The Family Who Eats Together Stays Together

                                      The lovely ladies at Emsworth country market

I think it's fair to say that I go on incessantly about cooking from raw ingredients and naturally, the more research I do, the more passionate I feel.  But you know, my feelings really stem from my own childhood, a time when the kitchen really was the heart of our home. Our society has largely lost the wisdom of generations past and the old adage: 'The family who eats together stays together' has been lost on us.

So, I've started 2015 determined to try and shop and cook in the way my mother would have done, eschewing as many convenience foods as possible ie bottled sauces, prepared vegetables, oven ready chips, ready made pizzas, tinned pulses......all those everyday ingredients we rely on for convenience.

I remember that it was the intention of love my mother put into many of her dishes that automatically made them nourishing, soul satisfying meals that were often made from sparse ingredients, leftovers and cheap cuts of meat.

By cooking from scratch you can control what goes onto yours and your families plates and into your bodies, and that has to be a good thing!

I already had a love of country markets and am now making a conscious effort to shop at them more regularly. Country markets are co-operatives of growers and producers of homemade goods who sell their produce directly to their community. On a recent visit to Emsworth country market I came away with an abundance of delicious wares.

                                              Delicious homemade jams and chutneys

                                                        Locally sourced meat

                 Fresh free range eggs, sticky homemade ginger cake and local sausages

I recently bought a rolled breast of lamb, a cheap cut that seems increasingly less popular, possibly as my butcher seems to think, because people don't know how to cook it. Alternatively, it could be due to it being a fatty cut, which doesn't sit well in the current climate of healthy food. This cut was typically used years ago when portions were smaller and I still believe it is fine to eat natural fats in small quantities.

For a remarkably fat free result, rather than roasting this joint, I pre cooked it in my slow cooker and finished it off in the oven.

Slow cooked breast of lamb

Recipe
1 de-boned, rolled breast of lamb (pare off as much fat as you can without tearing the meat)
1 onion, peeled and thickly sliced
1 large glass red wine
1 whole bulb garlic
500ml stock

Place onion on the bottom of slow cooker, place lamb on top
Add whole, unpeeled bulb of garlic in cooker and top with wine and stock
Leave to cook on high setting for 4 hours
Remove the lamb and strain the gravy into a jug
Allow both to cool, then refrigerate for several hours, or until the next day
Skim the fat from the top of the gravy, pour into a small pan and season to taste
Brush the lamb with a little olive oil, place in a small roasting tin and cook in a preheated oven 200c/gas 6 for 20-30 minutes until browned and heated through
Remove from oven and rest, covered in foil, meanwhile, warm your gravy
Remove the string from the joint, cut into thick slices and serve with the gravy

Costing less than £4 from my butcher, this joint served three of us amply. The garlicky red wine gravy was delicious, I served fresh mint sauce to accompany it along with lots of vegetables and crunchy rosemary potatoes.

'There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than a beautiful woman in the act of cooking for those she loves.'
- Thomas Wolfe

Love Donna xxxxx

If It Came From A Plant Eat It - If It Was Made In A Plant, Don't.

                                                                The Naked Chef!

I love the above photo! Of course you will know from a recent post that this is Todd, playing with his toy kitchen. It reinforces what I was saying about children being drawn to all things cookery, in Todd's case before he even gets dressed!

I've written recently regarding our penchant for chicken and meat regardless of where the meat has come from, or how the animal has suffered, not because I am suggesting we all become vegetarians, but certainly that we all become a bit more morally conscious.

Interestingly, I have just read a good article regarding vegetarians and vegans and it's quite worrying that many of them eat a highly processed diet. Most meat replacers are highly processed and made from food like substances. It is common knowledge now that butter is healthier than highly synthetic margarines which are laced with cheap, low-grade oils refined on an industrial scale, vegetarians and vegans are consuming a diet which will include chemically enhanced fats and oils and many other processed ingredients.

The truth is 'Real food doesn't need a list of ingredients, because real food IS the ingredient!'

Take gluten free products, unless they are made out of 'naturally' gluten free ingredients, again, they are often full of chemicals and are highly processed.

Whether we are vegetarians or carnivores we need to think not in terms of packets and tins, but about vegetables, fruit and whole grains.

Vegetables (even frozen veggies - frozen at the peak of their freshness) are always a good meat free alternative. Forget your soya chunks or fake meat free bacon (highly processed rubbish) and cook some good old fashioned vegetables. In a recent post I suggested baked potatoes with various fillings, sweet potatoes are also a very versatile vegetable, easy to cook they are lovely added to soups, made into wedges or roasted.

