Pear, gooseberry and almond breakfast oat crumble

Although some of my more rant-led blog posts may encourage you to believe that I am a constantly angry and occasionally violent grumpy old woman, I'm actually quite a nice person. However, there are certain things that you just don't do if you want to remain on speaking terms with me ever again. 

For example, cook rice as you would pasta, in a vat of boiling water, draining it with a sieve. This is not acceptable behaviour and I will not tolerate it from anyone in my life. 

Secondly, you never, ever, mess up the froth on my cappuccino. Drinking a cappuccino is a ritual, revolving around the steady scraping off of the chocolatey froth from the top with a spoon and the inhalation of its heady cocoa-rich aroma before indulging in the actual coffee lurking underneath. The chocolate is the best bit. I once went on a date with a boy who flagrantly ignored this, leaned over the table and swirled his spoon vigorously around in my cappuccino (which sounds like a euphemism, but is not). I was actually rendered speechless with horror for a good few seconds. Needless to say, it didn't work out. A person who could do such a thing is clearly evil and therefore not boyfriend material.

Thirdly, you don't announce that you can't cook, proudly and as if this is some kind of badge of honour. You say 'I can't cook'; I hear 'I'm a lazy good-for-nothing layabout'. Cooking is pretty much the easiest thing in the world. You don't have to rustle up a three-course feast involving foams, textures and an ingredient 'done three ways'. But to make something like pasta or a curry is about as difficult as cutting your toenails. If you claim you 'can't cook', I'm sorry, but I just think you're too lazy to try. ('Won't cook', incidentally, also hurts me to hear, but is at least more honest).

You don't wave your exposed wrists in my face when I tell you I have a phobia of wrists and blood. That, people, is just unkind and not actually very funny, because I have a tendency to pass out on such occasions and while that may sound hilarious, you really don't want to be responsible for my concussion. Because I will track you down and kill you.

You don't wear leggings that are slightly see-through instead of trousers, i.e. not concealed by some kind of skirt or shorts. This is never, under any circumstances, OK. I'm sorry, but I don't want to go out with you in public if everyone who walks behind you can read the slogan on your knickers.

Come to think of it, slogans on knickers are not really OK either.

On that note. Boys: Tom and Jerry boxers are not - I repeat, NOT - a thing that should exist. If they're made of silk, this does not somehow make it OK. In fact, I think it makes it worse, by suggesting said product is geared towards a hideous hybrid of pre-pubescent child and male porn star. Wearers of such things, you know who you are. If you're ever wondering why we didn't work out, there's your explanation.

You don't always arrive late and/or cancel things at the last minute. This drives me up the wall and is just bad manners. Just because we live in a luxurious world of technology where we can instantly let someone know if we're running late or unable to make it, it doesn't mean it's OK or socially acceptable.

You don't eat at Cafe Rouge. If you eat at Cafe Rouge, consider yourself judged. Like, as judged as you will be on the way into heaven. Except if you eat at Cafe Rouge, you are clearly not going to heaven. But don't worry, I think the food in hell is probably a marked improvement on what that ubiquitous, nauseating, faux-rustic chain serves up on a daily basis.

And, finally, you don't get in the way of my breakfast.

Breakfast, to me, is probably the best time of the day. It's a quiet time, a time of solace and reflection before the rush begins. 

(OK, I admit, as a PhD student my life never gets much more of a 'rush' than 'Oh! I must hurry my five-minute commute so I can get to that seminar in time to make a cup of tea first!!! I hope I remembered to leave my lapsang souchong teabags in my locker for just such an occasion!') 

It's a time to be on my own and enjoy the first meal of the day in peace. Sometimes I read recipe books or food magazines, or watch a food show on TV. I make sure I always have something delicious to eat and take my time over, whether it's a big bowl of porridge with fruit or a freshly baked loaf of soda bread with homemade jam and a big cup of tea. I have a special mug that I reserve for my breakfast cups of tea. (By 'special', I essentially mean 'giant').

For most people, breakfast is probably a bowl of supermarket cereal and a glass of juice or a cup of tea. Or maybe a couple of pre-sliced bits of flabby, plasticky, mass-produced bread. While I appreciate that a lot of people don't have much time in the morning, I've always felt it worth getting up a little bit earlier so that I can have a proper breakfast. For me, the prospect of a freshly baked loaf or a steaming bowl of porridge is infinitely better than an extra fifteen minutes in bed. I put more effort into my breakfast, I imagine, than most people, rarely eating the same thing for more than a few days in a row. 

Take, for example, this recipe. It is inspired by one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten: Joy the Baker's 'Vegan Apple Cranberry Oatmeal Bake', which she posted on her blog a few weeks ago and which instantly shot straight to the top of my 'to-make' list. Lucky recipe - some things languish for years on that list without a second glance. I made it a few days later, and spent the entire time I was eating it groaning with delight in a slightly indecent fashion. I changed her recipe only slightly in that I used pears as well as apples, which I think made it even better. You get a gorgeous muddle of burst, juicy, tart cranberries, sharp apples and soft, grainy, perfumed pear pieces. This is all interspersed with clusters of spiced oats, crunchy and crisp in places and soft and gooey in others where they've come into contact with the fruit juices. It's one of those absolute keepers of a recipe, one that I know will become a staple in my kitchen for evermore.

