped red onion. We find that we don’t need any breadcrumbs or egg to bind it together, they are generally quite happy to remain in a burger shape until cooked.

We didn’t have any American cheese slices and weren’t planning to buy any as we never eat them, so tried to cut a slice of cheddar very square, which almost looks right but not quite. Added some lettuce, tomato and sliced pickle and we were ready to go.

We also barbecued some sweetcorn, which worked out well but is presented here in a totally non-American way on a Cath Kidston plate:

And then to finish, some pecan pie which was really good and was quite simple to make. We followed this BBC Food recipe but used ready-made pastry instead of making it. The pastry wasn’t a great success even though we bought it – I rolled it out and then because it was such a hot day it started falling apart when I tried to put it into the pie dish. I managed to do a bit of patchwork though and it somehow held together and more importantly, it tasted good!

With the first game involving the hosts South Africa, that was obviously where we needed to start. One of the most popular South African desserts is milk tart, or “melktert” which is the Afrikaans translation. The tart originated from a Dutch custard tart centuries ago, which Malay cooks in South Africa personalised with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Having grown up in South Africa, I’ve eaten it many times but never tried to cook it before and it surprised me when the first recipe that I found on the web didn’t include a crust. I thought it was a little strange to have a tart without a crust, and searched around for another recipe and found one that included pastry. But due to laziness eventually tried the crustless one anyway!

I think I overdid the cinnamon because the top of the tart was completely brown rather than the white with brown speckles that is common, but it certainly tasted good. The base and edge had actually formed itself into something of a soft “crust” during the cooking process, which when I tasted it seemed instantly familiar – the crustless version must be quite common.

When I realised I had nine egg whites in the freezer and plenty of people to feed over the weekend, I decided to make a pavlova. I divided the egg whites in half so that I had about 4.5 and adjusted the sugar, mixed it up, added some rosewater and some pink food colouring and then sprinkled the top with the lavender sugar.

Cooked for an hour and then left to cool overnight in the oven, it looked brilliant when I checked it on Saturday morning. And then I tried to remove it from the greaseproof paper and realised it was completely under-cooked. I thought about trying to rescue it but decided it would be easier to start again when I got to my mum’s.

The second version turned out OK but it cooked a lot quicker than I was expecting and went much browner than the original version. Still, it tasted good, topped with rhubarb that had been cooked in more of the lavender sugar. It didn’t look as pretty though.

Stephen’s cousin got married on Saturday and at the reception we ate a goats cheese tart with caramelised onions and a red onion chutney followed by roast lamb with wild mushrooms and fondant potato. Dessert began with a creme brulee with strawberries and a sugary tuille and was followed by home-made tablet.

All of the food was very good but the tablet was particularly brilliant. Although we’ve made it before, we’ve never actually eaten it so neither of us were entirely sure what it was supposed to taste like. This one was much better than ours, creamy and crumbly and not at all dry, unlike ours.

This title was suggested by my brother and it’s very apt, not just because we cooked the brownies and cheesecake to take to a bonfire party.

Our oven is broken and we’re waiting for a new one to be fitted. Having suggested we take dessert along to the afore-mentioned bonfire party on Saturday night, Stephen and I took the ingredients to my mum’s to cook there. Only, once the assembled desserts were in the oven, we realised her oven had also broken and both dishes were burnt.

We tried to rescue the cheesecake by scraping off the top layer and, while it tasted pretty good, it looked terrible and certainly not fitting for a party. The brownies didn’t fare any better so we made a quick stop at the local supermarket on the way and picked up some ready-made versions.

Arriving at the party, we got on with setting up the barbecues for the lamb legs and other assorted meat products we were to cook that evening. Only the charcoal wouldn’t light and one barbecue went out completely halfway through. Luckily we were able to rescue the meat so we didn’t starve, we just ate a bit later than planned.

Today, we had toast for dinner.