I can’t believe it! I feel as if I have been being robbed, lied to and generally deceived. It’s a conspiracy. They know what they are doing and they do it anyway. I wonder how they thought they’d ever get away with it? Maybe I’m to blame. Maybe we’re all to blame. Who knows? But what is for sure is that it won’t be happening anymore.

What what what? What has happened?

What happened was this. Today we mixed some plain flour and some water in a bowl, kneaded it a bit, left it a bit, rolled it out and dry fried it. And you know what happened? We made lovely, fresh, soft, tasty tortillas. It was easy. AND they tasted REALLY nice. I’m MAD.

£1.69 it is for a pack of 6 Old El Paso tortillas. £1.69!!!!!
It cost us about 25p to make the same amount. GRRRR.

How can this have happened? At what point did we become so insecure of our cooking/baking skills and so dependent on other people making things to sell to us that someone worked out they would be able to sell something to us that is so cheap and easy to make yourself.

Seriously it would take more effort to walk to the shop to buy some. It’s almost like someone convincing people to buy water when everyone knows it comes out of the tap. Oh…

Well anyway, I’ve worked it out! Ha! You won’t get me anymore. And what’s more I’m going to make it my mission to tell everyone else too. You won’t get away with this for much longer.

If the ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’ tags don’t draw you in, check out this list of ingredients:

INGREDIENTS:

Wheat Flour, Water, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Stabiliser: Glycerol, Salt, Raising Agents: E450a, E500, Dextrose, Emulsifier: E471, Preservative: E202, Flour Treatment Agent: E920

Mutant food!

I don’t even know what most of that stuff is! I reckon they could release a batch with deadly poisons listed in the ingredients and no one would pick it up. Glycerol?? Do I want to eat that? Really? I have no idea? It sounds like an explosive. And numbers, lots of numbers. I don’t want to eat numbers. I want to eat food.

Here is the list of ingredients you need to MAKE YOUR OWN TORTILLAS. Hurrah!

Makes 8

250g plain white flour (plus extra for rolling out)

2g salt

150ml water.

So easy it’s hardly worth writing a proper recipe, but I’ll tell you once and then you’ll be off.

Put the flour in a bowl. Gradually add the water mixing it around with your fingers until you bring it together in a ball.

Knead for a few minutes.

Cover and leave to rest for about half an hour.

Divide in to 8 pieces, gently shape in to a rough ball and then roll out to about 2 or 3mm. While you are doing this put a good frying pan on a medium heat to heat up (no oil).

When the pan is hot put a tortilla in the pan, watch as it starts to bubble slightly as the underneath starts to brown (approx 30 seconds) then flip over and cook for another 30 seconds.

Stack them up as you cook them in a dry tea towel to keep them warm (the steam of the stacked warm tortillas keeps them soft).

Eat straight away, or wrap in tin foil to eat later (can be reheated later wrapped in foil in a low oven).

That’s it! And this recipe somehow still makes it seem more complicated than it really is. Honest.

A couple of other revelations:

Chapattis are made in much the same way, only use wholemeal or chapatti flour!

Nachos are basically tortillas cut up and deep fried. Officially they should be made with cornflour, but we gave it a go with plain and they made an equally good snack. Bit of salt, bit of spice shaking and you’re there.

What will I ‘discover’ next? Can you really make your own pasta? noodles? pizzas? soup? Of course you can. I’m onto you. I’m going to get my revenge… watch this space.

Please let me know if you read this and then make your own tortillas.
New tortilla makers count as of 7th July 2009: 9

See more “make your own…” posts

May certainly is a character. First off for the day, in full traditional Thai dress, she took us for a walk round the back streets of Bangkok to visit her local shops where we gathered some ingredients for the day’s class.

A small street side stall provided most of the main key ingredients – galangal (Thai ginger), lemon grass, Thai basil (more aniseedy tasting than the usual Italian type flavour we tend to have at home), chili and kaffir limes leaves.

The lime leaves were fresh. It’s unbelievable how much of a difference it makes to use fresh leaves. I looked into the possibility of buying/growing kaffir fresh at home. To buy the fresh leaves are £5 for 10 leaves! , although possibly worth it, definitely out of my budget. Or a 18″ tall plant could cost you £30 then of knowing my luck it would die as soon as the winter came. Hmmm. Ah well.

Next stop was the rice paper lady where we bought some fresh rice paper to make spring rolls. As a real treat we arrived just in time to watch her make some.

The woman was like a machine! A scoop of batter from one hand slapped onto a hot pan where it formed a perfect circle, cooked in just a few seconds and was then skillfully whipped off the pan with a cut off end of a aluminium food can which had been folded in half to create the perfect scooping tool with which it was tossed onto the pile of rice paper at her side. I have a video of it. At some point I’ll get a fast enough connection to upload it. It really was amazing to watch.

So the cookery class, what did we learn? Well to be honest it was quite a whirlwind cooking marathon! In less than 4 hours we prepared and ate over 10 different dishes!

First of she showed us how to make the essential red and green curry pastes, then it was onto Tom Yam Soup, Isaan, Fried Veg and Cashew Nuts, Pad Thai, Peanut Sauce, Spring Rolls, Massaman Curry, Penang Curry, Green curry, Pumpkin Hummous and Green Papaya Salad! Phew! We were all stuffed! PLUS – at the end of it all May brought us a dessert of sticky rice, mango and coconut milk, very tasty, but we were all just so full. Luckily just at this moment Andy walked through the door to pick me up. Strange coincidence? I think he’d been secretly watching, ready to pounce. Well ok, so maybe we’d arranged that he should come meet me when the class finished, but I’m sure he wasn’t disappointed to arrive to a free banquet of delicious Thai food.