                                A selection of roasted sweet potatoes,  parsnips and potatoes

Sweet potatoes

Quite simply, rub sweet potatoes with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt

Bake in a hot oven for 30 minutes

Remove from oven, allow to cool and easily peel skins off

You can now use your potatoes in various ways: cut into chunks and roast, or blend with vegetable stock for a delicious soup

In the words of Michael Pollan: 'Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise-and don't eat anything incapable of rotting.'

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx

Food is Not Trash, It's Life.

                                           Rummaging around in the reduced section

Recently I posted about the chicken war going on in major supermarkets, yet another ploy to lure us in and buy produce we probably don't even need.

That's what it amounts to basically, marketing ploys and raking in huge profits, blow the carnage regarding living beings, or colossal food waste (£12 billion worth of food thrown away every year in the UK.) Ignore the fact that globally 925 million people are undernourished and that in the UK 5.8 million people are living in poverty. These monolithic food corporations don't care about any of that, they're positively encouraging food waste.

Food dating (the biggest con) was never about public health but used initially for stock control reasons. However, consumers became confused (bless them) mistakenly believing 'best by' dates actually indicated how safe food was to consume, (my grandmother is turning in her grave.)

From fields and factories to our forks, huge food corporations have an overwhelming amount of power over our food supply. They are not in the business to look out for the best interests of the people, rather, the purpose of these corporations is to maximise wealth for their shareholders. They are literally rubbing their sweaty palms every time the average family wastes £680 a year on food, throwing the equivalent of an entire meal away per day. They see nothing immoral in food waste or food poverty so it is our responsibility to reclaim some common sense, as used for centuries prior to food dating.

I bought these cheeses which in December were £4 for two, the sell by date was 4th January', they were reduced, then reduced again to 39p. I've only just started eating them and it's 21st January! Nothing wrong with them, not a spot of mould, no foul smell and they taste delicious.

I urge you to use your common sense, think about freezing food if it's nearing its best by date or using up ingredients in a hotchpotch dinner. Remember, you might be getting a chicken for less than three quid but we are still throwing 86 million chickens every year! Think financially and morally about how you are contributing to the food waste scandal.

When I was a child food was never wasted, we grew up in a culture where we were constantly reminded how lucky we were compared to the starving children in Africa. My mother didn't have a deep freezer filled to the gunwhales with ready made meals or cupboards stocked with crisps and biscuits. She did however always have a huge chunk of parmesan, brought over regularly from Italy, which of course, wrapped in greaseproof paper, never had a use by date! Mum would often toast slices of yesterdays stale bread, slather it with homemade jam and grate parmesan over the top, this was considered a great treat by us kids and I still enjoy cheese and jam on toast to this day.

'Connecting more people to food through gardening, farmers markets and urban farms helps teach us food is not trash, it's life.'
- Jonathan Bloom

Love Donna xxxxx

Celebrity Big Brother.

                                  Celebrating with some ex work colleagues last summer

When I first started working in special needs education, a predominantly female environment, what struck me most was the woman on woman harassment. Over the years I witnessed a lot of under-the-radar abuse of pulling rank and behaviours such as sabotage, and this my feminist friends, was in a caring environment! 

Women are supposed to be nurturing peacemakers, however, because it's taken us so long to make progress in 'a mans world' we're terrified of going backwards. 

I'm currently watching celebrity big brother, I find these types of programmes a great way to study human behaviour, because sure enough, put a few women together in a small space and it's not long before the knives are out and 'sisterhood' is out the Window.

Katie Hopkins (a general media hate figure) provoked the vitriol which she is highly paid and famous for, even being called the C word on many social network sites, when she entered the BB house. Katie has incited our wrath for all number of reasons, from hating chavvy names to her current bete noire, fat people. 

Katie's polar opposite (Nadia's own words) Nadia Sawalha, entered the BB house immediately taking the moral high ground and here's the interesting thing: Nadia started preaching about how Katie stands for everything she's against, attaching herself to the latest fashionable, public parading of anti Katie outrage. Yet when Katie Price entered the house she was clever enough to understand Hopkins public persona and decided to get to know her as a person before passing judgement, along with several other women in the house, Katie has decided she likes Hopkins. 

I've always been very cynical of sanctimonious people who take the stance of being morally right in order to be viewed by their peers as being a good person (in Sawalha's case a bunch of gossipy, middle aged women on ITVs Loose Women.)