It is the closest I've ever come to eating crumble for breakfast. Honestly, it's pretty much impossible to tell that it isn't crumble. What's more, it's markedly healthier. This is essentially the holy grail: dessert for breakfast, plus no guilt. That said, it could also be happily served as a dessert with some ice cream, as Joy suggests. 

There are some gooseberries in my insanely middle class food hoard (freezer) that have been lurking there for months now; I bulk-bought them in the summer and didn't use them up, saving them - as always with things in the freezer - for a 'special' occasion that never arose. As my freezer was approaching bursting point and I'm going home for the holidays, I wanted to have a bit of a clear out before I left.

I made a wonderful gooseberry crumble a couple of months ago, infinitely better than any previous attempts due to roasting the gooseberries in the oven first with brown sugar then draining most of the juice, to prevent a soggy mess that has been the tragic downfall of previous noble crumbles. The result was beautifully tender, tart berries, slightly scorched in places and wrinkled in others, under a crunchy, buttery crust. It was probably the best crumble I've ever made. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn't have to wait for an occasion when I could justify eating huge amounts of crumble to use up those gooseberries...I could use the same principle of roasting the berries first then blanketing them with a crunchy topping, but in a form that could be eaten for breakfast.

I roasted the gooseberries with brown sugar until starting to burst. They didn't release too much juice, so I didn't drain them. Instead I tossed them with chunks of pear, some mixed spice and some cornflour, to thicken any juices that did emerge and stop everything becoming watery. The crust is a mixture of jumbo oats, spelt flour, salt, mixed spice and ginger, because ginger works very well with gooseberries. It's moistened with maple syrup, olive oil and almond extract, because almond also works very well with gooseberries. The result, which looks like flapjack mixture, goes onto the fruit. You stir it in very slightly, just so that some bits of the crust end up soaked in the bubbling fruity syrup, then scatter over some flaked almonds for extra crunch, and it goes in the oven.

Oh, my goodness. I know I tell you all my recipes are good, even delicious, because obviously I'm a gastronomic genius and I crave love and acceptance, but this is beyond good. As Joy herself said of the cranberry version, it's 'bonkers delicious'. Firstly, the smell as it bakes is better than any scented candle (which makes me wonder if there isn't a gap in the market for brunch-based scented candles). Secondly, it's just so, so tasty. Hopefully you can see from the photos, because words kind of fail me. Imagine the best crumble you've ever eaten. It's sort of like that.

The gooseberries turn puckered and wrinkled, lending their beautiful honeyed, fragrant sweetness to the syrupy juice under the oats. The pears soften but still retain their grainy bite, adding their subtle perfumed flavour to the mix. The juice bubbles stickily. The oats soften and turn gooey in places, crunchy and crisp in others, with a toasty, buttery flavour (but of course, this uses olive oil so has the bonus of being vegan) and a hint of warm spice. There's crunch from the almonds. The whole thing is a delightful medley of textures and a riot of toasty and sweet, syrupy flavours. 

This is my new favourite breakfast. Eating it was a perfect ritual: big mug of tea, warm, spiced fruit, comforting crispy oats. I devoured half the dish in one sitting; Joy claims her original recipe served 4-6, but this is clearly some kind of conspiracy. I would be very, very surprised if you managed to make it serve four, let alone six. When I made it for friends a couple of weekends ago, I doubled the quantities, and it comfortably fed four of us. So be generous in your portion estimations.

I'm slightly devastated that I'm going to have to wait until summer to get gooseberries to make this again. Unfortunately it probably means I'm going to hoard even more of these fruits than last year, but at least now I'll know exactly what to do with them. However, out of season, you can use most berries for this: cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. You won't even need to roast them first, in that case - just put them in raw with the pears, cornflour and spices and add the oat mixture. I reckon blackberries would be insanely good.

So, after that somewhat scary list of things not to do if you want to be my friend, I'm going to give you one suggestion of something you should do: make this. And invite me round. Just be prepared for me to eat nearly all of it. And make sure you serve my tea in a suitably large mug.

Pear, gooseberry and almond breakfast oat crumble (serves 2-3):

• 3-4 large handfuls gooseberries, topped and tailed
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 medium pears (I used Rocha)
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 150g jumbo oats
• 40g spelt flour
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp flaked almonds

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Put the gooseberries in a medium baking dish with the brown sugar and toss together. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or so until they have softened and started to release their juice. Quarter the pears and remove the core, then cut half of them into thin slices and half into small chunks. Add to the gooseberries, and toss together with the 1tsp mixed spice and the cornflour.

In a small bowl, mix together the oats, flour, ginger, mixed spice and salt. In a measuring jug or mug, whisk together the olive oil, maple syrup, almond extract and water. Stir this into the oat mixture until it is moist and starts to clump together.

Pour the oat mixture over the gooseberries and pears, then give it a couple of stirs to roughly mix it together - you still want most of it over the top, though. Sprinkle over the almonds. Bake for around 40 minutes, until the oats have turned crunchy and golden and the fruit has softened. (Check it halfway through, and if it looks like it's a bit dry, add a drop of water to the fruit). Allow to rest for a couple of minutes, then serve.

Gooseberry meringue pie

For someone who didn't eat any of them, I have very vivid memories of school dinners. Although every lunch time I would, without fail, pile my plate with the same old combination of stale bread roll and sawdust-textured luminous grated cheese (which, naturally, came out of a giant wholesale sack), I paid great peripheral attention to the feats of gastronomy quietly occurring around me. 

