I made this chicken soup for yesterday’s lunch. I’m not working at the moment so can stay cosy and warm indoors if I like and only need to venture out in the cold if I need supplies or to go to the woods. I live five minutes’ walk from Selsdon Woods in Croydon and I…
Month: February 2018
Savoury muffins
I made these muffins three weeks’ ago because I wanted something savoury to take for half time nourishment during the Crystal Palace v Newcastle game. As Palace supporters we’re really living on our nerves at the moment – fighting a relegation battle while being plagued with injury problems – some of our best players are…
Pasta bake
With the temperature plummeting it’s time to roll out some comfort, carb heavy recipes. As pasta bakes are cheap, tasty and very easy to make they can be top of your list. I say easy but I have just remembered an occasion years ago when I was cooking with my then teenage niece and we…
Smoked mackerel paté
You can whip up this paté in the time it takes to make the toast to go with it. It’s one of the quickest, easiest and tastiest recipes I know. I’ve calculated it costs about £2 per portion (and a generous portion at that) and is perfect for either a first course or as a sandwich…
Chicken pilaf
Pilaf is a a kind of Middle Eastern risotto. I make pilaf with chicken leftovers after a roast, in this case after the weekend’s spatchcock chicken. You only need a handful or two of chicken, and the scrappy bits of chicken at that, as the key ingredient is rice. So it’s a great way to…
Spatchcock chicken with anchovy butter
Spatchcock (or butterfly) chicken is a way of cooking a chicken by cutting out the backbone and pressing the chicken out flat. It’s handy for cooking on the barbecue but also great for cooking in the oven because you can reduce the cooking time by about 30 minutes, keeping energy costs down. Cooking chicken this…
Pea and mint soup with Parmesan crisp
This soup ticks all the ‘cheap, fresh and easy’ boxes. It’s also incredibly quick and can be made in less than 10 minutes. I always have a bag of frozen peas in the freezer and a mass of mint growing in a pot in the garden – so I have everything I need to rustle up…
Griddled chicory with Gorgonzola dressing
This was a recipe I planned to use as a first course but with sourdough bread it was really substantial and I was too full to eat anything else. It’s based on a Jamie Oliver recipe which uses radicchio (which I couldn’t find so I used chicory instead) and raisins (which I didn’t have in…
Twice baked cheese soufflés on mushroom steaks
There is so much mystique around soufflés and how hard they are to make that it is only last year that I made my first soufflé. It was so easy I couldn’t believe I hadn’t made them before. The key thing is to be very careful about folding the whisked egg whites into the mixture…
Roasted beetroot, orange and feta salad
Beetroot is one of those vegetables people either love or hate. Roasting beetroot in olive oil and sea salt is completely different to eating tiny balls of vacuum packed beetroot soaked in vinegar. So if you have negative experiences of beetroot please give this roasted recipe a go. Beetroot provides a big flash of colour…
Minestrone
I’ve been working away for a few weeks recently, just coming home for long weekends. Before I started working away I tried to use up as much food as possible from the fridge, to avoid waste and save money on shopping. Like most people I know I often find myself throwing fresh food away and,…
Cheap, fresh and easy 