Category: Autumn

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…

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

I love the striking colour of radicchio and the way it lifts a bowl of green salad … and it’s refreshing minerally bitter bite in other dishes.

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 […]

Pretty in pink

This is hardly a recipe, just a combination of delicious ingredients which are somehow more gorgeously decadent when combined.

They do give a fig

A really nice couple, these two, and they deserve all the success that can possibly come their way. Ha! Writing that, I know I’m transparent. Yes, I’m hoping they’ll send me a truckload of their gorgeous figs every year come harvest time!

Potato & Tofu Curry

I’m addicted to curry! My favourite time to eat it is randomly in the morning – nothing like a hearty dose of leftovers to kick start the day!

Pork Cutlets with Fresh Apple Salad

At my house we all fell in love with this dish at the first mouthful. The clean acidity of apple salad mingling with crème fraîche and sweet juicy pork cutlets had us all in raptures.

Eggplant & Date Salad

I love this freshly tossed, when everything’s all perky and standing to attention, the onion crunchy, the lemon biting fresh and the chilli gnawing the back of you throat …