It really was a great day. May was so happy and enthusiastic I spent half the morning just smiling to myself at her funny ways “…mmm… more spicy…more tasty…”. She ended the day with a Traditional Thai dance, which she got incredibly excited about showing us. She donned a set of long brass curly fingers and danced around the shop to the music from her cd player with a huge grin on her face. If you ever happen to be in Bangkok I’d highly recommend doing her cookery course, it was great!

A Recipe for you! Not had one of them for a long time…

Thai Green Curry

Serving for one person

Fry one teaspoon of green chilli paste (google how to make, or you can buy ready made jars) in a tablespoon of hot oil until fragrant.

Put 2 slices of galangal, 2 lime leaves and 2 inches of lemon grass in a pestle and mortar and bash slightly to bruise. Add this to the pan with one tablespoon of coconut milk.

Add veg (a small bowl full) – you can include whatever is in season, but good things to use are pumpkin, squash, green beans, carrot and onion. Anything that would take more than 5 minutes to cook through (eg pumpkin) can be cooked before.

Add half a cup of coconut milk and cook until the mixture is thick.

Slacken with a little water then add one tablespoon of light, half a tbsp of dark soy sauce and a tsp of sugar, cook until veg are soft.

Add about a tbsp of coconut milk (or coconut cream) before serving, serve with brown rice and garnish with chopped Thai basil.

After nearly a month in Hoi An sadly the amazing contract on our flat stating that we should resolve any conflicts with the “spirit of comradeship” had come to an end and it was time to move on. We packed up our bags, said our goodbyes, hopped on a train and waved farewell to this friendly place that had been our home for the last few weeks.

Spending a little more time there allowed us to get to know people just that bit better. The lady down the road who did our laundry, the smiley lady and her daughter on the market who made our breakfast fruit shakes and all the other people from places we frequently cycled past who always had a smile and a wave for us, we’ll miss them all.

But most of all we will miss the people from Karma Waters who were so good to us while we were there. It really was a treat to meet them and to spend so much time chatting, sharing stories and ideas.

Karma Waters

We did so much during our time there. Kayaking, cooking lessons, speed boat trips and an exciting, though unsuccessful trip out on a life boat across the sea to an island. Six foot waves and a tilting boat. Andy and I were soaked head to foot. I was enjoying the ride, popped on a life jacket, clung on to the rails. Woohooo! I only became worried when the people driving the boat said it was too rough, we had to head back. I can’t really describe how amazing it all was.

But amongst the many things we did while we were there the highlights for me must have been Uma’s birthday and the boat race.

Leanne and Uma

Uma is Paul and Duyan’s beautiful daughter and it was her 1st birthday. The 1st birthday is a big deal in Vietnam. Families place a real importance on this day and throw a party to celebrate. Andy and I were really honoured to be invited to this special day.

The head of the district came over to say some prayers and perform a special ceremony. He was a very friendly chap with an Ian Brown haircut and a flat cap, you could tell he was a bit of a dude. Although our lack of Vietnamese meant we couldn’t really speak to him we just got a really good vibe from him. The night we left he came chasing after us to shake our hands and say goodbye.

1st birthday ceremony

With our limited knowledge of Buddhist traditions a lot of what went on went completely over our heads, but it was all very interesting to watch.

The table offerings

Later Uma was sat on the floor with a tray of objects including a model tree, a pen, sweets, paper, a doll, a comb and other various bit and bobs. The belief is that whatever she chooses from the tray will say something about her future. People laughed and shook their heads as she went straight for an enormous lump of sugar, a jelly cup sweet and another wrapped sweet.

Predicting Uma's future

We enjoyed a lovely meal with family and friends and that evening yet more food including a never ending bowl of soup. There must be some invisible marker on the bowl below which if you continue eating you get refilled. Now I was brought up to finish what I had in front of me. You can imagine the cycle of soup this conflict of cultures created. Me politely trying to finish what I was given and he trying to be the good host and make sure I was well fed. Despite repeated attempts to say I really was full the soup kept coming. Andy and I both got caught in the same trap and must have had 10 serving each.

Uma Soup

They followed a similar rule with the beer.The neighbours had come round including an elderly Vietnamese man who seemed set to drink us under the table if we hadn’t have been saved by the lady from next door who insisted we stopped. Each time he took a drink we all cheered and had to do the same. But not only that, if I didn’t drink enough he’d shout at me to drink more. At one point I had to down nearly half my drink!

The next day with beery heads we all set out to watch a boat race to commemorate 50 years since Ho Chi Minh went to Cham Island. This was an incredible thing to see! Despite the fact that it was raining quite heavily and the boat race was taking place at 9am on a normal working day the entire town seemed to have decided not to bother going to work and had turned out to watch. Thousands of people lined the banks of the river, some sitting on the edge, some clinging from coconut trees, others, like us, lined up along the water edge in boats of all shapes and sizes.

Big boat with Uncle Ho

People went crazy shouting and screaming for their own local team. It all seemed very competitive. It was like the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race gone mad. A chaotic crowd of red flag flying locals edged out into the river throwing water at rival village’s boats. It all got a bit hairy at one point and a few empty bottles and melon rinds were also spotted flying through the air. Brilliant.

Hoi An boat race

After all this it was really sad to leave. I really hope one day to visit again. Many thanks to Paul, Duyen and all the staff for all the amazing times we had and everything you taught us.

If you want something a bit more than sight seeing and sunbathing from a trip then Karma Waters is definitely the place to be. The home page of the website opens with the statement, “At some point we understood and accepted that life is Karma and this is our place”, from there follows an explanation of their “Busi-ness” (that activity that keeps you busy) model of Karma Investment,

“Karma Investment is to consciously invest in improving your own life and that of all others (people, environment, animals, etc.) by consciously making the focus of all “investments” (time, energy, knowledge, etc.) to improve personal & collective karma”

Regular readers may recall we came here on one of our first days and ended up in a conversation with the owner, Paul, which somehow convinced us Hoi An should be our home for the month. We’ve since been back many times and enjoyed inspirational conversations covering, as you can probably imagine, life, the universe and everything.

