Coffee Muffins

Last Christmas I asked for a copy of Ottelenghi’s Plenty. The plan, as with all good plans, never came to much – but the idea was to kill two birds with one stone:

• Matt and I would eat a more healthy vegetarian diet, at least a number of times a week.
• And next time I had my best friend (and vegetarian) over for dinner I would have a wealth of different recipes to choose from. Recipes that I know and love myself.

However it didn’t work that way and the book ended up on the shelf (in fact it was lost in the basement for a period), when I finally opened it up – I was in a panic.

Somewhat stupidly I had just agreed to do a Christmas dinner for my friends, for the first time to anyone ever. I had given myself less than one week to prepare. I’d had an entire year but my vegetarian repertoire was as pathetic as before. I read Plenty cover to cover, I scoured the internet, foodgawker, the guardian Christmas food sections, but found nothing that looked special enough for a vegetarian Christmas meal.

Read More

Share this post

 

Last night I roasted a huge bunch of vegetables – I plan to use them for all kinds of things over the next couple of days. But I thought I start simply to bring out the great flavours of the ingredients.

Read More

Share this post

 

I feel like being rather lazy this weekend, to hibernate away from the cold drizzle. On days where you need the main light on during the peak sunlight hours, I find it particularly difficult to remember that Spring does come. That soon I won’t come home from work in the dark, and that I’ll venture outside without a jacket on – but today that feels awfully far away.

Read More

Share this post

 

I make a lot of soups, they are perfect for me to take into work, reheat in the microwave and are healthier than whatever I would normally buy. Often I get questions from my work mates about the soups I bring in, “What’s in it?” and “Where did you buy it?”. But no soup has had quite the response that this one does.

My usual soup repertoire of basics like Bacon, Tomato and Kale Soup and Carrot and Coriander Soup smell and taste wonderful but in no way elicit the same eye popping response of this purple Sweet Beet Soup.
Read More

Share this post

 

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

Read More

Share this post

 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, I am still spending some time with my parents. This however means that more new posts might be thin on the ground for a little while – I haven’t done any cooking or baking in 5 days!

This is a soup I made just before Christmas and it was wonderfully tasty, and so simple. As with lots of good things it came from the necessity to use up things I had to hand and from no specific recipe. The week before Christmas, for me, is a time to try to use up anything left in the fridge or from the veggie box. I still had a plentiful supply of the soup basics: onions, leeks and carrots. Add to this fresh black kale, a tin of tomatoes and some leftover crispy bacon, and you have the makings of the perfect winter warmer.

Read More

Share this post

 

Cock-a-leekie is a traditional Scottish soup, so much so that I rather OD’d on it as a kid and for years afterward I couldn’t face the sight of a tin of Baxter’s Cock-a-leekie soup. However recently I have come to realise that

1. Just because I didn’t like something as a child, does not mean I won’t like it now.
2. Just because I don’t like something that’s mass produced doesn’t mean I won’t like it when I make it.

So I decided it was time to give this old Scottish favourite a go myself. Cock-a-leekie isn’t a particularly attractive soup, getting nice photos of it I think is difficult, with my photography skills it’s an impossibility, but I gave it a shot anyway.

Read More

Share this post

 

The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

Read More

Share this post

 

It’s Sunday and I’ve still got all the vegetables from my organic box on Tuesday! So before the next batch arrives I have been trying to desperately come up with quick recipes to use all my veg up. After trying coriander flowers on my Broccoli soup last week, I decided to create a soup really determined to bring those subtle flavours out.

Carrot and Coriander Soup, garnished with coriander flowers

Share this post

 

Last week I wrote a post about how to cook for family one of my main tips was not to try to do too much. Cooking a starter, main and desert can be a lot of work for people who like me are new to the kitchen. Thankfully recipes like this one are made for entertaining large groups of people.

Bruschetta Al Pomodoro

Share this post