I remember 'pasta Wednesday', when the whole school was treated to vats of waterlogged, flabby pasta with a dollop of ketchup-coloured sauce. I remember the ripple of excitement that passed through the lunch queue on the sporadic occasions that chips featured on the menu, even though they were inevitably tragic, flaccid specimens sporting a thin film of grease and possessing all the crunch of a waterlogged marshmallow. 

I remember the smell of 'minty lamb stew' that crept through the halls and corridors like a noxious green ghost, assaulting my nostrils with its foul barrage - an indescribably vile smell, despite the fact that lamb and mint are inherently good things - and how it looked in the serving hatch like a vat of gravy with grass cuttings floating in it.

I remember the cold pizza that appeared at the salad bar and was always sought after, despite bearing an exact resemblance both visually and gastronomically to an item of roadkill smeared over a wedge of polystyrene. I remember my friendship group's obsession with the green Granny Smith apples in the fruit box at lunch, and the anxious wait for the first person to bite into theirs and declare whether they were a good or a bad batch - the former possessing the correct amount of crispness and acidity, the latter eating about as well as a tennis ball. I'd say it was about a 50-50 ratio, for the duration of my school days.

I remember the giant wedges of flapjack that often graced the dessert plates, and were one of the only desserts I would eat. They were thick, solid, sticky, peppered with raisins and saturated with fat and sugar; thus, I loved them. I still remember a friend of mine snatching one from my hand and taking a huge bite out of it, for no apparent reason. I don't think I've ever quite forgiven her. 

Let's not forget the cornflake tart, which was some inexplicable creation resembling a treacle tart but using cornflakes instead of breadcrumbs. Today I wonder if one of the school cooks made it up for a dare/had run out of breadcrumbs/had a box of cornflakes to use up/was drunk/blind and/or deranged. 

I remember what it was that put me off school dinners for good; the reason why my lunch for nine years consisted of a decidedly un-nutritious mix of long-life carbohydrate and fatty, processed cheese. It was my first and only bite of a 'tuna and sweetcorn lasagne', which so repulsed me that I remember declaring my outrage to my mother that such an item was even allowed to exist. To be fair to my school, at this point I ate nothing other than cheese, bread and fish fingers, so it's unsurprising that their hideous pseudo-Italian pastiche repelled me.

There was also 'Eve's pudding', a classic school-dinner combo of uniform fruit pieces (apple, in this case), probably from a tin, nestled underneath a giant wodge of wobbly, chewy sponge. This obviously came complete with a puddle of lurid custard, seeping wetly into the crumb. There were, naturally, variations on this, sometimes using pears. There was apple crumble, now my absolute favourite dessert, but back then something I never touched, as - not registering on my food radar because it didn't belong in any acceptable categories (i.e. a species of bread, cheese or processed fish product) - I steered well clear and regarded it with xenophobic suspicion. 

I remember what a treat it was to be allowed a 'snack pack', only issued under highly strict conditions (forms had to be filled in) in dire circumstances - i.e. when you had a club or some other character-building extracurricular activity taking up your lunch break so were unable to make it to proper lunch. For some reason, these were always much nicer than the lunch served in hall. They also contained huge jam doughnuts, which were their main attraction. Sometimes, if you got to lunch really early and were very lucky, there might be a doughnut or two sitting proudly amongst the other lacklustre pudding offerings. Me being me, that notoriously picky so-and-so, I would nibble around the oozing jammy centre and then allow whichever of my friends had irritated me the least that day to finish off my sugary spoils.

Finally, I remember the lemon meringue pie. I remember this chiefly because I think it is the reason I now wear contact lenses. So blinding was its radiant neon yellow centre that my retinas have never been the same since it first graced the school pudding area. 

It wasn't even yellow. Not yellow as you might think of yellow. Not the colour of dandelions or buttercups. This was a colour that I have never seen in any natural shape or form. The closest I can come to describing it is that it was the exact colour of the light sabers in my Star Wars lego sets. The colour of a yellow highlighter, tinged with green, lurid and unabashedly luminous. Like nothing in nature.

Actually, I know how to describe it perfectly. Imagine a large vat of washing-up liquid. The vivid yellow-green kind. Now imagine adding an almost-equally-sized vat of gelatine to this liquid. Now imagine pouring the resultant viscous slop into a pastry case, and whacking a pillowy froth of quivering meringue on top. You have, dear readers, my school lemon meringue pie. 

I can only guess at its flavour and texture because, naturally, I never took a single bite. But I saw the way the tines of my friends' forks would cling tenaciously to that gelatinous neon interior, the way it would slice cleanly under the pressure of metal suggesting a texture reminiscent of Turkish delight. It glowed brightly in the dinginess of the lunch hall rather like a jellyfish loitering dangerously in the depths of the ocean, waiting to inflict its fake lemony sting upon the unsuspecting diner. I don't remember the meringue or pastry part, so preoccupied is my mind with this feat of engineering that was the green-yellow pie filling.

Despite this, I have an inkling that proper meringue pie can be a lovely thing. After all, I love pie, I love fruit, and I love meringue. Surely only good things can come of combining them all into one gloriously hedonistic and billowing dessert. 