Aside from the spiritual guidance we received here, another draw, if you need one, is that this place has perhaps one of the best views of any Hoi An cafe – a quiet spot looking out across a beautiful tropical river. The food is very tasty too, it comes in generous portions and is intentionally healthy with no MSG and all fresh ingredients.

We had a lovely night there on Friday when we enjoyed sharing an enormous Chinese style Hotpot with Paul, his wife Duyen, their kids and some of the people who work there. I fear we may be a bad influence on him though in encouraging him to stay up late chatting when he had to be up early. We seem to have this effect on people. But you know, if the time is right, you’ve just got to go with it.

Duyen is responsible for the creation of most of the meals on their menu and kindly agreed to some unofficial cooking lessons, so over the last few days I’ve been taught how to make one of their soups, a spicy salad and a vegan pancake roll. Amazing. Here is the first of those recipes, Curried Vegetable Noodle Soup. Thanks again for sharing it with me! There are more videos on the Karma Waters website showing how to create other dishes from their menu.

Curried Vegetable Soup with Noodles

Recipe for 1 LARGE bowl, enough for 2 people.

• 1 carrot peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 medium sized potato peeled and cut into chunks
• 2″ of taro root peeled and cut into chunks
• 1/8 of an onion finely chopped
• 3 mushrooms (they used something similar to jelly ear) chopped small
• 3 or 4 pieces of crispy tofu sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• glass noodles (not sure on measurement, say about a 1.5cm diameter bundle?!)
• 2 tbsp peas
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• Veggie fish sauce (or soy sauce)

1. Put the carrot, potato and taro root into a pan with just enough boiling water to cover and simmer until tender then drain (keep the cooking liquid).
2. Place the glass noodles in a bowl of cold water to be used later.
3. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan, add the garlic and onion, cook for one minute, then add the curry powder, cook for a further minute before adding in this order and stirring between each new addition the drained veg, tofu, peas, and mushrooms.
4. Add a good splash of veg. fish sauce (or soy sauce) and then add the reserved cooking liquid from the vegetables.
5. Cover and heat for a couple of minutes, add salt, pepper and a tsp of paprika, heat for 2 minutes more then remove the glass noodles from their water and add them to the pan. The soup is ready when the noodles are cooked.

Nettles are packed full of healthiness, they grow everywhere (you could say like weeds…) and yet I’ve still not managed to get into cooking them myself despite being told years ago how good they are and how easy they are to cook with. This recipe looks really simple, so I’m thinking it must be a good one for anyone looking for an introduction to wild food.

It is the best time for nettles in the UK right NOW. For the best nettles pick the young fresh green tips of the plant. Be careful not to pick from anywhere that is likely to have been sprayed with chemicals and pick as far from paths as possible (to avoid dog pee). I’m slightly gutted I can’t do this myself this year, so can someone please make it for me and let me know how it is?…

Nettle Pesto

Nettles
Mint (if you’ve got it, or other herbs, or none)
Garlic
Wholemeal bread
Cheddar
Oil

Pick a colander full of young nettle tops (you’ll need gloves). Rinse them, then plunge them into boiling water for one minute to blanch them and take the sting out of them. As soon as the minute’s up, tip them back into the colander (keep the water, it’s full of goodness and can be drunk like a tisane) and run under the cold tap to stop them cooking. When they’re cold, squeeze out the water.

Put a slice of wholemeal bread into the food processor. Add a chunk of cheese, a peeled clove of garlic and the nettles and a little mint. Blitz, then add oil in a stream. I used rapeseed oil. Keep tasting, adjusting the amounts. Hard to say how much oil, as it depends on what you are going to do with the sauce.

Sounds good doesn’t it? There’s so many other things they could be used in too. Generally you cook them in the same way as, and they taste like, spinach. So I’m thinking anything which is good with spinach must be good with nettles – quiche, pasta, omelettes, pies, on pizza, or just cooked simply with garlic. Mmm. You’ve got to give it a go! For more adventurous ‘superfood’ addicts  go for a banana and nettle smoothie, the raw hit will give you maximum vitamin goodness.

Despite it’s fairly long list of ingredients, it’s really easy to make, and incredibly tasty. I saw the book in the shops yesterday and I have to say it looks pretty tasty too. I wanted to hug it (erm is that it bit strange?). It’s one of those big chunky books with unfinished paper, loads of beautiful retro illustrations and quirky pages with bits and pieces that you can take out. None of this really has anything to do with food and it being a cookbook I suppose you’d probably prefer to know whether or not the recipes are any good before you’d decide to go buy it. All I can say is that if this recipe is anything to go by then it definitely will be. I was too busy stroking the pages and drooling over the quirky design to actually read any of the other recipes it contained. Oops.

Leon Gobi (serves 6)

• 1 medium onion, halved and thickly sliced
• 1 carrot, thickly sliced
• 2 tbsp sunflower or peanut oil
• 1 red chilli
• 2 thumb-sized pieces of root ginger, washed but not peeled
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 large tsp Madras curry powder
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp black onion seeds
• 1 medium sweet potato, washed and cut into 2.5cm dice
• 4 heaped tbsp ground almonds
• A good handful of sultanas
• ½ a small cauliflower, broken into florets
• 1 x 400ml tin of coconut milk
• 150g frozen peas
• Juice of ½ a lemon
• A really big handful of coriander, roughly chopped
• Salt
• 2 heaped tbsp desiccated coconut, to serve

1. In a large saucepan, cook the onion and carrot over a medium to low heat in the oil for 15-20 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally. Season with salt.
2. Blitz the chilli, ginger and garlic to a paste in a food processor. Stir the paste into the onions once they have begun to soften, along with the spices (including the onion seeds). After another five minutes, season with salt, add the sweet potato chunks and the almonds and mix well so that everything is well coated.
3. Turn the heat up a bit and stir in 500ml of water and the sultanas. Bring to a simmer and leave it to bubble gently for 10-15 minutes with the lid off, stirring occasionally.
4. Add the cauliflower florets and the coconut milk and simmer for a further 10-15 minutes, covered. Check that the sweet potato and cauliflower are both cooked, turn the heat off and stir in the peas.
5. When you are ready to serve add a little salt, the lemon juice and the chopped coriander, stir and leave for a minute. Serve with rice, or naan (or both!) with a sprinkling of dried coconut on top.

