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.

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.

My new student is flying! Last week we made this amazing roast vegetable lasagne. I’d never made a roast vegetable lasagne so I was a little nervous about how it would turn out, but all went to plan and it was very tasty indeed. I’m a little worried I could be out of a job soon though, apart from putting together the recipe and a bit of advice on making sure the cheese sauce was smooth, she did the whole thing. Gonna have to do something really tricky next time or I’ll be out!

It could probably do with a bit more cheese, there wasn’t quite enough saved for over the top, I like it  when you get a nice crispy cheesy topping. It still got 8 out of 10 Andy points, so a potential 9 I recon with this adjustment.

Roast Vegetable Lasagne

• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• Olive oil
• 1 red onion, cut into chunks and separated
• 1 aubergine, cut in half and sliced
• 3 courgettes, sliced
• 1 red and 1 yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced
• 15 mushrooms, sliced
• 2 x 400g tinned tomatoes, chopped
• 2tsp paprika
• 3 tbsp oregano
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 8 lasagne sheets
• 8oz cheddar cheese, grated
• 2 oz butter
• 2 oz plain flour
• 1 pt milk
• nutmeg

1. Pre-heat oven to 190°C, Gas Mark 6. Put onions and vegetables in roasting dish, splash with olive oil, S+P bake for 20 minutes, until beginning to brown on edges. May need to do in two separate dishes as quite a lot of veg.
2. Put cooked veg in a big pan, add the tomatoes, paprika, oregano, garlic, S+P and bring to the boil. Turn to simmer and leave for 10 minutes or so while you are making the cheese sauce.
3. For the cheese sauce. Melt the butter, then stir in the flour and cook for 1 min.
4. Gradually stir in the milk, just a little at first to break the flour mix.
5. As thickens add ¾ of the cheese, and stir through until all the cheese melts. Do not allow to boil.
6. Place alternate layers of vegetables, cheese sauce and pasta sheets in an oven proof dish, finishing with a layer of pasta then cheese sauce. Grate over some nutmeg and a sprinkle of black pepper. Top with cheese and bake for 45 minutes, until golden brown.

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Add the garlic and cook for a minute , then add the flour and cook for another minute.
4. Add the carrots, cover the pan and leave to sweat for around 5 minutes and then add the stock.
5. Bring to boil then simmer for around 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender, then add the roasted squash and then puree the soup.
6. Open up the cardamon pods and scrape out the seeds, discard the pods. In a pestle and mortar grind up the seeds and add to the soup.
7. Add the coconut milk and lime juice to the soup and heat through.
8. Serve with a warm naan bread.

One worrying thing Laura mentioned, apparently she was scared to cook for us! It seems we (well Andy) has got himself a reputation for rating meals, and she was worried her her meal would be judged. Hope this isn’t putting other people off cooking for us! I promise we’re not like some evil restaurant critics, coming round on the pretense of wanting to see much missed friends, then harshly judging your hospitality. Besides Andy gave the meal 8 out of 10, so you had nothing to worry about… erm.

Anyway, given the clear success of the lessons I’m feeling more confident with my new student, who I like to call Erm (still can’t quite bring myself to call Andy’s parents by their first names, it makes me cringe! What’s wrong with me? Sure they’ll find this hilarious anyway).

So for Erm’s first lesson she’d said she’d like to make some dips and nice salad, so we made a quick hummous, tzatsiki, a mixed green salad with balsamic dressing and a nutty roast vegetable bulgar wheat salad. It’s all turned out brilliant! I was especially impressed with the bulgar wheat salad, which is delicious, and thought I should share the recipe. Also the quick hummous is a pretty handy alternative to my other recipe, which although works out much cheaper takes a lot more time and preparation.

Nutty Roast Vegetable Bulgar Wheat Salad

• 1/4 of a medium sized squash, peeled and chopped into smallish chunks
• 1/2 a red pepper, chopped into 6
• 1/2 a yellow pepper chopped into 6
• a small handful of sultanas
• 10 almonds, sliced
• olive oil
• 200g bulgar wheat
• sweet chili sauce
• 50g wensleydale (or other white cheese) cut into smallish cubes
• S+P

1. Pour enough boiling water over the bulgar wheat just to cover and then put a plate over the dish to trap the steam. Keep checking while cooking the veg etc to see if it needs a bit more water.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6. Put the squash in a roasting dish with some olive oil, sweet chili sauce to taste and sprinkle over the almonds. Put in the oven for 15 minutes, then add the peppers and cook for a further 15 minutes.
3. Stir the roasted veg, sultanas and cheese into the bulgar wheat (which should be ready by now), and add more olive oil if required, and season.

