Nights are pulling in, we are well past the equinox so there's nothing more enjoyable than baking biscuits during the long evenings. Apart from eating them, of course. There are some dead easy to make biscuits recipes around these pages. My favourite biscuits need not be crunchy, contrary to Mary Berry's commandment, but they I consider the best the melty-in-the-mouth kind, even before dunking. Lots of butter in the biscuit dough delivers that feature, and these Breton biscuits, sometimes called sablés, are my personal top biscuits.
How about savoury biccies? Here we come onto the cheesy territory, and a very appealing zone it is too. Cheese biscuits - hotch-potch or daintily shaped into cushions - are as easy to make as they are to nibble on and they will open-mindedly accept any type or age of cheese thrown at them. Mind you, the pastry itself is a versatile revelation.
Since we're into cheese, why not go the whole hog and revoke a nostalgia of a cheese fondue? Interestingly, the dish did not originate as party fodder but a poor man's hearty meal using up stale bread and stale cheese from a sparse larder. I can promise the taste satisfaction far outweighs the taint of 1980s dinner parties.
Comfort food continued: cauli cheese, with a bit of spiciness to it.
Roasts: let's cook at least one game bird this season. Grouse for the well-heeled and adventurous, with pheasant as an almost as tasty alternative. What to serve them with? Slightly out of the ordinariness of carrots or parsnips, these parmesan turnips make a surprisingly interesting side.
And finally, time for this week's loaf. For pre-Halloween time, I propose beetroot bread - crimson, red, scary bread. Bwahahaha!