Apples and pears
Are quintessentially English and a great local food. There's so much variety and so much you can do with them. Here are just a few ideas:
Baked pears with blue cheese
Try slicing pears in half and use a teaspoon to carve out the cores. Place the halves on a baking tray and bake at 200°C, fan 180°C, gas 6 for 12-15 minutes until tender. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with crumbled blue cheese. Drizzle over some clear honey and grill for 5 minutes until the cheese is bubbling. Serve warm as a starter or dessert.
Apple and pear crumble
Use apples and pears together to make a fruit crumble. Set the oven to 180° C, 350 F, gas mark 4. Slice them thinly and put them in an ovenproof dish.
Make up your favourite crumble mix. The basic one is 4oz (100g2/3 cup) wholewheat flour, 2oz (50g 2/3 cup), porridge oats, 60g (3 oz) butter or margarine, 2 heaped tablespoons of brown or white sugar, but you can add ground almonds if you feel posh, or leave out the oats if you want, or use white flour (but brown is nicer) – you can be really flexible. Rub the flour and butter together, add the rest of the ingredients, spoon over the crumble and cook for 40mins to 1 hour until fruit is soft. keeping an eye on crumble so it doesn’t get too brown. I don’t use sugar in the fruit because the crumble is sweet anyway.
Russet apple salads
Try your russets diced with cheese chunks in a salad, or put them in a coleslaw type salad with walnuts. They would also be good with any blue cheese in a salad.