Roast tomatoes
A simple, versatile and oh so tasty treatment for a glut of tomatoes with so many uses!
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- Apr 9, 2020
Thrifty Overnight Bread
Turns out, overnight bread is not only thrify, it is also dead easy: Just a tiny amnount of yeast and no kneading required!
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- Apr 3, 2020
Lockdown soup
As the days and weeks of lockdown reality add up, one skill is becoming crucial: the ability to make do with what there is.
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- Jul 10, 2019
Greek evergreen: a pita pie
The Greek 'pita' pie is a firm favourite in our house and comes in many guises.
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- May 24, 2019
A green(s) coconut curry
We had a pile of leftover greens from the shop the other day and this Nigel Slater recipe for a 'Verdant' Coconut Curry caught my ey
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- Apr 17, 2019
How to avoid blood sugar spikes
We get a lot of questions from folks confused about what to eat after a diagnosis of high blood sugar. The confusion is not helped by the fact that traditional guidelines and new research often seem contradictory. Cutting down on sugar is the obvious standard advice but many of us do not realise that starches will affect blood sugar levels too. This is because the body digests starch (= carbohydrates) into the exact same sugar molecules as plain sugar, and refined starches in
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- Apr 16, 2019
Simple but flavourful tomato sauce
A simple tomato sauce must be one of the quickest (and cheapest) meals one can throw together. That doesn't mean it has to be boring! A common stand-by in our house, this is a dish that can be adapted infinitely - just make sure you always add big bold flavours! YOU NEED: tomatoes (from a tin, or fresh) onion garlic olive oil flavour boosters (at least two, more if you can!): a couple of celery sticks a handful of mushrooms (fresh or soak some died porcini in hot water) a tin
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- Feb 11, 2019
Wheat-free seed loaf
If you love bread but need to avoid wheat, gluten or carbs this is a great alternative. Packed with healthy seeds & nuts it is satisfyin
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- Dec 27, 2018
Warm lentil salad
This warm lentil salad (or lentil stir fry, if you will) is a staple in our house. The basic idea - lentils, greens and soy sauce - can be endlessly adapted depending on what you have to hand. It can be eaten warm or cold, as a mains or a side, and easily made in advance for a quick fix or to take somewhere. A winner in every way! YOU NEED lentils - dark speckled (Puy type) or black (Beluga) lentils work best as they keep their shape greens - try kale, spring greens or sprout
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- Dec 13, 2018
Weird and wonderful kohlrabi!
Slightly odd looking and not very common on British menus, kohlrabi is a vegetable you are unlikely to come across around here unless it appears in your vegbox or farmer's market. It a member of the brassica family with a delicate taste, not unlike a cabbage heart or broccoli stem (if you throw away your broccoli stems, think again!) and comes in purple or green varieties. It's common vegetable in many other parts of Europe, and very popular in Germany and Austrian cooking. S
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- Nov 15, 2018
How to eat more veggies
If doctors and nutritionists agree on one thing it's this: Eating more vegetables is the most important healthy eating habit worth getting into. Like all new habits this might seem daunting at first, but it's easy once you get your head around it. Actually, you don't even need to learn new recipes or use any fancy extras. All you need is good quality veggies (and a decent amount of it), and then you need to use them. No fancy recipes required, there is just one simple rule: w
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- Aug 27, 2018
Farinata (Italian chickpea pancake) with slow cooked courgettes
I absolutely love cookbooks (and I have far too many but never enough). I rarely follow a recipe though - what I love most is finding inspiration and new ideas to try. This particular recipe from Anna Jones' The Modern Cook's Year caught my eye for its double inspiration: two familiar ingredients/dishes - pancakes and courgettes - each given a new twist in a joint dish, though you could easily take each component and vary further as you please (for more ideas on the chickpea
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- Aug 11, 2018
Our favourite condiments!
We cook with a lot of herbs & spices at home which is the best way to build organic flavour into any dish, but if we need a bit of extra zing or oomph these are our absolute favourites, and on our table most days: UME SHISO SEASONING Made from the juice produced from fermenting plums (known as Umeboshi), this tart and salty liquid adds zing and umami to pretty much anything! Less sharp than vinegar, and more subtle than soy sauce Use in a dressing or marinade, or simply to pe
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- Jun 24, 2018
Greek style braised green beans
This is another Greek favourite: a summer dish of green beans braised with tomato and olive oil. Greek cooking has a way with vegetables, which may come as a surprise to some: simple but delicious veggie meals are a staple of traditional home cooking even though it seems these dishes never really made it onto restaurant menus. You can use any type of green beans (peas and broad beans are often cooked the same way), and it works with frozen beans (or peas) too. As usual my coo
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- Jun 21, 2018
Chard every day
We've had a box of Swiss chard in the shop recently - one of my favourite greens and one that really likes the British climate so UK grown supplies are plentiful right now. Less familiar than spinach though so I had several conversations with people about how to cook chard, and I thought posting some ideas here might be useful! Think of it as a cross between spinach and pak choi - lots of green leaf with a good amount of fleshy stems too, and it takes well to all sorts of fla
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- May 21, 2018
Veg News: May
The biggest piece of shop news in recent weeks got to be the weekly delivery of organic veg & fruit. Something we have wanted to do for a quite a while (heck, we had a veg stand made a year ago!) but have tiptoed around taking the plunge for even longer. Now the time for organic veggies has come! It all comes via the friendly Organic North cooperative who source most of the produce directly from the growers.It's all certified organic, British grown whenever possible and suppl
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- Apr 17, 2018
Shop news!
Here’s our monthly round-up on what’s new on the shelves, from the small to the big. And we certainly have some news for April! The big news first! We are stocking up in fresh organic veg & fruit. Pick what you like, when you like it (with special regard for those who don't want or don't like veg box surprises). We can't fully source it locally unfortunately, but produce will be British grown whenever possible. Freshest on Wednesdays, cheapest on Tuesdays. Say no to mass prod
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- Apr 16, 2018
Spiced coconut cauliflower
We made this yesterday, from Anna Jones' lovely book The Modern Cook's Year. Easy but impressive veg dinner: Tender, sweet and spicy
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- Apr 22, 2017
Green Rice
This is another Greek favourite - a classic dish called Spinach Rice (spanakorizo) but taking very well to lots of 'green' substitutions, hence I'll call it Green Rice. (This one too, like Stuffed Cabbage, comes attached with many childhood memories for me.) Basically it's greens cooked with rice (or is it rice cooked with greens?) - it's really that simple, and very easy to make. The more greens the better, so it's a good one to hide a few extra bits of veg in. Quite mellow
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- Feb 21, 2017
Greek stuffed cabbage (lazy version)
A childhood favourite and classic Greek winter dish: lahanodolamdes (cabbage dolma). A ‘dolma’ is a leaf parcel stuffed with a filling of spiced rice or a rice/meat mixture - variations are popular throughout the Caucasus and Middle East. A Greek ‘lahano-dolmas’ uses white cabbage and a lemon/egg mix (avgolemono) to thicken the sauce. Making the little leaf parcels is fiddly and time-consuming though, so my (full-time working) mum used to do this 'lazy' version. Ingredients:
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