Very Special Potato Bake, with Bacon Savoy Cabbage

Ingredients:

2 Large Baking Potatoes
100gm Small Prawns (cooked)
100gm Red Leicester Cheese, Grated.
1/2 Small Savoy Cabbage
4 Rashers of Smoked Bacon
Salt, Pepper, Butter, milk.

Method:

Wash the potatoes, pat dry then prick with a fork.
Place in oven at 160C (Gas Mark 5) for around 90 minutes.
Meanwhile, shred cabbage, place in boiling salted water and cook for 20 minutes.
Grill Bacon until well cooked (crispy) and cut into strips.
Drain the cabbage well, then mix in the bacon strips.
Take the potatoes and cut them in half. Scrape out the potato from inside into a dish, add a little salt, pepper, butter and milk and mash.
Mix the prawns with the potato and refill the potato skins with the mixture. Top with the grated cheese and place under a grill to melt the cheese.

Serve hot.

Poached Pears In Red Wine

Ingredients:

3/4 Bottle of red wine
4 dessert pears
100gms sugar
1 Cinnamon stick
1 Star Anise
Whipping cream

Method:

Peel the pears, leaving them whole, and stalks attached. Carefully core using an apple corer from the bottom of the pear, if you have one (leave uncored if not).
In a small saucepan, heat the wine and stir in and dissolve the sugar.
Break the Cinnamon stick into two, and add it as well as the Star Anise and the pears to the wine.
Simmer gently for about an hour, until pears are tender.
Remove the pears and Cinnamon, return liquid to the heat and reduce to about 1/3 by boiling.

To Serve:

Whip cream until very firm.
Place warm pear upright in dessert dish, spoon red wine sauce around it, and then add a dessert spoonful of cream to the dish.