I've been meaning to make a meringue pie for a good few years. I really thought it was going to happen this spring, when I was totally set on the idea of a rhubarb and blood orange meringue pie, filled with a wonderful bright pink compote of Yorkshire rhubarb laced with the astringent snap of blood orange zest. I never got round to it, but the idea has nestled at the back of my mind for months. Then, the other day, faced with a glut of gooseberries (I am so into gooseberries at the moment), I came across a recipe in the trusty Diana Henry's Food From Plenty for gooseberry meringue pie. It was obviously a great idea - gooseberries have a lovely sharpness to them that is ideal for counteracting the sweetness of a frothy swathe of meringue.

Making a meringue pie is a lot easier than I thought. Yes, you can get all fancy with Swiss meringue and cooks' blowtorches and the like, but this is a simpler, more homely pie that just requires the composition of various elements and then a bake in the oven. There's a simple shortcrust pastry case, enriched with only the tiniest amount of sugar to provide a lovely savoury biscuity crunch against the other sweet elements; there's a rich, textured and delicious filling of stewed gooseberries thickened with cornflour and enriched with egg yolks; finally, there's a brilliant white blanket of meringue draped lovingly over the entire creation, light and airy in the centre with a crisp sugary exterior.

The gooseberry filling I could eat on its own; thick with chunks of berry and possessing that gorgeous honey-muscat aroma that gooseberries enjoy, it is sweet-tart and delicious. The use of cornflour and egg yolks to thicken it means it's really rich and lovely, almost like a jam. I used a mixture of red and green gooseberries, meaning the filling came out a lovely pink-tinged colour. It could have been rhubarb after all.

While the gooseberry and pastry combination is delicious on its own, it needs the sweet meringue to take the edge off the sour berries. This is a real adventure in tastes and textures, with the buttery crunch of the pastry playing against the gooey, sweet-sour filling, all smothered in the light and fluffy meringue that takes the edge off the tartness and provides a delicious crunch where its edges have browned and crisped in the oven. 

I ate this first when it was still warm from the oven, but I'd actually recommend serving it chilled - keep it in the fridge and remove half an hour before serving. I don't know why it's better this way, but it just is - all the flavours seem to become more pronounced (which is odd, because usually the opposite is the case). It seems to improve with keeping, too, the filling becoming even more flavoursome. 

I'm pretty thrilled that my first attempt at a meringue pie was successful. And what a far cry from that lurid yellow creation that still haunts me.

What are your memories of school dinners? Are there any particular culinary horrors forever imprinted in your mind?

Gooseberry meringue pie (serves 6):

(Adapted from Diana Henry's 'Food From Plenty')

• 140g plain flour
• 80g cold butter, cubed
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• Cold water
• 750g gooseberries, topped and tailed
• 150g caster sugar (or more to taste)
• 4 tbsp cornflour
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 egg whites
• 175g caster sugar

First, make the pastry. Put the flour, butter and salt into a food processor and blitz until it looks like breadcrumbs. Don't overprocess it as this will warm up the butter. Add the sugar and blitz again for a second, then gradually add enough cold water to make the mixture start to come together - around 1-2tbsp. Tip it out onto a floured work surface and press into a ball, then wrap this in clingfilm and chill for an hour or so.

Meanwhile, make the pie filling. Put the gooseberries in a pan with 2 tbsp water and the 150g caster sugar. Cover and heat gently, stirring occasionally. The gooseberries will release a lot of juice; some will turn to mush while others will keep their shape. When they are tender, strain through a sieve, reserving the liquid, then put the liquid back into the pan and simmer until there is around 200ml left.

Take 4tbsp of this gooseberry juice and mix with the cornflour, stirring vigorously to remove any lumps. When it forms a smooth paste, put this back into the juice in the saucepan and add the gooseberries. Bring to the boil and stir; the mixture will thicken. Turn off the heat, beat in the egg yolks,  then pour into a bowl and leave to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Grease a 22-23cm tart tin with a removable base. On a floured work surface, roll out the pastry and use it to line the tart tin. Leave some pastry hanging over the edges so it doesn't shrink - you can trim these bits later when the pie is baked. Line the pastry with greaseproof paper, fill with baking beans and bake for 15 minutes, then remove the paper and beans and bake for another 10 minutes, so it is golden and biscuity. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes, then use a knife to trim off any overhanging pastry from the edges.

Put the egg whites in a clean bowl and beat with an electric whisk to stiff peaks. Add a little of the 175g sugar, beat again, then add the rest of the sugar gradually while whisking, until the mixture has the appearance and consistency of shaving foam.

Pour the gooseberry mixture into the pastry case. Spoon the meringue evenly over the tart, covering the pastry edges and all of the filling. Put the oven temperature down to 180C and bake for 25 minutes, until the meringue is golden on top. Leave to cool on a wire rack, then remove the pie from the tin (the easiest way to do this is to rest it on an upturned bowl or a tin can; the rim of the tin should just fall away, and you can then transfer to a plate and slide the base off using a palette knife).

Dust with icing sugar, and serve at room temperature or lightly chilled (remove from the fridge around 30 minutes before serving).

Gooseberry and elderflower cheesecakes

I find it strange that the gooseberry has become a metaphorical signifier for social awkwardness. When one remarks that one "feels like a gooseberry", for example when forming the third person in an uncomfortable triangle whose other two members are romantically involved, it would make sense to identify oneself with a fruit that is as culinarily awkward as one feels socially awkward at that moment in time.

And yet the gooseberry is by no means an awkward and incompatible ingredient. In fact, it couples beautifully and harmoniously with many other things; so much so that I simply cannot understand why it has become sadly underrated and used more as a metaphor for uncomfortable isolation than as the delicious kitchen treat it really is.

