Making a seasonal pudding is a tough brief in February. Not much seasonal fruit around and there’s only so many times I can raid the freezer for gluts of gooseberries squirrelled away last summer. But I’m happy to venture further afield, and glad of some imported sunshine …

Damsons, blackberries and cobnuts all arrive in the hedgerows around my house at the same time. It’s as if Nature if giving you a hint. And, never one to ignore her, I am happy to oblige.

Another quick Easter treat for those in need of a speedy seasonal treat and without a kitchen. These tiffin squares, a sort of Eastery Rocky Road, will power my Bank Holiday weekend which is to be filled with shoveling into the raised beds the three tonnes of compost which has just arrived….

This recipe is a quick fix pudding that I loosely term 'trifle' or 'pudding pot'. It is packed with simnel cake, lemon curd, marzipan, candied peel and almonds - all the flavours of Easter in a single pot, and a five minute job

My craving for forced rhubarb remains unquenchable. Even though we have no kitchen I am still finding ways to use it. Perhaps ‘no’ kitchen is an exaggeration. Whilst our usual kitchen is knocked, we have a temporary one equipped with a microwave that claims to also be a convection oven. I tested that claim for the first time this week with these flapjacks…

No matter how often I grow something, I am astounded every time. To see a tiny seed turn into a plant and then into a meal is wondrous. And like a child clapping her hands in glee at a magic trick, I am filled with giddy amazement by each crop. None more so than this year’s parsnip harvest…

I turn this time to Nigella Lawson for quince inspiration (quinspiration? Too much?). Her quincemeat recipe is an annual event in our house offering, as it does, all the usual loveliness of mincemeat but with the addition of fragrant roast quince. Use it to make mince pies of course, but do try this tart too. It is the lovechild of a mince pie and a Bakewell tart, born at Christmastime under a lucky star and the perfect festive dessert.

Poor gooseberries. The unwanted spare part of the idiom world. And so too in the kitchen I fear. Pest free (relatively), easy to grow in the UK and delicious, gooseberries should be piled high on our shelves at this time of year. But they are not. Instead our heads are turned by that golden couple raspberries and strawberries whilst the plain old gooseberry sits awkwardly on the shelf being, in every sense, a gooseberry. But not here.

My fig tree is a maverick. No straight and narrow for her. No conforming to the usual fig-tree stereotypes. No, not for her the trappings of traditional fig-tree identity built and reinforced through generations of oppression. She absolutely categorically refuses to produce a single sodding fig. Still, fig leaves are not a harvest to be ignored because when used to infuse a liquid they impart the richest, sweetest, most figgy of fig flavours you can imagine.

I am just about back in control. Of the rhubarb, that is. I’ve been compotting, pickling, preserving, baking, freezing (less romantic, but very practical) and have worked my way through the armfuls of stems that were plump and in need of urgent picking. I’ve made a fair few savoury dishes with the fat, greener stems. But the pinkest ends of the daintiest stems I have saved for pudding purposes….