Cheat's Cherry Pie

INGREDIENTS

1 roll of shortcrust pastry
450g cherries
300g sugar
60g cornflour
Butter for greasing dish

METHOD

Roll out your pastry so that it covers the bottom and sides of your greased pie dish (a dish about 8 inches wide will do). Don't forget to roll out enough pastry too, to cover the top of the pie. Or if you haven't got enough left, roll out a few strips and adopt the old favourite "rustic lattice" look.

On a medium heat, simmer the cherries in a saucepan until there is plenty of juice in the bottom of the pan. Then add the sugar and cornflour. The cornflour will help the sauce thicken, creating that lovely sticky cherry jam.

Put the cherry filling into your pastry lined pie dish. Put the pastry top on and crimp the edges together with your fingers. Put a slit in the pastry top to let the steam out. Sprinkle the top of the pie with extra sugar.

Pop your pie into the oven at 190c (170c fan oven) for 50 minutes.

HEALTH AND SAFETY NOTE
When you remove the pie from the oven - Caution! The filling is hot!

Homemade Blackcurrant Cordial - Ribena!

So Tesco has banned Ribena. Whatever is the world coming to? What next? Are they going to ban cake? Turns out however that blackcurrant squash is incredibly easy to make and you can pass it off quite easily to the boys as being Ribena. Parents - one. Boys - nil. Makes up for the "hidden vegetable" pasta debacle.

Ingredients

450g Blackcurrants
500ml Water
250g Caster Sugar
1 Lemon

Method
Put the blackcurrants, water and caster sugar in a pan. Don't worry about removing any stalks. Simmer for 10 minutes. Then add the juice of the lemon, and the lemon skin. This will give the cordial a lovely taste. Simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes - until the liquid starts to become slightly thicker.

Strain the cordial through a fine sieve and pour into a sterilised bottle. I have used a wine bottle (don't judge). To sterilise a bottle simply give it a good thorough wash, then pop it in the oven to dry.

That's it. You won't miss Ribena at all, and can feel quite self righteous about it it all. Goes very well with sparkling water. And how about putting a splash in with a vodka and lemonade? You heard it here first.

My blackcurrants came from the fabulous Cammas Hall Fruit Farm in Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex. It's a great afternoon out for the family, with a wide variety of Pick Your Own fruit. www.chff.co.uk/