A quick and easy recipe for a delicious indulgent dessert. Perfect for hot summer days and easy to make kids and adult versions!

Serves 1

For the Sundae

• Peaches (tinned or fresh)
• Vanilla Ice-cream
• Crushed amaretti biscuits
• Whipped cream

This drink is for adults only, unless you take out the liqueur and add orange juice instead. Perfect for a hot day and may even make a nice lolly pop!

If you’re struggling to deal with a glut of courgettes this summer (they grow like blinkin’ wildfire), here’s a good way to use some up. It’s quite a rich cake and tastes great served with cream.

It works well as both a sandwich cake or a traybake (halve the ingredients if you want a small cake) and is a good way to getting two of your five a day – in cake form!

Serves 8

• 120g Butter
• 125ml Olive oil
• 100g Demerara sugar
• 200g Golden granulated sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 130ml Milk
• 350g Plain flour
• 2tsp Baking powder
• 4tbsp Bournville cocoa powder
• 400g Courgette, peeled and grated
• 1tsp Vanilla essence

For the icing and filling

• 200g Icing sugar
• 100g Bournville cocoa powder
• 3tbsp Creme fraiche
• Raspberries to decorate

Pre heat your oven to 190°C.

Mix together the butter, oil and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time and beat the whole mixture together.

Mix in the milk and sift in the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder and mix together.

Finally, mix in the courgette and vanilla essence and bake  for 35-45 minutes.

While it’s all cooking, mix together the chocolate icing. You can use more or less creme fraiche depending on how runny or thick you prefer it. Slap it on when the cake has cooled properly and decorate with raspberries before the icing sets.

This cake is best eaten on the day or the day after it’s baked; for some reason the courgettes make it go a bit stodgy as it ages.

Serves 4

• 1 part Pimms
• 3 parts flat lemonade
• a drop of mint flavouring (you don’t need much at all!)
• sliced strawberries
• apple
• cucumber

Mix Pimms, lemonade and mint together. Pour into ice lolly maker leaving a 1.5cm gap. Add all your bits of fruit, put in the freezer and leave to set for 4-5 hours. Enjoy!

A quick and easy recipe for pear and strawberry ice pops. Perfect for making in the Zoku Quick Pop!

Serves 6

• 6 pears
• 12 fresh or canned strawberries

Core and slice the pears. Chop the strawberries. Add to a liquidiser and liquidise until a puree consistency.

Pour into ice-lolly molds and place in the freezer until set.

This is a genuine Food For Friends recipe – inspired by the huge bag of cherries our friend Bev from down the road brought us, and a conversation Rachel and I had about how great Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia frozen yoghurt is – so great that I decided to come up with a version of it myself.

There’s one small problem – when it comes to defrost it, the cherry sauce melts a lot quicker than the yoghurt/cream/chocolate mix, so it’s a bit lumpy. Anyone got any ideas on how to sort that?

Serves 4

• 500g Cherries
• 300g Granulated sugar
• 300ml Creme fraiche
• 500g Total 2% yoghurt
• 2 tbsp Vanilla essence
• 100g Choc chips
• A cup of water
• You also need an ice cream maker – Magimix’s Le Glacier (RRP £39.99) is absolutely brill and has never let me down!

To make the cherry sauce

Hull the cherries and put them in a saucepan over a low heat with a cup of water (about 150ml I estimate) and the sugar. Bring to the boil and keep there for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Leave to cool overnight.

In the morning, pour the cherry sauce into a blender and blitz until smooth. If you like, you could retain half the sauce so you have a mainly smooth cherry sauce with occasional juicy bits.

To make the ice cream

Mix together the creme fraiche, yoghurt, vanilla essence and chocolate chips and put into an ice cream maker (or if you’re lazy, just mix it all in the ice cream maker). Churn it up until smooth and thick.

To put it all together: Put the ice cream into a tub and add the cherry sauce, mixing lightly so it looks like raspberry ripple. Finish by scattering a handful of chocolate chips on the top, if you haven’t already eaten them all by then! Freeze overnight.

This ice cream takes about an hour to defrost, but if you’re keen to try it, whack it in the microwave!

Fast and simple but fruitily fantastic! Using fresh fruit to make a cooling drink that is filling enough for a snack and also helps towards the important 5 a day! Dairy products can easily be replaced with non-dairy versions to make it suitable for people with lactose intolerance!

Serves 2

• ½ punnet of fresh strawberries
• 1 banana
• 1 pint semi-skimmed milk (or dairy free equivalent)
• 3 scoops vanilla ice cream (or dairy free equivalent)
• 2 drops vanilla essence or fresh seeds from fresh vanilla pod
• crushed ice-cubes

Place the strawberries and banana in a blender and blend until smooth. Add the milk, ice-cream and vanilla and blend again until combined. Place crushed ice in a tall glass and pour the smoothie mixture over.

Drink and enjoy!

Delicious served as a dessert or as a refreshing drink. Impress your friends with this exotic drink over a hot BBQ! Makes about 1-2 glasses.

Serves 2

• ½ a large papaya or 1 small papaya
• 250g plain yoghurt
• 1 orange, juiced and zested
• 1 lemon, juiced and zested
• a pinch of salt
• handful of mint leaves
• 100ml coconut milk with cream
• honey or maple syrup to taste

Cut the papaya into quarters and peel off the skin. Remove the pips and then cut into chunks.

Put everything (except 1 or 2 mint leaves) into a smoothie maker or blender and blend until smooth. The consistency should be like milkshake.

Pour into a glass filled with some ice cubes and top with a few sprigs of mint.

Whilst I was more than happy with the original version of this Chinese curry sauce, there was something bugging me. Mainly the little bits of garlic and ginger. I wanted a smooth sauce, so here’s my new and improved version!

I hope you like it. Please leave your comments to let me know what you think!

Serves 4

• 2tbs plain flour
• 2tsp mild curry powder
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• 1 ¼ tsp garlic powder
• 1tsp sweet paprika powder
• 1tsp chilli powder
• 2tbs vegetable oil
• 400ml hot beef stock
• salt to taste

Put the flour, curry powder, ground ginger, garlic powder, paprika and chilli powders in a bowl and mix well.

Heat a little vegetable oil in a pan. Remove from heat, add the flour mixture and stir well.

Mix in a little of the hot beef stock, and continue adding in stages and mixing well after each addition, until a lump free sauce is achieved.

Put back on heat and bring to a boil, simmering for 1-2 minutes. Add more stock if a runnier sauce is required.

Give it a little taste and add salt if required.

Char siu is one of my favourite meals. It can be eaten in so many ways. My personal favourite is with chinese pancakes, slices of cucumber and spring onion. Spread the pancake with hoisin sauce (boiled up leftover marinade) add a little of each of the ingredients, roll up and devour.

Serves 6

• Approx 750g pork tenderloin
• 1 ½ tbs runny honey, mixed with 1 ½ tbs hot water