Gluten Free: Cheese and Onion Tartlets

Gluten free bread has come a long way from the hideous polystyrene-y vacuum-packed stuff of not many years ago. Thanks to companies like Warburtons, Fria and Genius, GF bread is actually quite good. The problem is, if you're the only Coeliac in the village your house, it's nigh on impossible to eat the whole loaf before it turns blue. You can freeze it, but gluten free bread doesn't defrost particularly well (except Fria bread, which comes already frozen), so you're left making mountains of toast – not always a bad thing, I'll admit – or loads of breadcrumbs.

You could call these tartlets Caramelised Onion and Camembert Croustades and, if you're cooking for fancy people, you should, but I prefer Toasty Tartlets. It does, after all, best describe what they are. You can top these tartlets with whatever you like: walnut, pear and stilton; sundried tomato and mozzarella; goats cheese and fig or olive tapenade. They're the ideal addition to a picnic (probably an indoor picnic, but there must be a few sunny days of summer left to come) and make easy canapes or a simple starter, when served with some dressed salad leaves.

Cheese and Onion Toasty Tartlets (makes 12)
You'll need:

• 6-12 slices of gluten free bread (depending on the size of the slices)
• a big knob of butter, melted
• 4 tbsp caramelised onion chutney (Sainsbury's Taste the Difference chutney is gluten free)
• 100g camembert, cut into small chunks
• a sprig of rosemary

Make it!

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
2. Cut the crusts off the GF bread and roll each slice to 2mm thick with a rolling pin. If the bread is stale and it starts crumbling, brush it with a little melted butter. Using a pastry cutter, cut rounds of bread to fit your shallow bun tin.
3. Lightly coat a shallow bun tin with melted butter and gently press rounds of flattened bread into it. 
4. Brush the bread round with butter and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the tin and leave on a cooling rack (if you went a bit mad with the butter, sit the tartlet cases on a piece of kitchen paper to absorb some grease). They'll keep in an airtight container for a few days.
5. When ready to serve, place a teaspoon of onion chutney into each tartlet case and top with chunks of camembert and a few rosemary leaves. Bake for 5 minutes, to melt the cheese, then serve warm.

Sluttishly Simple: Papa D's Super Smashed-Up Spuds

To be perfectly honest I had never stuffed a potato until I met my old man (ooh, Matron!). Sure, I'd feasted upon spicy BBQ chicken wings and gobbled stuffed skins in the heady days of my youth; accompanied by jugs of weaker-than-weak cocktails and surrounded by uncoordinated salsa enthusiasts at what was then a must-be-seen hangout - Old Orleans (oh yes, the truth I tell ya!).

Anyway, now I am well sophisticated and all that, as I say I'd never made them myself.

My mister is (quietly) a little bit of culinary whizz - particularly when it comes to getting newly full-of-attitude pre-pre-teens to eat their dinners. So, when I started hanging about with him, I bore witness to a truly splendid thing. Pappa D's super smashed up spuds.

If you're anything of a cheese/carb/starch glutton (as I am) then you will adore these tasty yumsters.

You'll need (to feed 4 hungry mouths):

• 4 baking potatoes (the larger the better!)
• 1/2 Camembert (one of those that come in a swish french-style box)
• 100g grated cheddar cheese
• 2 rashers of bacon
• Fresh chive
• Salt and pepper

Make it!

• Bake your potatoes as normal in the oven at 190 degrees C for about 30 minutes - they don't have to be quite as cooked as normal as they'll go back in shortly.
• Once they are cooked get them out and let them cool enough to handle (if you're in a rush pop on an oven glove to handle them).
• Whilst you are waiting for them to cool, fry the bacon until it's nice and crispy.
• Once cooled, slice each potato in half using a cold metal kitchen knife (the cold metal helps slightly solidify the potato as you cut it and makes for a neater divide).
• Scoop out the potato from the skin and plonk it all in a nice big bowl - do not discard the skins!
• Chop up the Camembert and chive and add to the potato along with 3/4 of the cheddar, the bacon (finely diced)and a decent sprinkling of salt and pepper.
• Mash, mix and blend the ingredients together with a fork or other suitable mixing implement.
• Using a spoon, divide the potato mix between the skins.
• Top with the remaining cheddar and return to the oven for 10 minutes.
• Serve!