Home food

We have a sort of routine on returning home from holiday to an empty fridge. 

The challenge is always to cook something simple, from the storecupboard, and that provides a contrast to the food of the holiday. So on returning home from a fortnight's French food, for example, it's all about a plateful of pasta to cleanse the palate of goose fat, butter and steak-frites.

But after a week in Sicily, a plate of pasta might have triggered family revolt. So, a quick 'forage' around the village saw me return with sausages, eggs and purple sprouting broccoli for toad in the hole. Or mole in the hole, as some call it. Anyway, it was tasty, and a less Italian dish is hard to imagine.