Serves 4-6

Serves 4

Serves 4

Ingredients to serve 4

Serves 6-8 as a starter

Serves 4

Serves 4

Serves 4

Serves 2

Serves 4

Our reviewer heads to freshly MBE'd Anna Hansen's The Modern Pantry

Mini dishes – or small or sharing plates as they are increasingly referred to these days – are a kind of international tapas, and they are much more interesting than your average canapés. Not so long ago I made a casual dinner at home for about 15 people and served 10 courses of mini dishes including some Asian, British and Italian plates and it was not only informal but great fun for all my dinner guests. You may well think that churning out 10 courses for just 15 people sounds like a nightmare, but with some clever forward planning you can make things considerably easier on yourself. If you're planning to have people over to celebrate New Year's Eve tonight, then the mini-dish recipes I have given you here are sure to impress. You can also try to re-create your favourite dishes and miniaturise them, or you could serve a range of classic mini dishes such as bangers and mash and mini fish and chips with mushy peas, and so on.

Serves 10

My stars of the year are the farmers of West Dorset, many of whom have brought in record crops this season. It's not fashionable to praise farmers. In the public eye, they have become villains. I am fed up with hearing what villains they are. Over and over again, the same vitriol is poured from the same cracked jugs: farmers are ruining the countryside; farmers are poisoning the land. The fact is, acre for acre, gardeners use far more nitrogenous fertilisers, fungicides, herbicides and insecticides than farmers. Farmers can't afford to chuck the stuff around in the quantities that gardeners do. Why can we be allowed to take pleasure in a well-grown row of beans while they are vilified for a fine field of corn?