Sawalha, chief exponent of principles, is not viewed kindly by her ex husbands family following his suicide in 1997. Condemned as callous, Sawalha's decision to split with Justin Mildwater and then begin an affair with her 26 year old Eastenders TV co star, allegedly drove heartbroken Mildwater to hang himself in their home. The family said Sawalha never read her husbands farewell letter or collected her wedding ring which had been placed on the letter.

The irony is, Sawalha has backed the wrong horse. Hopkins has a huge following on Twitter, evidence that plenty of her views are shared, albeit many people are too scared to admit it because they fear the self righteous Sawalha types. And, as many journalists have written, Hopkins is a sparkling, intelligent, eccentric woman who hasn't disappeared into nothingness. 

Whilst Sawalha likes to attach herself to the latest cause celebre, which to me just smacks of disingenuous, self-promotion, Hopkins puts her money where her mouth is and has regularly stood up to Perez Hilton, whose obnoxious behaviour has upset all the housemates, even seeing the legend, Alexander O'Neal leaving because he was being relentlessly provoked by Hilton. Sawalha has jumped on the 'right-on' bandwagon but it has backfired! 

As a food writer, and overweight person, I've read about Hopkins argument re fat people. I take no offence because basically she's right, as a society we are eating too much and as a consequence we have a obesity epidemic. But, rather like the story of the emperors new clothes, we all want to be seen as politically correct and 'good' therefore we go with what's circulating and fashionable, and admitting we're fat is neither. 

In the past bullying was defined by physical violence, making us less aware of covert bullying tactics, however, this type of bullying is on the rise, exacerbated by everyone being terrified of voicing an opinion. Solidarity of the sisterhood is a myth and a stereotype which has been quashed by the thought-police brigade. 

Fortunately for me, I no longer have to be in an environment where any form of bullying takes place and I hope that by sheer twist of fate, Hopkins honesty and courage paves the way to help rid us of dissembling characters (Sawalha, Hilton) masquerading as saints.

This next recipe would meet with Katie Hopkins approval I'm sure, like myself she has an abhorrence for our overindulgence in crappy food. A baked potato is a nutritious, healthy comestible just waiting to be topped with baked beans or tuna and sour cream, that wonderful combination of crunchy skin and fluffy interior, dusted with sea salt and massaged with olive oil, cooked in an hour and costing very little, this is the ultimate winter comfort food. 

Jacket potatoes

Recipe

1 large baking potato per person

1 onion per person, peeled

Olive oil

Coarse sea salt

Black pepper

Feta cheese

Baked beans

Prick potatoes with a fork, place in a roasting tin

Add peeled onions and massage with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper

Place in a hot oven for an hour, skins should be crisp and the inside of the potatoes soft and fluffy, the onions should be crispy and caramelised on the outside

Fill potatoes with onion, top with grated feta and return to the oven for 5 minutes

Add cooked beans and serve immediately

'If they don't like you for being yourself, be yourself even more.'
- Taylor Swift

'The secret is to find out what you feel is important, and not pursue what others think is important. When you think highly of yourself, me thinking highly of you will never be enough.'
- Shannon L. Alder

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx

Charleston

Many years ago I was given a book (see photo) 'Carrington: letters and extracts from her diaries.' Thus my love affair with all things Bloomsbury began. The Bloomsberries were a London literary and artistic group whom comprised of great names such as Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey, E. M. Forster and Dora Carrington, to name but a few. The group were one of the most celebrated cultural movements of the twentieth century, these extraordinary individuals broke free from the shackles of their Victorian male - dominated society with its false values and petty conventions and lived as bohemians. Their relationships were totally unconventional, even by todays standards, their lifestyles were governed by watchwords such as ' good states of mind' 'truth' and 'happiness', their philosophy and rebellious natures of course totally appealed to me!

Carrington was one of the most tragic figures in the story of Bloomsbury, she was in love with Lytton Strachey and her primary concern in life was living with him and caring for him. Lytton was homosexual and fell in love with Ralph Partridge and by way of keeping Lytton, Carrington married Ralph and thus their curious three - sided relationship began, with all three of them going on honeymoon together and living together. Lytton died of stomach cancer in 1932, Carrington shot herself in the chest and died a few hours later.

Recently my friend Carron and I visited Charleston house, the former home of Vanessa Bell and the country gathering place for the Bloomsbury group. I was there to write a piece for Shorelines newspaper.