Click here for more curry recipes

Click here for naan bread recipe

Apologies first for the terrible title. But as I am currently back at my parents living on Merseyside temporarily. I’ve had to get used to seeing references to the Beatles everywhere… but you may have realised that I cunningly concealed the subject of today’s bread making post in that title? Have you guessed what it is yet?

Yup, the humble naan bread. Like fish comes with chips (er, not if you’re a vegetarian…), ok then, like sosmix bangers and mash, for me the naan is as much of a part of a curry as the actual curry dish itself. When I was in India a few years ago, myself and my travelling companion John would have a naan bread with every meal. The only difference was that he ate “butter naans” with each meal whereas I would have a plain one. There was a bit of an increase in his weight during those 3 weeks in India. (For those who don’t know I was John’s best man at his wedding last week so I feel I am still in speech mode… and crucifying his personality… I’ll stop now!)..

Anyway naan bread. I’d never really thought too much about what they consisted of, or how they were made. But that all changed last week when I made some of these fabulous breads for the first time. It’s actually quite simple but you’ve got to plan ahead which isn’t easy for everyone.

The basic recipe is as follows:

• 500g plain flour
• 2tsp dried yeast
• 1tsp salt
• 1tsp sugar
• 3 tbsp natural yoghurt
• 30g melted butter (or ghee but I didn’t have any of that)
• 250ml of milk

You will see that it is a bread that rises but uses milk instead of water. You need to dissolve the yeast into the milk (which is at room temperature or thereabouts). With flour and salt mixed in a mixing bowl, add the yeast/milk mix, sugar, yoghurt, butter and the remainder of the milk.

You then need to knead this. If you’re not sure how to do this it’s worth having a look on youtube for videos. It will seem very sticky at first but resist adding more flour and keep kneading. After about 10 minutes you should have a soft dough.

You should then place the dough into a bowl and cover with the lid or clingfilm and allow to rise for 3-4 hours (so unless you are a student or idler it’s something to do at the weekend!)

After this knock it back (just knock the air out of it) and leave for a few minutes.

You should then divide into 4 pieces and shape it into a teardrop shape on a lightly greased baking tray. I used a rolling pin. I reckon keep it about 3/4cm-1cm thin as it will rise during the proving stage. Put the whole tray into a plastic bag and leave for another 45mins-1hour.

When you cook them you will need a griddle pan (as most people don’t have a tandoor). This pan needs to be really hot. Get the grill hot too. Griddle the bread for a few minutes (not sure about time you’ll be able to check and see if cooked). Then transfer to the grill (I put a bit of butter on it before this step and it worked quite well). Don’t put it right next to the heat or it will burn too quick. You want it to cook in a few minutes.

Serve it with your curry, rice and some yoghurt and chutney. Mmm I’m hungry now.

So that’s it! Having written this post a while after the event it seems a bit like hard work. But believe me the taste beats anything you will buy in the supermarkets even if it possibly won’t match proper indian restaurants! (well not until you’ve done it a few times)…

Last week when I went to do my shopping at K+N in Birkenhead (top veg shop!) I saw they had a couple of crates of English tomatoes for sale at £2.99 each. £2.99!! The box was over 5kg! So that’s less than 60p per kg or about £1 less per kg than normal price. I knew it was good, but I’d never normally get through so many before they went squidgy.  And then a flash of inspiration, I remembered seeing Hugh making tomato sauce for the year from his home grown yearly glut and decided this was my chance to do the same (shame they weren’t home grown though).

This is really good. K+N probably buy from wholesale market in Liverpool, which I assume works a bit like a normal market, only bigger. Often at the end of the day you’ll get people practically giving things away, and they pass this on to their customers. Reminds me of I was walking through Kirkgate Market in Leeds a couple of weeks ago and a guy was shouting “Bag of bananas a pound! As many bananas as you can fit in a carrier bag a pound!” He had a hoard of ladies surrounding him grabbing at bananas and stuffing them into bags! So funny. I love the atmosphere in a market. Everyone shouting, people everywhere, so much going on. Imagine the staff of Tesco stood at the end of the aisle passionately trying to get you to buy their over priced ready meals and toilet fresheners. Nah, never going to happen really is it?

Obviously the bananas were unlikely to be fair trade nor would they or my tomatoes have been organic, but there is something about buying produce directly from a person with their own shop or stall that to some extent counterbalances these concerns. Although the ideal would be to shop by these principles all the time, it is not always practical, or as much fun! I remember being told as a kid “Don’t cut your nose off to spite your face”  more often than I imagine could have been necessary and it has obviously sunk in. I wonder why people kept saying this to me? What was I up to? Must have been up to no good anyway. Maybe I just remember it vividly as it’s really quite a gruesome thing to be saying to a small child. I was probably traumatised. Anyway what I’m trying to say is there is a lot to worry about when choosing what food to buy (or at least I find there is, more and more all the time) and you’d drive yourself (and other people) crazy and be likely to burn out and give up if you tried to stick rigidly to your principles all the time.

