Marguerite Patten, mother of all ‘celebrity chefs’ has just finished advising Jamie Oliver on is latest book and is now working with Ocado and giving advice on how to make your food go further.This is a special dessert that uses up apples from the fruit bowl and is ideal for pancake day or a teatime treat.

This selection of recipes are quick, easy to prepare, but most of all fun. So get family and friends together and celebrate St Patrick’s Day the traditional way – cooking, eating, drinking, and of course, not forgetting a good old Irish sing song!

Does Pancake Day (24th Feb 2009) conjure up thoughts of a lifeless pancake languishing on a plate with a twist of lemon and sprinkle of sugar? To make your pancakes a little more exciting and truly scrumptious, the key ingredient is vanilla.

Feeling adventurous this Pancake Day? This is your last chance to indulge before Lent so what better way to celebrate than with some deliciously gooey fun! Cadbury has created an extra special recipe in time for Pancake Day that is sure to turn your Shrove Tuesday into the ultimate Shrove GOO-day

Why not try these Cheesy Apple pancakes? Perfect for Shrove Tuesday, the pancakes appeal to the whole family including kids who love the cheese and apple filling! Or you can make them as a healthy light snack when socialising with friends.

Organico, the Mediterranean organic food specialists, welcomes the Coeliac UK’s** Free for Tea week in May (11th-17th) and what better way to celebrate gluten-free tea-time than with an organic polenta cake!

While we tend to think of Autumn as ‘chutney season’, at any time of the year we can find ourselves faced with a bargain, one which cries out to be preserved for enjoyment long after its normal usage period. Many market stalls and greengrocers will offer excellent deals of produce, such as peppers.

Mini Shepherd Pies make handy individual eating, especially if frozen. This recipe makes use of New Zealand lamb mince which is good but also uses baked beans which we’re not sure about. Mind you, it does make the mince go further and you can’t ignore anything that cuts costs now can you?

It’s easy to make a positive change to your diet this year with a great range of recipes from the British Trout Association. Many people now know that eating two portions* of oily fish each week provides essential vitamins and fatty acids that are an important part of a healthy diet, though many people do not realise that Trout is in fact an oily fish.

If you want to spice up your love life this Valentine’s Day, there’s a new way to get things stirring – ‘Cupid’s Curry”, available online from DoddleCurry.Com, who offer spice kits to make cooking curry at home a doddle.