Gooseberries identify very closely with rhubarb, both in my mind and in my kitchen. In fact, they are pretty much interchangeable in all recipes.

They are both unpromising when raw, tough and bitter and crying out for the sweet tempering treatment of a snowy sugar coating and a gentle heat. They are both available for a certain period of the year, outside which it is impossible to source them from abroad as there simply isn't the demand to produce them. Gooseberries especially - you're lucky if you can find them outside the months of June and July.

They both mellow and transform into something soft, pastel-hued and delectable with the brief heat of a flame or oven and a generous few spoonfuls of sugar to round out their aggressively acidic edge.

They both have similar sweet and savoury applications. If you want to be a bit risqué, try pairing your cooked rhubarb or gooseberries with fatty meats or fish, such as pork belly or mackerel (fresh or smoked). They provide the perfect foil to its cloying strength, a refreshing partnership that takes both ingredients to new heights.

On the more mainstream sweet side, you can't beat a pie or crumble. You really need something lovely and buttery to stand up to all that sweet tartness. Perhaps a fool, where the collapsed fruit is folded into softly whipped cream (although being a hater of cream, I'm not really a fan of fools. In fact I loathe them and would rather eat Ryvita).

Or a cheesecake.

I can't think of many fruits that don't go well with a creamy cheesecake batter. Something about that soft, bland, blank canvas just begs for a vibrant and flavour-packed fruit to decorate it.

The gooseberry is your fruit. It's soft and delicate to look at, collapsed from its heat treatment like a deflated football but still possessing that jade hue and tart juice. It has a fragrance reminiscent of muscat grapes and sweet dessert wine; mellow, honeyed tones that partner perfectly with cream. Or cream cheese.

Rhubarb has many friends, from ginger to strawberries, but gooseberries have their fair share too. Cream, for one, but also elderflower, a completely classic and divine pairing that makes you wonder, rather like the combination of apple and cinnamon, which genius discovered it. Ideally you'd simmer gooseberries with heads of freshly picked elderflowers, but I can never find any, so I settled for elderflower cordial, which also provides the benefit of sweetening the berries as well as imbuing them with a heady floral fragrance.

These cheesecakes (aren't they gorgeous?) were inspired by a recent trip to York, which will be my home for at least the next three years when I embark on my PhD this October. I've visited Cafe No. 8 Bistro twice now on visits to this beautiful city, and really cannot wait to make it a regular haunt as I love their food. On my most recent visit, I couldn't resist ordering the 'Gooseberry crumble cheesecake' that I saw scrawled on the blackboard dessert menu. A dessert whose name literally just takes three of my favourite food-related words and puts them together? It was obviously going to happen.

It was pretty as a picture and tasted even better. The cheesecakes had been individually made in little moulds, so I got a circle of biscuit base all to myself, with a very light, creamy topping, lots of sweet-tart berries, and generous shards of buttery crumble. The whole thing was drizzled with cream, which I initially thought might be overkill, but I loved the way it mellowed the tangy edge of the gooseberries.

I knew it was going to be good before I even tucked in, because the biscuit base to cheesecake ratio was approximately 1:1, which is obviously going to result in a damn fine eating experience.

I've been thinking about that little cheesecake ever since, and dying to replicate it at home. Now that gooseberries are on the market once more, it had to happen. I also picked up these beautiful little trifle glasses for the princely sum of 20p each on a recent impulse visit to the charity shop, and I just loved the idea of serving individual cheesecakes, with all their pretty pastel layers of goodness on display.

This recipe is very simple, using a mixture of melted butter and digestive biscuits for the base, which is chilled before the topping goes on, for maximum crunch. The topping is a simple mixture of Quark (fat free cream cheese), cream cheese, icing sugar and elderflower cordial, set with gelatine to a soft, quivering creaminess. It's sweet and unintrusive, setting the scene for the burst of flavour provided by the gooseberries, which I simmered with sugar and elderflower cordial until they were fragrant and delicious.

These, for me, are a perfect summer dessert. They showcase this tragically maligned fruit to its full potential. They look simply beautiful, with their subtle colours and defined layers. They taste fabulous, the buttery crunch of the biscuit coupled with the sweet creaminess of the cheesecake, all lifted by the tart, floral berries.

They're very English, very summery, very understated, and just very tasty.

So please, next time you feel socially awkward, please pick a more apt fruit to identify with. Surely the durian fruit, which reportedly smells like rotting flesh and is actually banned in several countries for this reason, is a more realistic candidate. Leave the poor gooseberry alone.

How do you like to eat gooseberries? Have you discovered any good friends for them in terms of ingredients?

Gooseberry and elderflower cheesecakes (makes 6 mini cheesecakes or one large one):

• 10 digestive biscuits
• 60g butter, melted
• 250g Quark
• 250g light cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp elderflower cordial
• 1 sachet powdered gelatine
• 350g gooseberries, topped and tailed
• Sugar, to taste (probably around 2 dsp)
• 1-2 tbsp elderflower cordial

Blitz the biscuits in a blender to fine crumbs, then mix with the melted butter. Spoon the mixture into six individual trifle glasses, or into a greased and lined 20cm springform cake tin. Place in the fridge for an hour to chill.