Well that went off on a bit of a tangent I wasn’t expecting! Back to what I was saying. So I’d seen Hugh making tomato sauce and decided I’d do the same. The result was fantastic! Such a sweet rich sauce! The 5kg of tomatoes converted into about 2.5 litres of tomato sauce which I now have handily stashed away in the freezer for any recipe calling for a tomato based sauce. Actually it didn’t all make it to the freezer, we had some just as it was on pasta (YUM!) and another portion was used in a sweet potato, marrow and lentil stew which we had with dumplings (more about these another time – so good they deserve their own post!).

The sauce was so simple to make, I hardly needed to add anything to the tomatoes as the roasting process really brought out the flavours. When I make tomato sauce for pasta with chopped tinned tomatoes I’d normally add a bit of sugar and lemon juice, but after the roasting these really didn’t need it, they were delicious as they were. I also decided not to add any herbs as that way I could decide when I used the sauce in later recipes what should go in then. But if you decide to go for herbs from the start you can sprinkle them over while roasting the tomatoes. You could also miss the onions out if you fancied thinking about them later too.

Rich Roast Tomato Sauce

• tomatoes
• garlic
• onions
• black olives, roughly chopped
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• S+P

1. Put out all the tomatoes you have on baking trays and splash over olive oil, balsamic and dot around big chunks or whole pieces of garlic, how many will vary to taste, I used 10 (!) or so with my 5kg of tomatoes. If in doubt put more than you think, the flavour of the garlic mellows with roasting and the whole cloves probably won’t end up in the final sauce anyway so don’t panic. Sprinkle with lots of S+P.
2. Pop the tomatoes in the oven at a medium heat and cook until they are breaking down and starting to brown in places, will be about 40 minutes or so.
3. Meanwhile finely chop some onions (I used 2 normal and 1 red) and sweat the gently with a little oil in a very large covered pan.
4. When the tomatoes are ready press through a seive (if you don’t want any seeds in the sauce) or colander with smallish holes (if you don’t mind a few seeds and want to do this bit quicker) You’ll need to stir round in the colander pressing it against the edges to get all the juice out and eventually will just be left with the skins, and maybe some chunks of garlic which you then discard.
5. Pour the tomato sauce into the pan with the onions, add the olives and leave to cook through for at least ten minutes. Season with S+P.
6. That’s it! Now just eat it as it is, or leave to cool and then bag up to go in the freezer in separate portion sized containers. Hurrah!

Here’s the garlic I put in. Andy thought I’d gone crazy and insisted on taking a photo.

An estimated 6.7 million tonnes of household food waste is thrown away each year to rot in landfill. This creates a toxic sludge and gives off greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. As well as looking at how to avoid wasting food by your shopping behaviour and meal planning the harm caused by any unavoidable food waste (eg peelings, cores etc) could be reduced or even eliminated by composting.

If you have a compost bin, or wormery your food scraps are converted into a valuable resource. The food breaks down and the nutrients they contained are put back into the soil as part of a natural cycle renewing the earth. It is a potent natural fertiliser that in large scale non-organic farming is replaced by polluting oil based chemical fertilisers.

Some councils run waste food collection schemes, some with more success than others. The pilot in the area I’m living now was unfortunately abandoned and for the first few weeks we were here we ended up throwing our peelings away as I imagine most other people in the area do. It was driving me crazy! I hated the waste and felt guilty every time I opened the bin.

At some point I found out the man living next door had an allotment and it occurred to me that he would no doubt be a composter and after thinking about it for a few days ( I can be quite shy) I eventually went round, knocked on the door and asked if I could bring our scraps round there. He said yes. Hurrah! And he didn’t think I was mad or try and lock me in his attic or any of the things I was worried about. It was all good. What was I worried about?! I didn’t really think you would lock me in your attic if you read this Peter, you may think I’m a little mad though now. Hmm. Maybe I am.

So that was the wasted food issue sorted. Hurrah! Then a couple of days later I arrived home and found a bag of apples sitting on the doorstep. “Wow!” I thought, “What an amazingly quick conversion! Scraps to compost to apples in 3 days!” We’ve since had other things arrive including a huge marrow! Brilliant!

You may be thinking we seem to be getting the better end of this deal, which is exactly what I thought, so I made and took them round an apple pie to say thanks. It kind of grew enormous and exploded in the oven so it wasn’t the best looking apple pie ever, but I imagine it tasted the same. I think they must have liked it, they brought the plate back with a bag of potatoes! Now I’ll have to make them something else. The cycle continues. A bit like compost really.

This whole thing is brilliant, I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned somewhere. If you don’t currently compost you should. If you don’t have a compost bin you can get one really cheap from your council, more information here. If you don’t grow anything you should compost anyway, it’s a great way of reducing waste. It would take months or even years to fill the bin, unless you have a large family, and there are always lots of people who will happily come round and collect your compost if it does get full. If you don’t have a garden to put a composter in speak to people. There will probably be someone who lives near you that will take your food scraps. I promise they won’t think you’re weird for asking.

So, the moral of the story is talk to your neighbours, they’re probably nice and composting rules!

I’ve included a couple of recipes for the yummy things I’ve made with the vegetables from my super fast compost: Leek and Potato Soup and Stuffed Marrow. The stuffed marrow was incredibly tasty. The stuffing is quite rich, so the subtle fresh taste of the marrow is a great contrast and make it a great dish which stands up on it’s own as a main course. It would also be good as part of a spread if you had guests and were making a few things.

The Leek and Potato Soup was possibly the nicest I’ve ever made. The potatoes were really creamy, not sure what type they were but they were brilliant for this soup. Usually I’d mash the veg up a bit at the end of this soup recipe, but these didn’t need it. Enough had naturally worked their way into the soup to thicken it while still keeping some whole to make it a good chunky winter soup. Mmmm. Thanks again to Peter and Cathy for your generous gifts of veg!

