Rosie Lovell - Spooning with Rosie

For 3 hungry friends or 4 abstemious ones

Mostly because we were never flush, but also because he rightly hates waste, my father had the habit of frying up leftovers. This did lead to some serious disasters along the way. My brother Olly and I still giggle over his duck skin stew! However, leftovers can be a great addition to a morning omelette: a little remaining tomato sauce? Peppers on the turn? Slightly dry Cheddar? Daddy’s old schoolfriend Giles even recently wrote to him about the merits of leftover angelfish curry in an omelette.

Here I use cooked potatoes. They could be little new ones, cold mashed or just boiled from the night before. They would all work. The dried chilli flakes are a great storecupboard essential, and, added here, will really wake you up. I bought a few jars of peperoncino when I was in Italy, but you can get little bags of these chilli flakes in good old-fashioned continental delis too. I most recently made this spiced omelette with Raf for our super-cool adopted DJ son, Toddla T, after a night out at the Grecoroman Sonic Wrestling party. The chilli flakes were our tonic. It hardly needs to be mentioned that an omelette is also an excellent last-minute dinner. When I’m back a little late, it’s what I cook up. You too will be sated in a matter of minutes.

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion

200g cherry tomatoes or about 3 ripe plum tomatoes

400g cooked potato, either boiled or mashed

1 teaspoon peperoncino (chilli flakes)

6 medium free-range eggs

100g Gouda or any really melty cheese

freshly ground black pepper

Maldon sea salt

a healthy handful of rocket or spinach

Find a large heavy-bottomed frying pan and begin warming the olive oil on a low heat. Meanwhile get all the vegetables prepared: peel and finely chop the onion, cut the tomatoes in half, and if need be further slice the potatoes so that they are in about 2cm cubes. Add the onions to the pan and let them sweat until they are turning transparent. Now add the tomatoes and sweat for a further few minutes along with the peperoncino, stirring all the while. When the tomato skins are beginning to split, add the cooked potatoes.

In a bowl, beat the eggs thoroughly and then grate in half the cheese. When the potatoes are hot through, pour in the egg mixture and season well. Tumble the rocket over the top of the omelette, followed by the remaining cheese. Keep heating the omelette on the hob until it is drying out at the edges, which should take a few minutes.

Meanwhile turn the grill on to a low setting. Place the omelette under the grill so that it is just sealed on top, which will take about 2 minutes. You still want some soft creamy egg in the middle. Slice into 3 or 4 pieces and dish up with some Dijon mustard.

For 2

When we lived together at university, Anna and I frequently felt…a little tender. We’d set ourselves up good and proper for a day of vegging. Still in our pyjamas, we would go down to the shop to buy bumper amounts of juice, cheap bread and sweet chilli sauce, to accompany an array of high-school movies and a day’s hilarity. Really, we were making our own fun, because we were just too broke to order a takeaway. This became our substitute for sesame prawn toast and those exciting hot tinfoil boxes of Chinese delights. They really hit the spot in a gross and junky way, which is sometimes exactly what we needed to indulge ourselves.

4 slices of corner-shop bread

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

Carefully slice the crusts off the slices of bread. Heat the vegetable oil in a big frying pan on a medium flame. When the oil is rippling, dip a corner of the bread into it to check that it sizzles. Providing it does, add the 4 pieces of trimmed bread and fry until golden and crisp. Turn them over to do the same on the other side. Pour out the sweet chilli sauce into a ramekin and set aside ready for the dipping. When the bread has absorbed the oil and is stiff and golden on both sides, remove from the pan and, on a wooden chopping board, slice each piece into soldiers. Scoop these into the sweet chilli sauce, and munch immediately. There you have our fakery. For best results repeat this dish a few times throughout a long and lazy day.

Makes 6 to 8 popovers

Popovers are another of my mother’s great brekka additions. She caught her obsession for these sweet Yorkshire puddings at her sister Judith’s house, and has made them ever since. If we found out that they were on the breakfast menu, my brother and I were up early and eager and at the table, armed with knives and forks. The hole in the centre of the popover is filled with a knob of butter and a generous splash of maple syrup. The most exciting bit is when you pull them open, and the unctuous saccharine river oozes out from them.

115g plain flour

a pinch of salt

a little freshly grated nutmeg

2 medium free-range eggs

215ml full-fat milk

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

butter and maple syrup, to serve

Preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas 7 and place a deep muffin tray in the oven to warm right up. If you are using a liquidiser, put the flour, salt, nutmeg, eggs and milk into the bowl or jug, and give it a good whiz, so that it is a smooth batter. If you are using a whisk, start by beating the eggs in a big jug or mixing bowl. Then add a little of the milk before adding the flour, salt and nutmeg. Loosen it again with the rest of the milk.

Take out the piping hot tray, pour a little oil into each hole, and return to really hot up in the oven. This will take about 5 minutes. Then pour the batter into each hole, about halfway up because they will rise. They will sizzle and start to cook the minute they hit the oily hole. Return the tray straight away to the oven, turning the temperature down to 170°C/Gas 3, and bake for 20 minutes, by which time they will look like little Yorkshire puddings. They should be, according to my mum, ‘puffy, crisp and hollow inside’. To serve, place a little knob of butter into each sunken centre, along with a glug of maple syrup.

Makes 8 muffins

Marmalade and muffins are both time-honoured components of a breakfast, and are happily joined under the same umbrella in this clever recipe. Whilst in Australia I learnt a lot about a decent breakfast: muffins and cupcakes, savoury pastries and delectable coffees. I picked up this winner too. While we are on the subject of Australia, I swear by the Australian Woman’s Weekly books. They are not only reasonably priced magazine-style books, but really comprehensive and much more adventurous than you may think at first. They span national to mood foods, and are never too expensive if you fancy getting your head around a new issue in the kitchen.

These are magnificent breakfast treats packed with marmalade and are best straight out of the oven, first thing. So when I make them in the deli, they don’t last long on the cake-stand. They are particularly good with a well-brewed pot of tea. And the trick with muffins, for that lovely risen and cracking top, is not to over-combine the mixture in the final stages. This means that they are best made, really, in a slapdash fashion, which is lucky.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

125g softened butter

300g self-raising flour

1/ 2teaspoon baking powder

1 orange

2 medium free-range eggs

150g caster sugar

2 tablespoons thick-cut marmalade (preferably my mum’s dark one)

125ml full-fat milk

Preheat the oven to 160°C/Gas 2. Using a pastry brush or some oiled kitchen towel, grease each hole in a muffin tray with a little vegetable oil. Measure the butter, flour and baking powder into a big mixing bowl. Quickly rub them together, as you would when making pastry, lightly with the tips of your fingers. Now grate the zest of the orange into this. Beat the eggs together in a cup, and roughly add to the flour mix with a knife. Then roughly stir in the sugar, marmalade and milk with speed. Do not over-mix, or it will become too homogenised.