Whilst there Carron spotted a book: 'The Bloomsbury Cookbook' which she bought for me. This wonderful book combines two of my greatest passions, cooking and stories about the Bloomsbury group, it's full of life, love and art and invites the reader to dine with the Bloomsberries. Food and dining was central to these individuals, gathered around the table they discussed art, literature, politics and economics, they argued, debated, laughed and loved.

'Theirs was an England largely lost. Of breakfasts to linger over, painting lunches, tea at four and dinners to dress for. Fresh vegetables sent from country gardens in baskets to town by rail, excellent boiled puddings and steak and kidney pies.'
- Pamela Todd, Bloomsbury at home.

Never more than at Charleston did the group engage in lengthy meals around Vanessa's dining table.

                                      Above the piano hangs a portrait of Lytton Strachey

Charleston is where the Bloomsbury pulse beats strongest. Virginia Nicholson, the granddaughter of Vanessa, poignantly sums it up by saying, 'It is as if its inhabitants have simply gone out for a walk and will shortly return.' I would certainly recommend visiting Charleston which is a time capsule in which the public can examine a world which has vanished!

                               The gift shop is a treasure trove of Bloomsbury artefacts

Naturally, being a writer myself, the love of sharing stories around the dining table as the Bloomsberries did, excites me. We live in a society today where food has become about convenience, we no longer treasure the 'dining experience'. Nor do we value food in the same way, good meals were important to the Bloomsbury circle, their gatherings were about fun where food and drink were taken seriously and much enjoyed.

Many of the recipes in the Bloomsbury cookbook were written when food supplies were limited, but even at times of austerity, meals were conjured up with whatever their vegetable gardens were able to provide and some of the recipes are quite ingenious. One such recipe is Grace's Algerian omelette, this consists of a spoonful of rice cooked with fried onions and simmered in a cup of stock which is spread over the surface of a 4 egg omelette, warmed through and folded in half. I assume this was an economical way of making a filling dish, the eggs would have come from the neighbouring farm and the rice would have been an excellent filler.

A traditional British breakfast from colonial India, often eaten after a party or heavy night before, was kedgeree. I don't know anyone who has kedgeree for breakfast anymore but it certainly makes for a delicious meal, whatever time of the day you eat it!

Kedgeree

Recipe
680g smoked haddock
170g long grain rice
4 free range eggs
1 onion, peeled and sliced
2 mugs of full fat milk
Salt
Large knob of butter
2 heaped tablespoons curry powder

Cook rice according to instructions, drain and rinse in cold water, set to one side
Boil eggs, peel and set to one side
Fry onion in butter

Add curry powder and stir
Place fish in pan and add milk

When fish is cooked - 10 minutes - add rice and combine ingredients well
Allow rice to warm through and add chopped eggs

Season with salt and serve in warm bowls
This is really delicious, true comfort food, I can understand why people with hangovers enjoyed it!

Carron has just sent me a new publication of Vanessa and her sister which no doubt will kidnap me for a day, I'm off to have a leisurely read........

By a strange twist of fate, my editor, Martin Shelley looks like Lytton!

'I don't know what the world has come into: women in love with buggers and buggers in love with womanizers....'
- Lytton Strachey

Love Donna

Cooking With Children.

                                                 Todd playing with his toy kitchen

Most people claim they would 'Die for their children' yet many won't cook for - or with their children. For a myriad of reasons (or excuses) parents are comfortable feeding their children from a packet or drive - thru, as a society we have been conclusively duped into believing convenience and fast food is safe, hence it has become the norm.

From a very young age children approach cooking with the same enthusiasm as they approach everything else. Children are tactile and have no qualms about getting messy, and studies confirm that children learn best when they're interacting. Since time immemorial, children have loved stirring, pouring, splashing and tasting (who remembers licking the bowl?)

Learning through food literally is a building block. From as young as two playing (as Todd does) with a toy kitchen, putting toast in the toaster then onto the plate, putting things in the oven, putting water in the cup, then the cup on the saucer, are all a precursor to the next stage.

If you want your children to learn to cook, they are going to have to learn to use sharp knives and understand heat. As parents we have to learn to keep parental anxieties in check and remember that it's important for children to take risks, and learn through 'doing.' The kitchen is a great place to let go, to allow children to gain confidence and independence and we shouldn't stand in the way of their progress.

 Cooking is a great vehicle for communication, good for children's cognitive skills and a great bonding experience. Learning mathematical vocabulary, phrases such as; 'more than' or 'less than', understanding sharing and taking turns, learning about where foods come from or how they grow, with the added benefit of our children trying a variety of foods! By teaching our children about food we can denormalise the reliance on convenience foods and subvert ingrained eating habits. We need to prioritise our kitchens as the most healthy, fun and inspiring room in our homes.