Stuffed Marrow

• 1 Marrow
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 150g mushrooms finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 100g black olives, chopped
• 100g cheddar, grated
• 150g brown rice (cooked)

1. Cut the marrow into slices about 1 inch thick and then scoop out the fluffy seedy middle bit so you have a marrow ring. Arrange the marrow rings on baking trays.
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan and gently cook the onions and garlic until soft, then add cumin and coriander powder and cook for a further 2 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms and parsley and cook for a further 5 minutes then stir in the cooked rice and chopped olives.
4. Pack the mixture into the marrow rings, top with grated cheese and put in the oven at 180c for around half an hour, or until the marrow is tender and the cheese is golden brown.

Leek and Potato Soup

• 1 oz butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 250g potatoes peeled and cut into 1.5cm cubes
• 1 large leeks, or 2 smaller ones, sliced
• 1 1/2 pints of stock
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp fresh parsley chopped

1. Melt the butter in a large pan and gently fry the onion until soft, approx 10-15 minutes.
2. Add the flour, stir round and leave to cook through for a minute.
3. Add the potates and leeks, cover and leave to sweat, stir occasionally to check it is not sticking. If it starts to stick just pour in a small amount of water and stir to unstick anything from the bottom.
4. After around 5 minutes add the stock. It should be just upto the top of the vegetables, you might need more or less depending on the size of leeks, potatoes etc.
5. Bring to the boil then simmer for around 20 minutes or until all the veg are tender. Add most of the parsley and stir.
6. If prefered you can mash the soup a bit at this stage, or even blend it up if you want a smooth soup. I prefer it a bit chunky.
7. Serve garnished with a bit of chopped parsley and maybe a little swirl of cream. Yum.

Blimey I’ve been eating a lot of pumpkin! Since the Hallowe’en party last week which left me with about 10kg of pumpkin to use I’ve made it a bit of a mission to try use the pumpkin in as many different ways as possible and have come up with this list of ten things to do with your Hallowe’en pumpkin.

I’ve tried to make them all quite different, so there should be something to suit everyone so you’ll have no excuse to throw your pumpkin away to rot. If you got a bit giddy like I did and bought the biggest pumpkin you could find you should have enough to make all these things. You’d also probably need to be a little bit insane to want to make them all, well at least all within the space of a week, so you might want to freeze some. You can just peel and chop the pumpkin as normal and then bag the bits and pop them in the freezer. I did this last year and they were fine to chuck into soups and things. No reason they shouldn’t be good for anything else too.

I can’t quite believe how much we managed to make! Especially considering that the pumpkin we’d bought only cost us £4. It must be the most economical vegetable purchase ever. 10 different dishes, portions for two people, plus we had some left overs to freeze from some dishes, what does that work out at? Less than 20p per person per dish (plus a few pence for rice, spices etc).

We did have another pumpkin too, of about a quarter of the size of the huge one. This second one however was not quite as nice, which was a bit of a surprise as I’d been reading the smaller ones are usually tastier, so I was expecting it to be the other way around. We’d bought the first from Church Farm, an organic farm shop and the smaller one from the co-op, it was specially stickered up as a hallowe’en pumpkin. The flesh was much paler and tasted more like water than pumpkin. So that’s my first tip. Even though it’s mainly for carving, buy a good one from a decent shop. Even if the organic one had have been twice the price (which it wasn’t, by weight it was actually cheaper), it’s gonna be so much tastier and you can make so much from one pumpkin it’s still incredibly cheap.

Here’s a quick run down of what we made in order of ‘most tastiest thing’ first to ‘hmm not sure about that one’ at the end. On the final day of my pumpkin frenzy I made about 4 things at once. The quality kind of suffered a bit, they’re still good ideas to be inspired by though. I’m sure the pumpkin gnocchi in particular has more yumminess potential. Will probably work on it some time in the next couple of months and will update you if it turns out better. All of these pumpkin recipes could be made using any other squashes too, I suspect some of them might even be a lot nicer made with perhaps a butternut squash or turban pumpkin. Full recipes at the end. If anyone tries any of these it would be great to hear how it goes. Also any other suggestions of what to do with pumpkins would be great. Enjoy.

1. Pumpkin Bhajis

So in at number one with a unanimous vote was Pumpkin Bhajis. This flash of inspiration came when we decided to do a pumpkin curry on day 3. “Mmm we could have onion bhajis too” I thought, then “Mmmmm! I could substitute some of the onion for pumpkin!” The result was pretty damn tasty. A lot lighter than a normal onion bhaji. The recipe below makes enough for about 20. They were good for at least 2 days after cooking, they’d all gone by then though (oops!), so not sure how much longer they would last, but it’s well worth making them in batches like this or even more. The temperature of the oil is pretty key and if you do them all at once you get into the super bhaji making rhythm.

2. Pumpkin and Coconut Soup

A close second was this soup. It was very kindly described as “One of the nicest soups I’ve ever had”. I have to agree it was pretty good. And, as with all soups, it gets extra points for easiness to make and potential to do in huge bulk quantities which you can then freeze in handy little portion sized tubs. Blimey imagine, if you did a whole pumpkin. You’d get enough for about 50 portions of soup! That would surely be enough pumpkin soup for a while year! Hurrah!

3. Salt and Pepper Pumpkin Seeds

This much overlooked part of the pumpkin easily gets a place at the top of the board. Great scavenging satisfaction… you thought you’d scooped them out to go in the bin… but NO! They’re going in the oven with a little seasoning to make a tasty snack easily on a par with dry roasted peanuts.

4. Pumpkin and Lemon Risotto

If it wasn’t for the three higher ranking competitors, this would surely be the winner! What’s that, am I auditioning to be a dodgy sports commentator?.. The addition of the lemon transformed this risotto into something quite spectacular. It’s a very naughty risotto, half a bottle of wine AND double cream. Tut tut. You could maybe substitute them out, but hey, they are what makes it taste nice, and you’re not going to eat it every night, so go I say for it.

