What's that I hear you say? The Amelie Flam-kuche flatpack is a new on-line, delicious, UK delivery ready meal, from father and son team Regis and Alex Crepy at Amelie Restaurant in Cambridge. Flammekeuche is a traditional Alsace dish, so think France meets Germany. It could be described as a skinny pizza, but it's rather more like an unleavened pastry or flatbread. Thin with crispy edges as it comes out of the oven and the perfect snack at any time of the day. You can choose the toppings when ordering your flatpack (which contains 4 bases and will keep for up to 4 days in the fridge) then it's a quick assembly job; which is also fun and easy for children to do, cook for six minutes in a very hot oven. Et Voila!

• sour cream is traditionally used on a flammekueche base, here with Amelie signature creme fraiche
• Toppings are freshly prepared. Piquant, sliced onions, mushrooms and mozzarella with the pesto adding colour and punch
• Preheat the oven to 230 C and it takes just six minutes to cook
• Voila! We chose the mushroom and mozzarella flatpack
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My kind of nibbles at the Bildeston Crown.

Mr Roots was there himself handing out his new range of crisps and fizzy drinks at Notting Hill Carnival. I can say I tasted both and they were really good, but he really wanted me to tell you about his new cd.

Apparently famous in Australia my Australian friend Jess said I needed to try one. Sadly they are not the best biscuit in the world!

Cameron ate a hot dog with a knife and fork, there was that famous bacon sandwich incident and now we are coming out of Europe what can we look forward to in the food-meets-politics scene? I'm off to Lidl before they run out of stock...

 I was late and rushing for the 2pm train. I had had nothing to eat so after I found a seat and had put it off for as long as possible I bought a sausage roll. It was worse than the last one I had ten years ago. I don't need to describe it because you can see its flabby, rusky, microwaved self, for yourselves.  Abelio Greater Anglia - your crisps have improved, your drinks have improved, now try serving a nice sausage roll?

Pork pies are much easier to make than you might imagine. Just a little time needed to prepare the filling and the pastry and some patience required with the crimping and sealing of the pies.

INGREDIENTS- Filling

750g of very good sausage meat

750g of pork shoulder (finely diced or quickly chopped in a food processor)

100g smoked streaky bacon (finely diced)

a handful of chopped fresh herbs. I used sage, parsely and oregano

two large pinches salt and a very generous few grinds of black pepper

Mix all this together very well in a mixing bowl and set aside.

Pastry

200g lard

200g butter

350ml water

1kg plain flour

1 tsp salt

4 medium eggs

1 beaten egg for glazing and sealing the pies.

Heat the water in a saucepan with the lard and butter until melted, gently, it needn't boil. Place the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. I used my Kenwood mixer with dough hook and making a well in the middle add the beaten eggs. Start mixing and slowly add the water and fat mixture until you have a smooth and soft dough. Add more flour or warm water to get smooth soft dough. Cover and chill for about 1 hr.

Using a deep muffin tray grease well and line with rolled out pastry with some good overlap which you will need to crimp with. Fill with the pork and make a lid and crimp shut, using the egg wash to stick together. I had to lift the pie out of the tin to crimp and then set back into the tin. Make a hole in the middle to let the steam escape.

Bake in the oven 170C/Gas 4 for 1 hour, until golden brown.

Jelly or not? It does keep the meat moist and soaks in so you won't get a huge amount of jelly unless you keep adding more stock which is time consuming. I used 1 pint of pork stock with the equivalent amount of gelatine to set and poured it into the warm pies, no jelly layer but succulent meat.

• Top with pastry and crimp well
• Mix the meat and herbs
• Line tins and fill with meat
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Tonight I made Pakora with a bag of out of date spinach which was just begining to wilt. Use any vegetables that you have shrivelling in the bottom of the fridge.  Just cut the vegetables into slices, or shred according to their density.  Remember that courgettes will cook a lot quicker than chunks of carrot. I have yet to find anyone who doesn't wolf down a plate of these delicious Indian snacks. Gram or Chickpea flour is easy to find, usually with gluten free products on the supermarket shelf, from wholefood shops or anywhere 'ethnic'.

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  View the embedded image gallery online at:
  http://outmail.suffolkfoodie.co.uk/itemlist/tag/snacks.html#sigProIda3ed103bc9

• Delicious Indian snacks which are vegan/vegetarian and gluten free.

• Ingredients

• 70g gram flour (chickpea flour)
  1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 6 tbs cold water

• large pinch ground cumin
• large pinch of ground coriander
• 1 small onion finely sliced
• 4 handfuls of spinach leaves roughly chopped
• 1 handful fresh coriander chopped (optional)
• 1 tsp chopped green chilli ( optional)
• good pinch salt
• vegetable oil for frying
• Method
• Prepare all of the vegetables.  Substitute any vegetables that you don't have with an alternative of your choice. Just about all types of vegetable work.
• Starting at the top of the list of ingredients add all to a large mixing bowl, everything except the oil which is required for frying.
• Mix very well making sure that the vegetables are all coated with a thin layer of batter.

  Heat oil in a wok or use a deep fat fryer and drop spoonfools of the vegetables (coated in batter)into the hot oil.

• Cook until browned and the pakora holds its' shape.
• Turn to cook the other side.
• Remove from the oil and drain on kitchen paper.

Leftover French bread turned into a pizza for lunch today.  Did you know that if you run a stale baguette under the cold tap for a second and then place it in a hot oven for 5 or 10 minutes it's nearly as good as new?