Forget Christmas, the real food-lover’s holiday is Easter: pancakes, Simnel cake, hot-cross buns, enough chocolate to cause a cardiac arrest, spring greens, the first of the season’s artichokes. After a winter of austerity, the scent of spring is in the air and while the lambs are fattening up it’s time for the feasting to begin.

Faced with the task of feeding the cast and crew of the Pembroke Players’ Quality Street, I deduced that celebrating the food of only one springtime festival would be insufficient, so instead I opted for the big five: Easter, Eostre, Purim, Holi and the Japanese Cherry Blossom festival.

After failing to find some free council-owned cherry blossom I decided on a pink theme for my Japan-inspired treats: pink-tinged strawberry meringues. After beating three egg whites for 45 minutes I folded in six tablespoons of caster sugar and a tablespoon of mashed strawberry pulp before placing them on baking parchment for 1 hour at 120oC. Providence decreed however that my punishment for using strawberries out of season would be 24 meringues stuck unflinchingly to their baking parchment.

The other recipes proved less prone to disaster: for Easter, the Christian festival of rebirth and redemption (and inspiration for that finest of films, the 1970s version of Jesus Christ Superstar) I boiled eight eggs in water and red food colouring for 15 minutes until suitably sanguine. Red is a perennially lucky colour, but I’m sure addition of green, blue or purple food colouring would have an equally pleasing effect.

For Purim, the Jewish festival celebrating the triumph of Esther over Haman, I made little kreplach: mince and onion pastries in a triangular shape to remind us of Haman’s tri-cornered hat. Lovely, but definitely in need ketchup. Interestingly enough it’s very difficult to find kosher ketchup, despite the fact that the most famous ketchup brand in the world, Heinz, was founded by a Jewish family.

Holi was a tricky one. Most of the snacks for this festival require a lot of ghee, 17 different spices and deep frying, so instead I plumped for the traditional drink Thandi, a milk, almond, rosewater and fennel seed transfusion which is delicious but should under no circumstances be added to your tea by mistake.

The pièce de resistance was without doubt the Wicker Man Pizza of Eostre. Inspired by the film, this bondaged-figure pizza, strikingly reminiscent of the Prague golem, oozed cherry tomatoes and mozzarella and, for only a few pounds, fed a hungry clan of eight. Happy springtime to you, food lovers of all denominations!

Wicker Man Pizza and Spring Vegetables in White Wine

For the pizza:
3 sachets of Sainsbury’s pizza dough mix
1 tin of Chair de Tomates and 2 bags of cherry tomatoes
1 bag of grated mozzarella
1 punnet of mushrooms, sliced
1 packet of fresh basil, shredded

Mix the dough with reference to the packet instructions and, on a floured surface, shape 2⁄3 of the dough into the man shape and lay on a lined baking sheet. Paint with the tomato sauce and layer on the filling. When it can take no more, form long strips of ‘wicker’ out of your dough and set about constructing your implement of torture. Once suitably grotesque looking, paint the exposed dough with some beaten egg and place in an oven at 200oC for around 40 minutes.

For the vegetables:
3 courgettes, halved lengthways and cross ways
½ a bag of frozen peas, 2 bundles of asparagus and 1 little gem lettuce
1 litre of chicken stock
200ml of cheap and fruity white wine and 6 tablespoons of olive oil

Prepare the veg and wack it in a pan with the stock, wine and half the olive oil. Cook for about 20 minutes, adding a little pepper to taste, until the kitchen turns green. Add the lettuce and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove the veg with a slotted spoon and boil down the stock mixture until it reduces by half. Beat in the remaining olive oil and drench the veg. Suitably pagan-tastic.