Whisk together the quark, cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla extract. Place the elderflower cordial in a small heatproof bowl and microwave until hot and starting to bubble. Sprinkle the gelatine over the top and leave for a minute or so, then stir vigorously to dissolve. If it doesn't all dissolve, blast in the microwave for another few seconds.

Add this to the cheese mixture, then quickly whisk it all together. Divide the mixture between the six glasses or pour into the cake tin. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours to set, or overnight.

For the gooseberries, put the berries in a small pan with a couple of tablespoons of sugar and heat until starting to burst and release juice. If the berries release a lot of liquid, drain it off as you go - you want it to be the consistency of a compote, not watery. Stir the berries to squish them together a bit. Add the elderflower, then taste the mixture to check the sweetness - it should be quite sharp, but not unpleasantly so. Add more sugar if necessary. Leave to cool, then chill the mixture in the fridge.

When ready to serve, spoon the gooseberries over the cheesecake mixture. You could scatter with some flaked almonds, if you like.

Mackerel, gooseberries, and nostalgia

This dish will always hold a special place in my heart. Not because mackerel is my favourite fish and I'm rather fond of gooseberries, though this is true, but because it was the last dish I ever cooked in my Oxford kitchen.

Those who ever spent time with me in said kitchen will know that it was the subject of numerous rants and tirades. There was the perpetual problem of people using my utensils and not washing them up. There was the horrible fridge that every now and then decided to leak stagnant water. There was the housemate who left the freezer open overnight and lost me my hoard of prized ingredients. There was the cleaner who threw out my silicon baking parchment. There was the issue of having only two square feet of worktop space in the entire kitchen. There was the inexplicable locked filing cabinet in the corner taking up potential worktop space.

Yet despite all that, I became attached to that kitchen. Unfortunately, as so often in life, I didn't realise quite how much until I had to leave.

When I think back, I don't remember the open freezer or the stagnant fridge. Well, except I obviously do, as I mentioned them above. But what stands out in my mind far more than the minor issues are all the times I spent huddled around the horrible grey plastic table with all of my friends. Friends who often had to sit on upturned bins because of the lack of chairs. Friends who would hold washing up contests once dinner was over, which invariably made the washing up take three times as long but were worth it for the sheer amusement value. Friends who would usually bring far too much wine. Friends who, when the fridge did have one of its tantrums, helped me bail out the pools of stagnant water in the bottom using a mug. Friends who would always act as if me cooking for them was some kind of immense sacrifice, as if I saw myself as some kind of kitchen martyr, when really I felt like they were doing me a favour by allowing me to use them as guinea pigs for my culinary experiments.

Friends who I miss more than I can possibly say right now.

I don't usually go in for sentimental blog posts. In fact, they're one of my pet hates - food blogs should be about food. But right now the alternative to writing one is sitting on my bedroom floor nursing a long-cold cup of tea that I've been too busy sobbing to finish, while listening to Adele on repeat, curled up in a foetal position hugging a cushion.

I always knew it was going to be difficult, finally moving out after four years at university in Oxford. I've come home for the holidays, but I've always known I'd be going back for another term or another year. This time, I was leaving for good. Without funding it would be ridiculous to stay on for a PhD. I'd been escaping those terrifying thoughts about my future by just doing another degree, and the prospect of them all catching up with me was not one I relished. I lingered in Oxford for as long as I could after handing in my dissertation, saying multiple goodbyes as all my friends gradually dwindled away and there was no one left to cook for. I knew then that it was finally time to leave, and had a truly awful day of packing up the entire material contents of my life into bin bags and boxes, punctuated with frequent bouts of weeping at mundane objects and a bewilderment at how I'd managed to accumulate so much stuff.

For the last few weeks it's been nice to have a bit of a break, although I feel like I haven't actually had a break at all, instead running manically around London trying in vain to kick-start my career as a food writer, or teaching creative writing to GCSE and A-level students. I've been so busy that I haven't really had time to think about the lack of Oxford in my life, instead occupying myself with finally unpacking the last of my belongings and finding a place for them in my (much smaller) bedroom in Cambridge.

So I don't know why I suddenly feel completely engulfed by a crushing sense of loneliness.

I miss Oxford. Horribly. Not so much the beautiful surroundings, as I'm fairly spoilt by those too here in Cambridge. I miss all the good restaurants and the markets - you just can't compare Cambridge's humble offerings; its fishmonger is more expensive and it only has one butcher instead of four. I miss the iconic Radcliffe Camera and the musty Lower Reading Room of the Bodleian Library that always smelled inexplicably of cumin. I miss walking in the beautiful Christ Church meadows in all weathers, my favourite time being spring when the snowdrops start to appear followed closely by tiny little ducklings. I miss donning my sweeping black gown and striding across the streets for dinner, sleeves billowing in the wind making me feel like batwoman. I miss sitting on the stone table at Merton surveying the acres of meadow and garden surrounding me and feeling a pleasant sense of detached contentment. I miss my short-cut through the famous Turf Tavern, with its chalkboard sign appearing during exam season reading "FINALISTS: PLEASE REMOVE ALL GLITTER, FLOUR ETC. BEFORE ENTERING". I even miss the rotten eggs and mouldering sardines stuck between the cobbles on Magpie Lane that meant trashing time was in full swing, and I never thought I'd hear myself say that.

