Here's a quick recipe for you, lifted straight from Guardian website, and for once made with no alterations so definitely deserving of credit and a link, it's an amazing cauliflower and sweet potato curry, "Leon Gobi". I first saw it in the paper as an extract from Allegra McEvedy's new book, "Leon, Ingredients and Recipes for the Good Life". 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 ...

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 ...

This is my favourite soup of the year so far! It has a really particular flavour, definite Asian influence, a bit sweet and tangy. YUM! It got given a 9 out of 10 from Andy! Woop! You have HAVE to try it. Let me know what you think. Squash, carrot and cardamon soup 1 oz butter 1 large onion, finely chopped 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped 400g carrots peeled and chopped 400g squash peeled and chopped, I used a turban squash tabasco sauce 1 tbsp plain flour 1 1/4 pints of vegetable stock 1 tin of creamed coconut juice of one lime 8 cardamon pods Put the prepared squash into a roasting dish with a splash of olive oil to coat and shake over some tabasco to taste. Roast in the oven at 200C until you add to the soup later, but obviously if you're being a bit slow don't let it burn. You'll need to check about half way through and move it around a bit so it browns evenly. Melt the butter in a large soup pan, then add the onions. Cook gently for around 15 minutes or until the onions are soft, but not browned. Add the garlic and cook for a minute , then add the flour and cook for ...

I love this bright orange soup. A little bit of spice to keep you warm, good autumnal  chunky veg and a few lovely soft butter beans. Mmm, it's like a cosy duvet. This is the basic recipe, but if you have any other nice bright coloured autumn veg lying around spare, no harm throwing them in too. This recipe has tinned butter beans in. Generally I prefer dried beans. I find they usually have better texture than the canned ones. Butter beans are, I think, the exception to the rule though and I actually prefer them. I've been getting the Suma ones which have been really big and tasty. When I've used dried ones before they didn't end up with the nice soft texture that these have, plus it obviously takes more time and planning. But each to their own. When I made this soup I also intended to make some soda bread, but then realised we didn't have any wholemeal flour. I ended up using stone ground white flour and mixing in a bit of oatmeal. I turned out ok. Not as nice as real soda bread I've had before, maybe a little heavy, but definitely a good quick substitute if ...

Here's a lovely recipe for a quinoa salad I got from Scrumptious a random food blog I stumbled across while wondering what to do with the jar of quinoa that's been sitting in the cupboard for well over a year. I've been a bit scared of these small grains ever since I saw them, not sure what to do with them, how to cook them, what they would taste like blah blah blah, but it turns out they're pretty easy going little chaps and they assisted in making this very tasty, hearty but fresh tasting salad. Apparently it's very good for you too. A 'Super Grain' no less. Wooo. I wonder if that's a bit like Super Gran. There's only one letter in it, must be. Maybe super grains turn you into Super Grans?! Now, I said I got the recipe from a blog, but what actually happened was I'd seen it and decided I was going to make it after I'd been to the shops, then got part way through and realised I was missing several of the key ingredients, so I would say this was influenced by rather than a direct cover of the original. I'd also intended to ...