For this baked cheesecake you do need a pumpkin variety with a dry flesh – I like to use sugar pie or red kuri, so would recommend one of these. If the pumpkin is nice and small, cut it open, scoop out the seeds, put it back together and then roast it in the oven for about 1½ hours – this will soften the flesh and lock in the delicious pumpkin flavour. The pumpkin could be roasted a day in advance for ease and speed, then cooled and kept in the fridge overnight, if you like.

I have used ginger nut biscuits for the base, but you could use plain digestive biscuits instead, if you prefer.

I made and served this dish as a main course, but as we were cooking it, Ross mentioned that it would also make a lovely starter (see Cook’s Notes), and I agree. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

I have used the Thermomix for this recipe. Janie Turner from UK Thermomix demonstrated the new TM5 model to me. She made a chopped sweet potato salad and I was amazed with the results (potentially, I never need to use my grater again, so no more grated fingernails!).

I have a glut of pumpkins at the moment and I fancied a bit of cake, so the idea for this recipe came to mind. I thought, aha!, it’s a great time to test my new TM5 chopping techniques. I used the Thermomix to chop the pumpkin, apples and ginger, then I added the rest of the ingredients for the cake batter, whizzed it all together and in a jiffy the job was done – it’s pretty fast and impressive.

If you do not have a Thermomix, you can still make the cake, but you’ll need to use a grater instead (or a food processor with a grater attachment), then mix all the ingredients together in a bowl using a wooden spoon or an electric mixer.

Shin of beef needs to be cooked low and slow for a long period of time to make it tender and tasty. I learned a version of this recipe when I worked at Aubergine nearly 20 years ago (gosh, I feel old!), and I loved it then and I still love it today. It was served in a two Michelin-starred restaurant on the menu du jour. If it was good enough for two stars, it’s certainly good enough for me!

It’s quite a time-consuming recipe and requires a few stages, but in my opinion it’s definitely worth every ounce of effort. I make this a couple of days in advance and then serve it for a dinner party (you’ll need to start this at least one day in advance of serving). Braising the meat is fantastic as you get a ready-made sauce to serve with it, so for me, creamy mash is a must for ultimate enjoyment!

He deserves some credit for this recipe, and luckily for me on the washing-up front, he only used one bowl. Saying that, his enthusiasm was short-lived though because once the dough was made, rolled out and chilling in the fridge, I then had to finish off, cutting the dough into shapes and baking them. It was more of a team effort in the end, but he did make me smile and I would not wish for him to be any other way.

These biscuits are pretty good and I particularly like the addition of the powdered milk. I asked Mr P why milk and his reply was that when he first met me I used to make the most amazing milk ice cream and he wanted to recreate a version of that taste memory. Aw, how sweet, there is a romantic hidden in there somewhere after all!

I’m pretty pleased with this recipe. I really like Argentinian empanada pastry and as we are heading towards canapé and finger food season, I thought it’s a great pastry to showcase the game season’s best.

I have used the hare haunches for this recipe, and by cooking them in duck fat this keeps the meat moist and succulent (roasting the meat is too harsh and will dry it out too much). The pumpkin then adds a welcome natural sweetness to the hare.

Many moons ago when I was working at a three Michelin-starred restaurant, I was lucky enough to have been ‘good enough’ to make the fresh pasta and raviolis, and I think my personal love for pasta comes from those days. Nowadays, I make it for us at home, especially when we have friends over for dinner, and I still find it amazingly satisfying to make.

We enjoy venison very much and over the years we have used venison shoulder in many recipes. At the pub in Suffolk we used to smoke the shoulder and use the meat for our award-winning Scotch eggs, sausage rolls, pasties and croquettes.

For this recipe, I use a pressure cooker to cook the meat as I find it very effective and much more efficient (but I do also include an oven-braising method in the Cook’s Notes for those who don’t have a pressure cooker).

Serve these tasty little agnolotti as a starter, antipasto or light lunch or simply serve double the amount as a main course. Enjoy!

The amaretti biscuits can be made up to a week in advance and kept in an airtight container in a cool, dry cupboard, then, on the day of serving, simply sandwich them together with the freshly prepared almond cream. The sandwiched biscuits are best served on the day they are assembled.

The most important route to success with this recipe is time and patience. You must not ‘force’ or try to hurry the curing process along as this will result in a disaster.

We used a meat curing cabinet for this process, as it’s the safest method (we made our own with a fridge, but a temperature-controlled wine fridge works well with a dehumidifier and humidity meter). Humidity also plays a huge part in the process, so I suggest that you buy an inexpensive humidity meter from a DIY store to help you out.

Once the meat was cured and ready to use we were pleasantly surprised at how many servings we got from it. It kept well for a couple of weeks or so (in the fridge) and was used in many delicious dishes.

I buy the Prague powder (cure) No. 2 from https://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/cure_2.html