Recipes I once posted

Lockdown meals need to be quick, comforting and tasty. Here are a few recipes I’ve posted on Instagram over the past year. Wild garlic pesto is on everyone’s feeds at the moment and it’s growing in abundance in my local woods. If you’re lucky enough to pass some on your daily walk, do pick some […]

Bread

Last time I wrote a blog post, I’d actually never heard of coronavirus. That was in December when the virus was starting to spread in China – and now the whole world is in lockdown. Things have slowed down in every aspect of our lives and we can no longer travel to the office, pop […]

Chocolate banana bread

It definitely feels like the start of the school term. It’s back to business as usual and summer will soon feel like a lifetime ago (I write this on a grey and drizzly evening). It’s also a time of new beginnings: my nephew is off to sixth form college and my stepdaughter (I hate that […]

Blackberry picking

The last time I posted a recipe on here back in May, it was asparagus season and summer was on the way. As I write this, it’s 1 September, what I think of as the first day of autumn, although summer apparently lasts until 23 September. It’s a beautiful day and the sun is shining, […]

Light at the end of the tunnel

We’re almost halfway through February, a short but (bitter)sweet month. It’s always been a happy time for me because it’s when I celebrate my birthday and it’s one step closer to the beginning of spring. By the end of February, it’ll be almost six o’clock before it gets dark, and just a month later, the […]

I don’t care if Monday’s blue…

Today (21 January) is Blue Monday, which is apparently the bleakest day of the year. It’s something to do with the post-Christmas slump, failed new year’s resolutions, gloomy weather and being broke until pay day. It’s true that January can be pretty joyless, but it can also be a quiet, contempalative and even quite consoling […]

Spicy stew with Gosh! sweet potato and black bean sausages

If this bank holiday weather’s anything to go by, summer’s packed up and gone away for another year. After a blisteringly hot June and July, our last long weekend’s a bit of a damp squib. It’s nothing we Brits aren’t used to though, and as autumn’s my favourite season, I’m looking forward to cosying up […]

Inner stew

Although summer’s in full swing, the days are slowly getting shorter, and as many people jet off on their summer holidays, I feel that I need the opposite of a break. It’s a traditionally quiet time for freelancers, which is not all bad when the weather’s this beautiful, but I’m getting itchy feet. I’ve been […]

Lemon and thyme loaf

It’s almost the end of April, described by T. S. Eliot as the cruellest month, and perhaps he had a point. In The Waste Land, Eliot’s talking mainly about lost love, but he’s also describing the weather. April’s a big tease. She’s cold and frosty one minute and beaming sunnily down on us the next. […]

Pasta with wild garlic pesto

It’s a funny old month, April. The days are longer and it’s warmer than it was even a couple of weeks ago (yesterday, I went out without a coat) but spring still feels a little wait away. Today, as I sit at my kitchen table writing this, I’m waiting for it to rain. It’s been […]