Category: Vegan

  • Coconut and Passion Fruit Panna Cottas

    Coconut and Passion Fruit Panna Cottas

    For my 11th birthday, I had a Valentine’s Day themed sleepover party. Paper hearts in shades of pink and red were stuck to the walls, my mum and sister came up with a St Valentine quiz for me and my friends, and there was a ‘baking’ competition that involved the microwave and melted Skittles and…

  • The 4 Best Healthy Breakfast Smoothies

    The 4 Best Healthy Breakfast Smoothies

    Desperation drove me into a health food shop the other day. It was an unusual day regardless of the health shop. It was a day dressed up to look like #newyearnewme, the only thing missing was a towel slung around my shoulders and a bottle of green juice or one of my newly acquired breakfast…

  • Easy Stovetop Maple Pecan Granola

    Easy Stovetop Maple Pecan Granola

    It’s often at this time of day – around 4pm – that my stomach alarm clock tinkles gently. It’s not the alarming buzz of the one which always inconveniently rings whenever there’s a moment of silence whilst in company; my physio is very polite and hasn’t mentioned it yet. But at 4pm I am alerted…

  • How to make crumpets

    How to make crumpets

    Gaylord will be the first to tell you that I am a messy cook. According to him, when he’s faced with the washing up which I always insist ‘really isn’t that much’, I have somehow managed to use every pan that we own to make breakfast. In my defence, Turkish eggs – poached eggs served…

  • How to Make Focaccia (and survive a heat wave)

    How to Make Focaccia (and survive a heat wave)

    The heat wave came without warning. Although I can’t say the same for the focaccia. That came from an all-consuming craving for salt-crusted cushion-soft bread, and no matter how many heat waves we suffer, there will always be a focaccia in this house. I have not experienced many heat waves in my life. This is…

  • The 4 Best Pickles

    The 4 Best Pickles

    There is something utterly charming about France beyond the bicycles, baguettes and éclairs, and that’s their love of jars. Chickpeas, crème fraiche, and my precious pâtés and rillettes all come in elegant glass jars, and it’s just so rustic and homely scraping crème fraiche out of a jar, why don’t we do it everywhere? Recycling…

  • Fig and thyme jam

    Fig and thyme jam

    October seems to be the perfect month for me to make jam. Last year I filled some mini jars with bramble jam – mini purely because of the blackberry curse that haunts me – and although that is literally when the tradition started, I would like to it continue. This year it’s time to celebrate…

  • Cauliflower, pine nuts, salsa verde

    Cauliflower, pine nuts, salsa verde

    I made a cauliflower dish for lunch the other day. It was roasting in the oven, the salsa verde was patiently resting, the pine nuts were on the right side of toasted, when I looked in the fridge to see what else I could grab for us to eat alongside. Aside from a wedge of…

  • Babaganoush

    Babaganoush

    Pyromania is a curiosity we all possess. We all went through that worrying childhood phase of literally playing with fire (I refuse to believe I was the only one) and I think a love of cooking is simply an extension of that. Take blowtorching something for instance. It really is a dangerous tool to give…

  • Vegetable and pearl barley soup

    Vegetable and pearl barley soup

    January is a month of slurping soups. There are thick parsnip and apple soups, practically white with cream and a brightness of flavour that makes you suddenly sit up and eat your lunch more alertly than usual. A butternut squash soup drizzled with turmeric yoghurt, in an attempt to coerce flavour into this despondent vegetable…