Eleanor STEAFEL

’Tis the season to jolly well ditch the rules and enjoy warming, hearty oven bakes like this

Well, there is nothing else for it. It’s time to throw all the rule books out of the window and spend the next few months cooking and eating things that are going to make us happy. I kicked off the week by making a cake before 8am on Monday, purely because I’d decided on a whim that I wanted my flat to smell cosy and of cinnamon, like one of those little candlelit bakeries in Stockholm. I then ate quite a large slice for breakfast with strong coffee (I’ll take no judgment, thank you, it had apples and blackberries and really very little sugar in it – practically a health food).

I’ve also been making unnecessarily elaborate poached eggs for lunches and poring over old recipe books that I know contain good cold weather cooking projects to get stuck into. I might, however, have taken things a step too far on Wednesday night…

Standing in Sainsbury’s Local in the chocolate aisle, I spotted one lonely, reduced Terry’s Chocolate Orange on the shelf. I would never normally permit the purchase of a Terry’s until December 1. They are strictly a festive choc in this house and, much like Wham! or novelty reindeer jumpers, are considered bad luck if they make an appearance before the season has begun. But 2020 does not care about your neurotic ideas around chocolate consumption. And so, my new rule is as such: If you want the Terry’s (or After Eights, whatever floats your boat), have the damn Terry’s.

Bedding down for winter in the kitchen also means embracing your oven, and

finding new dishes to justify large amounts of mashed potatoes. It’s time to roll out all those brilliant roasting tin dinners that require you to do little more than assemble some good ingredients.

I love this simple, warming

bake, which has the perfect balance of sweet, salty and sour. You could, of course, add a few potatoes to the tin to cook with the chicken and plums, but I think this is best served with fluffy mash and something green.