Interestingly, recent research has shown that 85 per cent of children across all age groups said they would like to cook. Another survey sadly produced disturbing results in that more children identified Simon Cowell than an avocado! Whilst I have nothing against Simon Cowell, I do worry that children think vegetables come from a supermarket and that cheese is a plant!

When I worked in special needs education, without fail cooking was the favourite lesson, the very young children loved the sensory aspect and the older children gained confidence and a sense of achievement, especially when cooking their own lunches.

Gordon Ramsey has lambasted parents who allow their children to spend hours glued to their computer screens whilst being fed inferior, convenience food. He says: 'Cooking is a life skill! Our current childhood obesity epidemic is down to parents who don't know how to cook nutritious food.' He's absolutely right, eating is a part of life, therefore cooking and preparing food is one of the most useful and valuable skills you can teach your children.

       Todd having a babychino, he already understands the concept of cup and saucer

Cooking is not just about ingredients and recipes, it's about harnessing imagination, empowerment and creativity. It's also about spending time with your children, leading the way, setting examples and most of all.......having fun.

Smushins

Recipe
Soft fruit
Ice cream
Maple syrup or honey, small amount in a little cup or jug

Give each child a clean chopping board, blob on a scoop or two of ice cream
Give each child a selection of soft fruit: small pieces of banana, berries, grapes and cherries (peeled if children are very young)......
Give the children plastic spatulas or spoons, let them mix and mush everything together.

This is a good start to teach toddlers and young children how to hold utensils, to stir and pour. They will automatically put the fruit in their mouths, it's fun, it's messy and it's the beginning of learning to enjoy creating things with food.

'Children do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.'
- Teddy Roosevelt.

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx
                       

Food For The Soul.

                                                       Asian style chicken broth


In my last post I talked about looking at fresh ingredients and about rethinking the way in which we shop for food, cook and eat.

I think it's particularly hard to feel inspired in January, many people will have overindulged during the festive period, therefore guilt and an extra tyre around our midriffs added to the general low of returning to work leaves us not really interested in cooking. But who really wants to add to their woes by eating salad on cold, bleak evenings when comfort is so desperately needed?

This brought to mind what my mother used to call, 'chicken soup for the soul.' My relationship with chicken soup runs deep, my mum would would simmer a chicken carcass in a big pot and once the broth was made she would add whatever vegetables and herbs she had to hand, for centuries mothers like mine administered this soup wherever colds or heartbreak struck. In fact chicken soup has acquired the reputation of a folk remedy for colds and flu and is widely prepared as a comfort food.

The affinity for this broth transcends borders, almost every culture has their own take on this liquid nectar, the Jewish have even dubbed it as Jewish penicillin. A bowl of hot, fragrant broth ladled over tender vegetables, sometimes pasta, dumplings or grains, has become renowned as a cure-all.

Generally we have a psychological relationship with food which has been lovingly prepared, a microwaved ready meal offers no love or comfort. The expectation of efficacy and the succour of being cared for comes in no better form than a deeply flavoursome, nutritional homemade soup, chicken soup always conjures up the image of loving grandmothers and mothers.

The irony is that this is so simple and the ultimate inexpensive dish, yet younger women today eschew these old fashioned dishes in favour of feeding their children reformed nuggets and burgers.

I am not going to go into my free range chicken versus intensely farmed factory chicken rhetoric, we're all adults and we've all seen on TV or you tube the horrific conditions factory farmed chickens are bred in, if that's what you want to eat for the sake of a couple of quid so be it. Morals aside I will tell you categorically that a free range chicken will taste far better, there will be less fat (90 per cent of farmed chickens are so obese they can't walk by the age of 6 weeks) and free range chickens haven't been pumped with large quantities of antibiotics. It might look like you're getting less chicken for your money but you are getting quality meat from a well treated bird and lets face it, unless you're on the breadline, ie never being able to afford a McDonald's or ready meal or Starbucks, then there really is no excuse for buying an intensely farmed animal.