Quick Hummous

• 1 tin of chickpeas, drained
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 tsp tahini
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 glove of garlic
• pinch of salt

1. Put all the ingredients on a blender and blend until smooth. You may need to add a little water, more lemon juice or stock if the mix is too dry.

This is something I’ve never made before but probably eaten a couple of times in the past. However I didn’t really know much about what was in it. Well it’s actually pretty simple. Basically it’s mashed potatoes and flour for the gnocchi and it’s best served with a simple tomato sauce for which you just need an onion and some garlic.

And luckily for us we have a lot of potatoes in the UK in October. Which is sort of why I chose to make this meal. It’s actually based on a recipe from a book called the Boxing Clever Cookbook.  This was produced a few years ago by some of the people involved in the EarthShare CSA scheme.

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 you’ve not got the right stuff in. It takes all of about 2 minutes to make too, which for bread is pretty incredible.

Spicy Butternut & Butter Bean Soup

• 1 oz butter
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 3 gloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 fairly chunky butternut squash, peeled, seeded and roughly chopped
• 2 big sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 or 2 red chilis (how hot do you like it?), finely chopped
• 2 cans of butterbeans, drained
• 1 1/2 pints of stock
• S+P
• 5 tbsp chopped coriander plus extra for garnish

1. Melt the butter in a big soup pan, then add the onions and galic and fry gently over a low heat for 15 minutes or so until the onions are soft and golden, but not browned.
2. Add the chilli and fry for a couple of minutes before adding all the rest of the chopped veg (but not the beans!). Stir round to coat a little, then cover and leave to sweat for 10 minutes.
3. Cover with hot stock, bring to the boil then simmer for around 15-20 minutes or until the veg are tender.
4. Puree the soup, season and add the tins of beans and chopped corriander.
5. Return to the heat and simmer for around 8 more minutes to allow the beans to warm through and take on the flavour of the soup.
6. Serve garnished with a little chopped coriander.

“I can’t believe it’s not soda bread!”

• 300g self raising flour
• 100g oatmeal
• 1 tsp salt
• 120ml milk
• 120ml yoghurt

1. Preheat the oven to 200C
2. Put the flour and oatmeal and salt in a bowl and mix together.
3. Mix the yoghurt and milk together, then pour intot he flour mix and stir it all together with a wooden spoon.
4. Kneed briefly then shape into a round, pat it down to about 5 cm thick, put a light dusting of flour all over then place on a baking tray.
5. Cut a cross in the top of the bread, almost all the way through, then pop in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until beginning to brown. Check it’s cooked through before serving.

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 make it with goat’s cheese rather than feta, but was quite surprised to find that the (non-organic) goats cheese was almost twice the price of the organic feta and promptly changed my mind.

Another note on the missing ingredients, the original was fairly heavily based on parsley and mint which  I tried to get from the supermarket at the end of the road. I’d already walked the half hour there and back to the other shops and it had started pouring down so I reluctantly decided to see if I could pick the herbs  when I went to get the feta.  The only fresh herb they sold was basil. In my opinion another pointer that they don’t really care about food or their customers. Grrr. Shouldn’t really be shopping there in the first place, but it’s the only place within walking distance I’ve found where you can buy organic milk, cheese, eggs etc. What to do, what to do?

Anyway, enough whittering on, it all worked out fine in the end. Maybe one day I’ll make the other too and do like a taste challenge. Here’s the recipe, thanks to Juno for the inspiration…

Quinoa, Beetroot and Feta Salad

For the salad:

• 2 beetroots peeled and cut into smallish wedges
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups water
• 8 cherry tomatoes, quatered
• 3 spring onions, finely sliced
• 5 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander
• S+P
• 100g feta cheese in small cubes

For the dressing:

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• Juice of one lemon
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp chilli powder
• 2 chunky cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp tahini
• 1 tsp English mustard

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Put the the beetroot in a roasting tin, add a drizzle of oive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and toss well to coat. Place in the oven and bake for about an hour or until tender right through.
2. Put the dried quinoa into a sieve and rinse well under cold running water. Now put the quinoa, water and salt into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the quinoa is fluffy and tender. Drain off any remaining water (there shouldn’t really be much/any) and leave to cool a little.
3. In the serving bowl put the tomatoes, spring onion and coriander.
4. Whisk together the dressing ingredients.
5. Now tip the warm quinoa into the salad bowl, pour over all but 2 tablespoons of the dressing and toss well to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Top with the beetroot slices and feta.
6. Shake the remaining dressing over the top of the salad.
7. Allow to stand for 30 minutes to allow the flavours to develop.
8. Serve at room temperature with hot pita bread.