I like to browse around various other food websites looking for ideas, menus and recipes. I was looking at some menus in posh London hotels and noticed how popular Afternoon Tea seems to be. Crikey! The prices would scare you – around £30 per head or £40 if you include a glass of champagne with it. (£53 at the Ritz!)

And what is an Afternoon Tea anyway? Traditionally it comes in three layers. You start with sandwiches, cut into dainty triangles or fingers, then you move up to scones with cream and strawberry jam, and finally you reach the pinnacle of “fancies” – pastries and cakes. But, of course, if you’re making it yourself you can vary it according to your own tastes. Oops, and I nearly forgot, it’s served with a pot of high-quality tea.

Well, I had no intention of forking out forty quid for a few sandwiches, a cup of tea and a scone, so a bit of DIY was called for.

Sandwiches

Here are some classic ideas for finger sandwiches:

• cucumber;
• egg mayonnaise with cress;
• smoked salmon with cream cheese;
• Coronation chicken;
• Ham and mustard.

And some super-posh ones from the Ritz’s menu:

• Ham Sandwich with Grain Mustard Mayonnaise on White Bread;
• Cheddar Cheese Sandwich with Chutney on Onion Bread;
• Cucumber Sandwich with Cream Cheese, Dill, and Chives on Caraway Seed Bread;
• Chicken Breast Sandwich with Horseradish Cream;
• Scottish Smoked Salmon with Lemon Butter on Rye Bread;
• Egg Mayonnaise Sandwich with Chopped Shallots and Watercress.

And now for my ideas. Get brown and white bread from the local baker, and make sandwiches with whatever happens to be in the fridge or freezer. Thus I made:

- turkey breast with redcurrant sauce with port (white bread)
(The turkey breast was in the freezer as a leftover from Christmas, and the redcurrant sauce with port was lurking in a jar in the fridge. Cranberry sauce would have been more traditional but I didn’t have any.)

- vintage cheddar with spring onion (white)

- egg mayonnaise with tomato (brown)

- smoked salmon with horseradish and capers (brown)

Scones

I also made scones for the second tier. Here’s a recipe for tiny scones. I served the plain ones with a dollop of double cream topped with Fruit of the Forest jam, and I’d put sultanas in the other half of the scone-mix so I just served them with butter. I’m not sure what happened to the sultana scones as they weren’t as light and fluffy as they ought to have been. They tasted good anyway.

Fancies

And for the top tier, where you’re supposed to have cakes and pastries (which we’re not big fans of anyway), I used my strawberries and cream in shot glasses idea. (I also used these to make a Valentine’s dessert by putting the same things on a different plate and taking a photo.)

We served it with two types of tea. Darjeeling, an excellent choice for an afternoon tea for Mr ND, and English Breakfast, my favourite, for me. Plus we had a nice bottle of fizz.

And the cost? I didn’t count it all up but it probably came to less than £20 for two including the fizz. Kerching! I just saved us £30-40 each. What shall I spend it on?

I guess it is a big treat to go to somewhere like the Ritz for afternoon tea, but by setting the table nicely and presenting the food attractively (you don’t need the tiered cake stand, you can just use plates), you can enjoy the high life for a fraction of the cost.

Neeps are traditionally served with haggis and champit tatties to complete the trio of foodstuffs served at a traditional Burns Night supper, along with a dram of whisky, of course.  They’re also known as swede and rutabaga in other parts of the world.

Bashed neeps are easy to make – nothing could be simpler. Peel it, chop it, boil it, drain it, add plenty of butter and freshly ground black pepper, mash it, and serve.

In previous years abroad sometimes it was too difficult for us to find neeps or they were prohibitively expensive even if they could be found. I came up with a substitute by using pumpkin. It was good, but it wasn’t the real thing. So this year for Burns Night I bit the bullet and forked out about five quid for a wee neep.  Gyad sakes! We feed ’em tae the kye at hame.

After spending such a lot on a small root vegetable, I decided to make the most of it and photographed it at every stage of the process.  Though I say it myself, the result was magnificent!  There again, after not having real neeps for way more than a decade it was a luxurious and exotic treat. Oh, and the taste and smell were delicious. Never again will I mess about with substitutes if there’s any way to avoid it. Without further ado, here are my photos of the wonderful wee neep.

The whole neep – ready for action! As I said above, first we peel it…

…then we chop it…

…then we boil it…

…then we drain it…

…then we put it back in the pan and add butter and pepper…

…and mash it. Easy!

If you’re planning on celebrating Burns Night this year and can’t get hold of a haggis, you can try my delicious vegetarian haggis recipe. Most of the ingredients are reasonably easy to come by wherever you are.

This is so quick and easy you’d hardly believe it. The trick is in making the presentation look nice. You could copy my idea and serve it in shot glasses on a heart-shaped plate for Valentine’s Day. If you don’t have those, then use something else for decoration – perhaps a red flower on a round white plate?

You don’t have to make them as small as I did either, especially if it’s intended to be a proper dessert. We don’t eat a lot of desserts and the shot glass each was enough for us.

Are you ready for the recipe? Wash and chop the strawberries into slices. Dollop on some double cream. Mix well, and spoon into the dishes or glass. And that’s it!

You could add a small sprinkling of sugar or a squeeze of lime juice to the mix if you want, before spooning into the dishes, but it’s not necessary. Strawberries and cream are delicious on their own. It’s nice to save back some slices for decorating the top. A mint leaf would have been an attractive garnish for the top as well, but I didn’t have any.

You could use this “recipe” for a dinner party too, especially if the guests are likely to be full after a substantial meal. It’s very, very simple to make but if you take care of the presentation it looks good as well as being delicious.