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 ...

When we moved away form Manchester we put our compost bin plus all it's contents on freecycle and it was snapped up in seconds. In fact loads of people wanted it. The guy that we chose to give it to arrived with a big smile on his face, an estate car, 4 bins and a shovel. It was a smelly job, hard work too, but obviously the he knew it was worth it. 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 ...

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 Pre-heat oven to 190°C, ...

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 ...

When I was living in Manchester I wrote a series of posts called  Laura's Lesson's about cooking lessons I was giving to my housemate in exchange for piano lessons. It seems they have had some success, we went to visit Laura last weekend, and she cooked us a lovely meal, very tasty vegetable stew, with sweet potatoes and lots of coriander, yummy. I did take photos to show off my former student's achievements, but our camera has broken (sob!) and the photo is no more. 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 ...