Chicken soup for the soul

Recipe
1 free range chicken
A selection of vegetables: carrots, onion, celery and garlic, cut into chunks
Water to cover chicken and vegetables
Sea salt and pepper

Put all the ingredients into a large pot and bring to the boil
Turn the heat down to a very low simmer, cover with a lid and cook for 4 hours

Remove the chicken and set aside until cool enough to remove all the meat
Allow broth to cool, any fat will rise to the surface which you can scoop off
Return shredded meat to broth and simmer gently for 15 minutes
Serve in warm bowls

The more vegetables you add the larger quantities of broth you will have. I usually get two nights worth out of 1 chicken. Adding dumplings stretches this out even further.

For an Asian twist add fresh ginger, chillies, spring onions, pak choi, a dash of soy sauce and garnish with fresh coriander.

For an Italian twist add herbs such as dried basil, oregano or tarragon and finish with small pasta shapes.

Really there is no end to what you can conjure up with 1 chicken, a large pot and a few of your favourite vegetables, herbs and spices.

For a thicker, stew like dish, add thinly sliced potatoes to the broth and any frozen vegetables you may have, ie peas or spinach

' Some foods are so comforting, so nourishing of body and soul, that to eat them is to be home again after a long journey.
To eat such a meal is to remember that, though the world is full of knives and storms, the body is built for kindness.
- Eli Brown

Love Donna xxxxxx

New Year Resolutions.

                                               Christmas is now over, the tree is down..........

                                                 But I've treated us to a twinkly tree in its place!

Happy new year to all my readers and my apologies for not posting throughout December, probably the one month of the year many of you feel inspired to cook!

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a death in the family. Glenn's father passed away which left us all at sea throughout the festive period. I would have continued posting, (writing is good therapy and would have distracted me from the sadness that engulfed our home,) however, I couldn't even access my blog! Suffice to say I'm back on track now thankfully.

As usual it seems many of us are regurgitating the same common new year resolutions, exercise more, eat less..... the diets are out in force, same old, same old: you can lose a stone in x amount of weeks if you: cut out carbohydrates, cut out sugar, cut out wheat, eat only raw foods........or go on a shake diet.

Even though time and again research has shown that weight cycling and crash dieting is damaging and not effective long term, we are driven by the desire to be thin rather than healthy.

We look for short cuts, we starve ourselves for a couple of months or live on diet shakes, bars and soups only to revert back to processed meals and fast food, it's all or nothing because many of us have lost the basic skills to cook fresh beautiful food, lots of which we can eat in abundance.

Jamie Oliver said recently that we should let go of fad foods and diets, I couldn't agree more, can you honestly see yourself living without carbs forever? Are you really going to be able to sustain living on cabbage soup or goji berries? It's really about moderation, it's about leaving the ready made pizza and oven chips in the supermarket and buying a selection of fresh vegetables and transforming them into a delicious, hearty curry or casserole.

We are a nation of sprout lovers at Christmas, yet once the festive season is over sprout sales decline rapidly, proof again that many people only bother preparing fresh vegetables for special occasions. I love sprouts, they're versatile, filling and full of nutrients, cooked sympathetically they are sweet and nutty - boiled to death they are soggy and sulphurous, hence their bad reputation. Here are a few ideas to bear in mind next time you're tempted to pick up that fat and sugar laden ready meal.

Brussel sprouts

Recipes
Place small whole sprouts (for larger, tougher sprouts, shred finely) in a hot pan
Add a good glug of olive oil and cook over a high heat, turning frequently
When the sprouts are golden and tender you can fry some streaky bacon until crisp, or crumble ready roasted chestnuts on top or add some crushed garlic and lemon juice with crumbled feta cheese or finely grated parmesan, all of these combinations are delicious served with penne pasta and are cheap, quick and easy to make

Alternatively you can toss the sprouts in olive oil, salt and a glug of balsamic vinegar
Cook in a hot oven until golden and tender - the caramelised outer leaves will be deliciously sweet.

Another delicious way to serve sprouts is in a gratin, boil sprouts for 5 mintes, drain, sprinkle with salt and pepper, place in a baking dish and add some stock, cover with breadcrumbs and bake in a hot oven for 20 minutes.

I shall be posting recipes which I hope will inspire you to use beautiful fresh and healthy ingredients, as Jamie Oliver says: small changes make a difference over time!

I find these photos that I took at a grocers inspirational, they scream out freshness and health! It's really about changing our mind sets, not looking at ready made meals that may seem cheap and convenient, but thinking about flavour, texture and nutritional benefits and rethinking food, we're not filling our bodies like we fuel our car, we need to relish what we're eating, savour and appreciate all the good things we are fortunate enough to have readily available!

"Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering 'it will be happier'....."
- Alfred Tennyson

Lots of love
Donna xxxxxxxxx