5. Pumpkin Bread

Again only in the number 5 slot as the higher places have been filled up. Made by my Master Baker, Andrew, this was a very tasty loaf. Lovely fresh out of the oven with a good spread of butter, the taste of pumpkin is subtle, but pleasantly noticeable. A great seasonal loaf, what a way to use the yearly glut of pumpkin. Also once you’ve made this bread you might start to wonder what other vegetables you could add to things you’d think you wouldn’t. Like carrot cake and garlic bread, it’s a revelation.

6. Pumpkin Curry (Anything)

Curry Anything is our standard curry recipe. We tend to make this whenever we have a couple of veg that need using up. The recipe and method is always the same, you can just vary the vegetable or bean ingredients. It always works and is a good medium spicyness no nonsense curry.

7. Savory Pumpkin Pie

This started off as a gratin, but I found a spare bit of pastry lying around (doesn’t everyone have that?) so I popped it on the top and the gratin magically turned into a pie. It would be good either way, the top just turns it from a side dish to the main attraction.

8. Roast Pumpkin and Buckwheat Salad

This was fairly medium really. Just a bit of a thrown together at the end effort. The best bit about it really was that the pumpkin was roasted with nuts. This combination would be great just as it is with a roast dinner rather than mixing in with the buckwheat. I think the problem was I’d never cooked buckwheat before and I’m not sure I did it right. I had some as left overs and it was actually a lot tastier the next day than when freshly made, maybe he buckwheat had soaked up some juice which made it tastier?

9. Pumpkin, Tomato and Basil Soup

This was my least favourite of the things I made, just not my kind of soup. Other people might like it, I’m just not really into tomato soup, except bizarrely, the stuff you get in tins (if I can admit that). Also I thought the pumpkin in this had a wierd texture, almost gritty. I’m making this sound lovely aren’t I, bet you can’t wait to try it!

10. Pumpkin Gnocchi with Watercress Suace

Now this really doesn’t deserve to be at the bottom of the list. I’m convinced this has great potential and will be trying it again soon. Maybe it was the choice of sauce. I didn’t want to have it with a tomato sauce as we’d just had that last week, but I’m not sure the one I chose was right for it. The watercress sauce was lovely, but I think because the gnocchi is heavy in itself you need a lighter fresh tasting sauce to compliment it. The next day I had some of the left over gnocchi cold, this time with a bit of tomato sauce we’d made for some pasta and it was much nicer. So I’d probably do that. Also I think it would help to squeeze the water out from the pumpkin once it’s cooked. Mine was quite watery (must have been from the dodgy co-op batch) and so I had to add quite a bit of extra flour, which made it taste like, well flour surprisingly. I’m not giving up on you though Pumpkin Gnocchi. I know you’re a star waiting to shine.

1. Pumpkin Bhajis

• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 500g pumpkin, grated
• 200g gram flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 tsp chilii powder
• 100ml of water
• sunflower oil (amount depends on size of pan, poss 500ml)

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Gradually stir in enough of the water to bind it all together as a thick batter.
3. Leave to stand for 30 minutes before frying.
4. To cook, heat oil in a large deep pan, you’ll need a couple of inches, so the bhajis will be able to float around in it (you’ll be able to save the left over used oil in a jar for next time you deep fry something)
5. To test if the oil is hot enough drop a small amount of the mix in, it should start to bubble straight away.
6. When the oil is hot enough get a tablespoon of the mix on a metal spoon and scrape off into the oil using another spoon to form it into a rough ball shape.
7. After a couple of minutes turn the bhajis over, it should have turned golden and starting to brown. Then cook the other side until it looks the same.
8. Remove from the pan using a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl lined with kitchen paper to drain off excess oil.
9. You might want to check at this point you have cooked the bahjis for long enough- just cut one in half and check it is spongy all the way though, with no soggy batter mixture still in the middle. If not cooked you can just return to the oil for a couple more minutes, then you will have a guide for how long you will need to cook the rest. The time will vary accordling to how big you are making them.
10. Can be served straight away, or will last a good few days covered.

2. Pumpkin and Coconut Soup

• 1 oz butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 red chili, finely chopped
• 1kg Pumpkin chopped
• 1 tin of coconut milk
• 1 1/4 pints of stock (approx)
• juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 bunch of coriander

1. Fry the onion gently in the butter for 15 minutes until beginning to brown.
2. Add the chili and garlic and fry for another minute before adding the chopped pumpkin.
3. Cover the pan and leave the pumpkin to sweat for around 10 minutes, then add enough stock to just less than cover the pumpkin.
4. Bring to boil, then leave to simmer for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender.
5. Puree, then add the coconut milk, lime juice, chopped coriander. Return to the heat to warm through then serve garnished with a little more chopped coriander.

Toasted Salt and Pepper Pumpkin Seeds

1. Collect all the pumpkin seeds from your carved pumpkin, and seperate from any of the flesh and stringy bits.
2. Wash the seeds, then spread out on a baking tray.
3. Sprinkle lots of salt and pepper over the seeds, then put in a hot oven for around 45 minutes or until toasted and crunchy. YUM!

4. Creamy Pumpkin, Lemon and Sage Risotto

• 1 oz butter
• 1 onion, finely shopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 kg pumpkin, chopped
• 250g risotto rice
• 2 tbsp dried sage
• 1/2 bottle of white wine
• 1 pint stock
• 50ml cream
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• A handful of rocket, torn in half

1. Fry the onion and garlic gently in the butter for around 15 minutes or until beginning to brown.
2. Add the chopped pumpkin, cover and leave the cook for around 10 or 15 minutes, until beginning to soften.
3. Stir in the risotto rice until all coated from butter/pumpkin mix then pour in the wine. Add the sage and stir round.
4. As the wine starts to soak into the rice add the stock a little at a time and stir in to stop the rice sicking.
5. When the rice is cooked (will be approx 30 minutes), stir in the cream, rocket and lemon juice.
6. Leave to cook for 2 more minutes before serving. Also nice served sprinkled with parmesan.