I miss my lovely room which, again, I used to complain about all the time (no natural light right underneath noisy housemate on ground floor so people can break in ethernet socket in the wrong place tiny windows grrrrr) but I secretly loved and cherished, having made it my own with the numerous accoutrements I brought back from the Middle East; a place where I felt truly at home and content, a place which was all mine and which I loved sharing with everyone I knew, a place with its own bathroom and power shower that I don't think I ever fully appreciated, seeing as I took most of my showers at the swimming pool or gym, but which many people were envious of (en suites are rare enough, but an en suite with a shower instead of a bath is like the Holy Grail of student accommodation).

But more than anything, I miss having all my friends no more than a fifteen-minute walk away. I miss being able to send round endless Facebook messages simply entitled "Dinner?" to a handful of people who I'd then spend a manic afternoon and evening cooking for. I miss going for tea and scones at the Rose with the girls from my Dickens course. I miss dinner and Disney evenings with some of my Navy friends. I miss garden parties on the lawns at Merton with the friends I've known since my very first few weeks in Oxford, most of whom fled abroad during their third years and left me initially rather desolate. I miss receiving texts simply saying "Pub?" and five minutes later being surrounded by my friends and wine. I miss formal hall in college, gossiping over bowls of generic "Merton soup" and slightly shrivelled-looking dinners. I miss the company of all my friends in the University Royal Naval Unit; the tedious-but-fun drill nights, the stupidly cheap bar, challenging but amusing weekends on HMS Tracker, the raucous and wine-filled mess dinners, the countless gatherings over food at my house, usually culminating in cups of tea on the floor of my room (we know how to party). I miss all the new friends I've made since I started at Oxford, and the old friends who I went to school with and who also ended up at Oxford.

Because this is me, a lot of these memories are articulated through food. I remember the disastrous evening where I cooked pasta with cheese followed by cheesecake to a friend who only afterwards admitted she didn't like cheese. I remember the gorgeous, enormous joint of beef topside that I had such high hopes for and that my mad oven frazzled to a well-done crisp, leaving me almost in tears, but which all my friends reassured me was delicious and thereby prevented an outbreak of chef-meltdown. I remember the homemade Middle Eastern cheese that a friend described as "rotted bovine lactation". I remember the confit garlic bread that I had to smack people's hands away from until the accompanying main course was ready (I knew I shouldn't have put it on the table). I remember my attempts to make a chocolate sauce by adding hot water to chocolate, and the resulting mess that a friend of mine somehow managed to salvage by stirring it continuously until it turned into crunchy nuggets of sugary goodness that then adorned some delicious chocolate and pear pancakes.

I remember the heart-shaped pavlova that was shared with friends in an attempt to cheer myself up during my boyfriend's absence on Valentine's Day. The chai tea ice cream that no one could guess the flavour of. The ragu of hare that boiled over while I was in the gym leaving a bloody mess all over my induction hob and a highly stressed cook. The trip to Moya where a friend of mine ordered a fishcake starter instead of a dessert, much to our (and the waitress's) amusement. My twenty-second birthday, where a friend of mine proudly presented me with a whole tray of chocolate brownie, with candles on and everything. The vat of beef goulash I made to feed many hungry Navy mouths and which went down a treat compared to the usual drill night fare of flaccid burgers and anaemic oven chips. The testing and often hilarious time spent catering for said Navy mouths for two weeks on HMS Tracker as we broke down in various locations along the coast from Portugal to Dartmouth (carbonara a highlight, rather rubbery pear and chocolate pudding a low point). The numerous texts inviting friends over for yet another freshly-baked banana cake because I'd carelessly let the bananas in my fruit bowl turn black. The phase where anyone invited for dinner would get nothing but variations on lamb tagine and mounds of couscous. The time my friend was sick after her starter at Christ Church formal hall, which pretty much summed up the quality of the food there, and - conversely - the amazing dinners I've had at many other colleges courtesy of my friends there.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have made so many wonderful friends during my time at university. I'm finding it very hard, if I'm honest, being back here in Cambridge, without the ability to summon them all to my house for dinner at the click of a mouse. Getting everyone together in one place is proving tricky, and I feel a bit like I'm wasting away, pining into nothingness without the constant flow of social interaction that used to characterise my time in Oxford. I worry that I will lose touch with people that I don't want to lose touch with, that everyone will go their separate ways and it will be years before we all meet up again, if ever. I guess this is only natural, this is how everyone feels after leaving university, that horrible sense of being completely lost and adrift on the sea of "adult life", and the hideous loneliness that invariably accompanies it. But it doesn't make it any easier.

As always, when something is amiss in my life, I try to distract myself with cooking. It's just not quite as rewarding without such great people to share it with. This mackerel recipe is a pretty good one to represent everything that's going on in my head right now. Its deliciousness lies in the sauce, a beautiful harmony of the bitter and the sweet. I imagine it is exactly what nostalgia would taste like.

Thank you to all of my wonderful, wonderful friends. I miss you more than even the many words of this unusually sentimental blog post can say.

Mackerel with gooseberries (serves 2):

• Two mackerel, filleted
• 250g gooseberries, topped and tailed
• 2 tsp creamed horseradish
• Caster sugar
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil

First, make the gooseberry sauce. Place the gooseberries in a pan with a splash of water and heat until the skins burst and they start to break down. Bubble away until you have a fairly thick sauce (but add a little more water if it dries out), then season and stir in the horseradish and some caster sugar, a teaspoon at a time - keep tasting until you have a sauce that is still fairly tart but not unpleasantly so.

