Strawberry cinnamon toast

Those of you who follow this blog will know that you get short-changed when it comes to desserts and other sweet things. Every so often I feel I ought to remedy that so I've been thinking for a while about writing about strawberries which are still plentiful and cheap despite being past their peak season.

Prompted by Niki Segnit's brilliant The Flavour Thesaurus (a fantastic book about how to marry flavours in your cooking) I was thinking along the lines of strawberries and cinnamon. Initially a crumble, though I worried that it might make the strawberries unappealingly squishy then I hit on the notion of strawberry cinnamon toast.

Segnit is right, the combination is brilliant - not as obvious as cinnamon and apples or plums but it gives even the dullest strawberries that extra lift that makes them taste utterly delicious. Perfect for a weekend brunch - less soggy than French toast, easier than pancakes.

Serves 2

2 tbsp caster sugar
1/3-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, depending how strong it is
About 1 tbsp flavourless oil
About 300g strawberries
2 thick slices good quality sliced bread - I used a Co-op white farmhouse batch loaf. You don't want anything too dense for this
Some soft butter
Half fat crème fraiche, fromage frais or Greek yoghurt to serve

Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas 5. Mix the sugar and cinnamon. De-stalk the strawberries and cut in half. Put the strawberries in a lightly greased baking dish or tin and brush lightly with the oil. Bake for 5 minutes, sprinkle over 1 tsp of the sugar and return to the oven for another 5 minutes or so then remove from the oven. (They should be warmed through rather than cooked and smell gorgeously strawberryish.)

Meanwhile toast the bread on both sides and spread one side generously with butter. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the buttered sides. Put the slices on a baking tray under the grill and heat until the topping is bubbling. Spoon the strawberries and their juices onto the hot cinnamon toast and add a dollop of half-fat crème fraîche, fromage frais or Greek yoghurt. Eat and be happy.

A lovely fruit salad

This really simple idea came to me the other day when I was wondering what to do with a tin of apricots - a real bargain in Somerfield at 24p. Perhaps, I thought, they could be combined with strawberries which would make them taste fresher and more delicious but cut down the cost of the dish. And maybe you could add a bit of orange juice and mint.

It worked. Here it is!

Strawberry and apricot fruit salad with orange and mint

Serves 4

250g fresh strawberries with the stalks removed
1 tsp caster sugar
1 x 400g apricot halves in apple juice
1 orange
4-6 mint leaves (optional)

Slice the strawberries into a glass bowl and sprinkle over the sugar, stir and leave for 5 minutes. Drain the apricots, reserving the juice for another use (like a smoothie). Halve the apricot halves and add them to the bowl. Squeeze the orange juice and strain over the fruit and gently mix together. Chill for an hour if possible.Tear or shred the mint leaves and scatter them over the salad.

Should frugal cooks forget the idea of seasonal food?

A bit of a shock in Waitrose on Saturday. (I know, I know - it's not by any means the most frugal place to shop but it's my nearest supermarket and it was simply chucking down . . . )

It was cheaper to buy out of season strawberries than in-season rhubarb. By quite a margin. 400g of Spanish strawberries cost £1.59. 400g of rhubarb - admittedly Dutch so it had some way to travel - was £2.99. I thought rhubarb was supposed to be a UK crop at this time of year.

It seems part of a growing trend I've spotted for shops to charge more for in season foods rather than less. Like Purple Sprouting Broccoli which is £1.75 for half a kilo in my local greengrocer. It's like 'we're doing you foodies a favour by stocking this at all so we're going to charge you through the nose for it'.

The only remaining arguments against buying out of season strawberries are the not insignificant factor of the air miles they clock up and the fact that they don't taste of anything (although I've found if you cut away the un-ripe white flesh by the stalk, slice and sprinkle them with sugar and let them macerate for 10 minutes they taste a whole lot better).

Maybe we should all be buying frozen fruit instead . . .