Category: Autumn

Broccoli Salad with Pumpkin & Peppers

Get your chops around this – colourful, crunchy, bursting with flavour, and good for you!

Broccoli Stir-fry with Chilli, Ginger & Oyster Sauce

This is a quickie, and scrumptious, and good for midweek.

Ilaria’s Spicy Chickpea Bunnuce Burgers with Green Chilli Yoghurt Dressing

These are seriously so good that I swear they’ll beat any kebab and falafel combo that a 1am service, or any other time, can offer you.

What’s a bunnuce burger?

I know, I know, strange word, and I didn’t know what it was until about a year ago when someone made it up …

Hey Bud!

Brussels sprouts look cuter than cabbage, and they can taste a whole lot better, too, if you arm yourself with a few must-do’s …

Erbazzone

Erbazzone is sweet, earthy, savoury and salty, with contrasting textures of moist filling held between flakes of buttery, salty pastry. Heaven.

Bring them home for an Italian feast this weekend

Italians don’t need much of an excuse to get together and share good food – they do it most days – but 2^nd June is significant in the modern history of Italy as it commemorates when, in 1946, after the second world war and the downfall of fascism, Italians went to the polls to vote to either retain the monarchy or to abolish it and form a republic.

Polenta Pie with Eggplant

Holey Moley, this is just the thing for a freeze-ball night. And it feeds a crowd, and reasonably cheaply, too. BUT there are a few steps to it and it’s not the sort of thing to try and whip up at 6.00pm.

Witloof in the Pan

Cooked this way witloof is reminiscent of artichokes. Scrumptious.

Polenta

Polenta may have humble origins, being served as a type of gruel back in the day, but just look at it now!

Moroccan Chicken

Mint and cumin, ginger, cinnamon and chilli, and almonds, prunes and figs, and, oh, chicken. This is spectacular!

Rag Noodles with Fresh Walnuts

This sauce is made in less time than it takes to cook pasta!

Nuts

A sprinkle of chopped toasted nuts adds more than crunch…

Things falling off trees

This blog is about things falling off trees … I was sitting here tucked up nice and cosy at my place with the cats at my feet, supposedly working, and I was admiring the trees outside the window. They’re ablaze with golden and russet leaves and I wasn’t thinking about much else as I enjoyed […]

Radicchio Salad with Caper Dressing

Sock it to ’em with this salad – colour and crunch and gutsy flavours with a bitter-sweet edge.

Roasted Lamb Nuggets with Anchovy, Bacon & Shallot Stuffing

This one will ring all the bells – roasted lamb bursting with flavour and deliciously juicy, and so easy to carve. Makes a little lamb go a long way.

Hot-smoked Salmon with Sorrel, Poached Eggs & Crispy Pancetta

Whoa! What a Mamma of a brunch: salt, crunch, carbs, smoke, mouth-feel and tang: Hot-smoked salmon, sorrel, poached eggs & pancetta socks it to them!

Autumn Mushrooms (‘shrooms!)

It’s the magical mushroom season and I’m hooked!
I’m addicted to mushrooms, or ‘the ‘shrooms’ as we call them!

Mushrooms

Here’s a tip – moisture makes mushrooms soften and rot, so if they are in plastic packaging transfer to a container lined with paper towels to keep them dry. Store refrigerated in the vegetable crisper.

Frangipane Pear Tartlets

Oh-la-la … little French tarts to wow your guests. When you see those little cutie baby pears come on sale, remember this recipe. It’s made for them!

Pappa al Pomodoro – Tomato & Bread Soup

Pappa al pomodoro is usually made in summer when tomatoes are ripe and plentiful, but this version, a ‘best-ever’, using both canned and roasted vine tomatoes, is scented and richly flavoured, chunky and textural, and is good at any time of year. Especially now when there is a nip in the air.

Crunchy ciabatta crusts

While your pot of soup is gently bubbling away, turn ciabatta crusts into crunchy nuggets. It’s easy. But the difference they make to soup is amazing.

Feijoas

Feijoas are right show-offs. Stick one in a fruit bowl to ripen and it’ll soon fill the room with its heady, tropical scents of banana, sweet strawberry, ripe pineapple and guava. The creamy-coloured flesh, apart from the jellied seeds, is granular like a pear in some varieties, smoother in others. Feijoas ripen from the inside […]