5. Pumpkin Bread

• 300g pumpkin chopped into chunks
• 60ml cooking liquid from the pumpkin
• 2 tsp honey
• 500g white bread flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• milk to glaze
• 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, to decorate

1. Boil the pumpkin until tender and then drain, keeping back some of the cooking water and then puree the pumpkin and leave to cool.
2. Add honey to 60ml of the cooking liquid and stir to dissolve.
3. Mix flour and salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and add in the honey liquid, followed by the pumpkin puree.
4. Mix in the flour to form a firm, coarse, sticky dough. If the mixture is too dry, gradually add one or two tablespoons of the pumpkin liquid (or water).
5. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured work surface. Knead until very smooth, silky and elastic, about 15 mins.
6. Place dough in large clean bowl and cover with a tea towel. Leave to rise until double in size, about 1 to 1 1/2hrs. Knock back the dough to release the air, then leave it to rest for 10mins, covered.
7. Shape dough into a round loaf. Place on an oiled baking sheet and cover with a tea towel. Leave until double in size, about 1 hour.
8. Brush the dough with milk and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.
9. Bake in pre-heated oven at 220C and bake for 40mins until golden-coloured and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath.

6.Pumpkin Curry (Anything)

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 inch of ginger, finely diced
• 1 dried red chilli
• “The Spices” :  1 tbsp ground cumin, 1 tbsp ground coriander, 1 tsp chilli powder, 1/2 tsp tumeric
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• Anything Cooked (for this we used about 500g  pumpkin and a tin of butterbeans)
• Yoghurt
• Fresh coriander to garnish

1. Heat the oil in a large pan, add the cumin and mustard seeds, fry until they begin to pop
2. Add the onion and cook gently for about 10 minutes or until soft.
3. Add the garlic, ginger and dried chilli, cook for a further 5 minutes.
4. Add “The Spices” and cook for another minute or so.
5. Add the tomatoes, stir and leave to simmer until thickened, approx 10 minutes.
6. Add “Anything Cooked”, stir round and leave to simmer for a few minutes before serving. You can add a couple of tablespoons of yoghurt at this stage if you like.
7. Serve with rice and garnish with chopped fresh coriander.

7. Savoury Pumpkin Pie

• Pumkpin
• Garlic
• Butter
• Parsley
• Milk
• Shortcrust pastry
• S+P

Sorry for the lack of quantities, this was more of just an idea than a recipe.

1. Get however much pumpkin will take to fill your chosen oven proof dish and slice into thin slices as you would for a potato gratin.
2. Arrange around the dish, do a layer of sliced pumpkin, dot with butter, sprinkle on parsley, finely chopped garlic, salt and lots of pepper.
3. Repeat the layers to the top of the dish, then pour in some milk, enough to be about 1cm up the dish and then put into a medium heat oven for around 20 minutes.
4. After 20 minutes cover the pumpkin with shortcrust pastry and then return to the oven until brown, about 30 minutes.

8. Roast Pumpkin with Buckwheat Salad

• 500g pumpkin, peeled and chopped into smallish cubes
• 10 almonds, sliced
• Olive oil
• tabasco sauce
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and cubed
• cooked buckwheat
• crumbly white cheese, eg feta, wensleydale, goats cut into small cubes
• S+P

1. Put the pumpkin in a roasting dish with the sliced almonds, drizzle over some olive oil and a good splash of tabasco. Roast for around 20 minutes then add the peppers and roast for a further 10 minutes, or until the pumpkin and peppers begin to brown.
2. Put the cooked buckwheat into a dish and stir in the roast veg, cubes of cheese, and a little more oil if required.
3. Season with a bit of S+P.

9. Pumpkin, Tomato and Basil Soup

• 750g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
• 1 oz butter
• 150ml passata
• 1 large onion finely chopped
• 3/4 pint of stock
• lots of fresh basil
• cream or yoghurt to serve

1. Melt the butter in a large pan, then add the onions and fry gently until softened and beginning to brown.
2. Add the pumpkin, cover and leave to sweat for a few minutes.
3. Add the stock, put in just enough to go to just below the top of the pumpkin in the pan. Cover and lave to cook for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pumpkin is tender.
4. Puree the pumpkin and stock mix then add the passata, a good couple of tablespoons of chopped basil.
5. Leave to heat through for around ten minutes before serving with a little cream or yoghurt and garnish with a freshly picked basil leaf.

10. Pumpkin and Watercress Gnocchi with Watercress Sauce

For the gnocchi:

• 750g pumpkin, cooked, drained and excess water squeezed out.
• 150g plain flour
• 50g grated parmesan
• 50g chopped watercress
• 2 tbsp chopped  fresh basil
• S+P

1. In a large bowl mix together all the gnocchi ingredients. Add more flour if necessary. The mixture should be dry enough to handle, but try not to add too much flour. Knead briefly to bring it all together.
2. Turn out the dough onto a well floured surface, divide into four and roll each piece with your hands into a long sausage shape about 2 cm thick, then chop this into 2-3 cm pieces, which you then roll into a ball shape in your hand to make dumplings. Press down lightly on each one with a fork to make a pattern.
3. Bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil. Drop the dumplings into the water in batches. They will float to the surface when they are cooked.

For the watercress sauce:

• 50ml double cream
• 1 small onion, very finely chopped
• 1 oz butter
• 100g watercress, chopped
• 100ml milk
• S+P
• a squeeze of lemon

1. Saute the onions until soft, then add the watercress and cook for another 2 minutes before adding the cream.
2. Add the milk and leave to boil until it reaches your prefered thickness.
3. Season with S+P and add a squeeze of lemon juice.