Slash the mackerel fillets three or four times on the skin side and season well with salt and pepper. Heat a little oil in a non-stick frying pan and fry the fillets, skin side first, for a couple of minutes on each side until the flesh is opaque and flakes easily and the skin is nicely crispy.

Serve with the gooseberry sauce and some new potatoes or wild rice.

Pear, gooseberry and elderflower cobbler

When I start to see gooseberries at the market, I get almost as excited as when I spy first season rhubarb at the market. I feel quite similarly about these two fruits: they're underrated, quintessentially British, and great fun to experiment with in all sorts of recipes, both sweet and savoury. They both work well with mackerel, they both make great jam, and they both add a pleasing tartness and vibrant colour to creamy or baked desserts. One of the classic partners for gooseberries is elderflower; I often wonder who first came up with this idea, but it does work: the elderflower gives a pleasing fragrance and sweetness to what can be a very sharp berry. It also helps to mellow the rather unpleasant aroma of cooked gooseberries; they taste great, but always smell a bit weird, rather like ripening tomatoes. After receiving a box of gooseberries in my organic veg box last week I decided to try them out in a cobbler, my favourite hot pudding. It may be June, but it's pretty damn cold: I'm not abandoning my cobbler in favour of a fool or a sundae just yet.

The recipe booklet in my veg box featured a pear and gooseberry crumble. I would never have thought of combining gooseberries and pears, but it makes sense. A crumble or cobbler with pure gooseberries might be a bit overpowering, as they are quite tart, and also turn to mush during cooking. The inclusion of pear provides some texture - it remains fairly crunchy if you don't pre-cook it - and their flavour is mild enough not to exclude the lovely gooseberries. They also have a nice fragrance about them that works well with the elderflower. You could use apples, but you wouldn't get the same effect.

I love the look of these pears; they have the most beautiful matt, russet skin, which usually suggests a fragrant specimen. I think they are the Bosc variety. I wasn't disappointed, and nibbled my way through a whole one while chopping them for the cobbler; they were quite crunchy, but still flavoursome. I didn't bother to pre-cook them, but if you like your fruit fairly soft and soggy in a crumble then you might want to. After topping and tailing nearly two kilos of gooseberries (a kitchen task second in tedium only to de-bearding three kilos of mussels), they went in two dishes with the chopped pears, a generous splash of elderflower cordial, and quite a lot of caster sugar - gooseberries are extremely unpleasant to eat raw, so you need quite a lot of sugar - the same goes for summer rhubarb. The fruit looked rather beautiful, sitting in the dishes with its frosty sprinkling of sugar. It also, as my friend observed, gave me the opportunity to "show off my Le Creuset collection". I bought a beautiful purple heart-shaped baking dish ages ago at the Le Creuset outlet store and hadn't used it before now.

For the cobbler topping, I rubbed butter into flour and baking powder, added brown sugar, then stirred in some natural yoghurt. This is actually a rather healthy dessert, as there's only a small amount of butter required. It's much less fattening than crumble, and I love cobbler because of the way the top cooks to give a nice crunch. It's essentially a sort of scone dough, dropped in spoonfuls on top of the fruit and left to spread out and fluff up in the oven. Adding demerara sugar to the top gives it a pleasing sugary crunch. You get a nice crisp crust with a lovely fluffy interior, and because it has less fat you can eat twice as much. Brilliant.

About half an hour later, I removed my bubbling cobblers from the oven. Perfect, apart from one small issue: gooseberries emit enough water when cooked to save Britain from drought for the entire summer. I hadn't considered that when I put the dishes into the oven. However, it's a problem easily solved: either add a couple of tablespoons of cornflour to the fruit when you mix it with the sugar and elderflower (it will form a sort of paste and look horrible, but persevere), or pre-cook the gooseberry and pear filling for a few minutes and remove the fruit from its juice with a slotted spoon. I'm not sure which would work best; next time I'll try the cornflour as it's easier. It doesn't really matter though - I just dished up the cobbler with a slotted spoon, so that each portion got all the fruit but wasn't drowning in watery juice.

Despite juiciness, this is really delicious. As I said before, you get a really nice contrast in texture between the squashy berries and the firm chunks of pear, as well as a contrast in tartness; the gooseberries are still quite sour, but the pear is lovely and sweet so they work very well. There's also a hint of sweet elderflower running through the whole thing. Add to that a golden, fluffy scone layer on top, soft underneath where the fruit juice has soaked into it, and you're pretty close to dessert perfection. All you need with it is some good vanilla ice cream - I thought about making a weird and wonderful flavour to go with it, but there are so many nice flavours going on in the cobbler that it would just complicate matters. This is the perfect summer pudding for when the weather consistently proves disappointing.

Pear, gooseberry and elderflower cobbler (serves 4):

• 4 pears, cored and chopped
• 500g gooseberries, topped and tailed
• 3 tbsp elderflower cordial
• 180g caster sugar
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 140g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 25g butter
• 25g light brown sugar
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 150ml buttermilk or natural yoghurt
• Demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Mix the pears, gooseberries, cordial, caster sugar and cornflour in a baking dish. In a separate bowl, rub the butter into the flour and baking powder until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the ginger and brown sugar. Add the buttermilk or yoghurt, and mix to form a fairly thick, sticky dough. Dollop this in spoonfuls on top of the fruit mixture in the baking dish - you don't have to completely cover it. Sprinkle generously with demerara sugar.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling around it. Serve with vanilla ice cream.