Healthy roast veg with bulgar wheat and herb dressing

Lately I've been eating too much nice food and not doing enough exercise, which inevitably piles on the pounds! In the battle of the bulge there are all kinds of faddy diets, but for me I follow a simple plan: cut out the treats, bread and cheese, and fill up on lots of fresh fruit and veg.

The important thing is to keep yourself full, eat an orange, apple or pear when you're tempted to a snack. Another underestimated tip is try to make your dinners attractive, so they're tempting and you don't feel you're depriving yourself. I thought I'd post this simple mid-week dinner since it looked pretty!

No recipe really, I just chopped up a load of whatever veg I had handy: peppers, courgettes, onions, carrots, celery. Toss in a teaspoon of oil and bake for 30 mins at 200C. I then threw in a handful of frozen green beans and a couple of Quorn fillets for another 20 minutes.

To go with it, half a cup of bulgar wheat left to steep in a cup of boiling water and a tsp of vegetable stock.

Lastly, I whizzed up a load of fresh mint and thyme from my pots with the juice of a lemon, then drizzled over everything generously.

Best Beer-Baked Beans

Britain loves baked beans! They were first sold at Fortnum & Mason's in 1886 as a luxury food, but now we eat more of them than anyone else in the world. They're often seen with a fried breakfast, but my family often had them with eggs and homemade chips on a Saturday lunchtime.

While they're handy from a can, I like to spoil myself with these luxurious beer baked beans. They really are ten times better. And if you make them yourself with my recipe, they're much less likely to give you the infamous "bean wind".

Beer-baked beans

Baked beans are traditionally made with haricot beans but you can use any kind or combination. I've been experimenting with Nigerian honey beans, but you can use pinto beans, borlotti beans, canellini or anything you have handy.

Use any beer you want, the browner the colour the richer the flavour, though lager works just fine.

I bottle and keep these beans for a few months, but it's very important to be scrupulous about sterilising and sealing. Alternatively they freeze very well in individual portions.

• 500g white beans
• 2 medium onions
• 1 large stick celery
• 1 large carrot
• 3 tsp mustard
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tbsp dark brown sugar
• 3 tbsp black treacle or molasses
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 4 tbsp vinegar (cider or red wine are ideal)
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tin/bottle of brown ale (approx 440ml)
• 2 tbsp of tomato ketchup

1. Soak the beans for 8 hours or overnight. To reduce "wind", drain them and change the water at least once during soaking, and make sure to rinse them thoroughly before cooking.
2. Boil the beans rapidly for 10 minutes then simmer for 30 minutes until just cooked.
3. Meanwhile, finely chop the onions, celery and carrot.
4. Sauté gently in a pan, then add all the remaining ingredients.
5. Bring to the boil, and add the cooked beans.
6. Reduce to a gentle simmer and leave to cook uncovered for roughly 1.5 hours, until the sauce has reduce to a thick ooze, and the beans are very tender. Add an extra cup of water if it gets too thick before they're done.
7. Once cooked, season with salt to taste.

Variations

Traditionalists can bake the beans in the oven at 160C for about three hours, but it's a waste unless you have the oven on for some other reason!

The chilli and mustard give them a hint of heat, add more if you like spicier beans.

Custard Tarts

When life gives you leftover eggs and pastry, make custard tarts! After my pie-making session the other day I had some scraps of pastry and most of a beaten egg left over. Whenever you make pastry there are always trimmings, so this is a great way of using it up that I'll definitely use again.

I mixed an equal amount of plain yoghurt with the egg, plus a couple of tablespoons of sugar. I roughly rolled out the leftover pastry and used it to line two silicon muffin cases, poured in the egg mixture, and sprinkled it all with nutmeg. Since the pies were still cooking in the oven I put the tarts in at 200C for the last 15 minutes of baking. A great unexpected treat!

I actually left these in slightly too long since I was busy, take custard tarts out when they're still quite wobbly as they carry on cooking even when out of the oven. Normally you'd use cream but I had yoghurt handy, it gives them a slightly grainy, cheesecakey texture.

Even so, they were yummy, and I ate them both!

Pies pies pies!

On a Sunday I often hanker for something really English and old-fashioned, like my gran used to make. Something wholesome with cabbage and potatoes. It's not fancy, it's not trendy, but what can be more English than a pie?

This savoury pie uses a quick and easy pastry that takes me right back to my childhood: suet crust. It's quick enough to have it ready on the table in under an hour. There's no messy rubbing in, just mix it up, roll out and go. Today I'll show you two great pie fillings: Quorn Chicken and Mushroom Pie and a Fake Duck and Ale Pie.

For my meat-eating readers, these recipes work great with meat too!

Suet Crust Pastry

This makes just the right quantity for my 8-inch pie tin.

• 200g self raising flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 100g vegetable suet
• or: 50g vegetable suet, 50g frozen butter, grated
• 5-6 tbsps very cold water

1. Put the flour and salt in a large bowl. Tip the suet into the flour and stir. If using butter, freeze your block of butter and grate it straight into the dry flour.
2. Spoon 5 tbsps cold water into the mixture and mix with a fork until it forms into a uniform lump. Add another tbsp if it's still dry.
3. Remove from the ball and gently form it into a smooth ball, making sure all the flour is incorporated.
4. You can use it straight away, or wrap and leave for ten minutes in the fridge while you work on the pie filling.

Quorn Chicken and Mushroom Pie Filling

For chicken-type recipes I often use my fingers to shred up a Quorn roast, it's more chunky and substantial than fillets or pieces, and also slightly cheaper by weight. The tarragon and yoghurt make this tasty and tangy so it's good eaten cold as well as hot.

• 200 g Quorn (roughly shredded Quorn Roast, chopped fillets)
• 250 g mushrooms, thickly sliced
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 large celery stick, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tsp dried tarragon (or a few chopped fresh leaves)
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• Slosh of white vermouth or white wine (roughly a small glass)
• 1 tsp Swiss Marigold stock powder
• 4 heaped tbsp thick set yoghurt

1. Heat the oil in a pan on a medium heat. Gently fry the onion and celery til the onion loses its pungency
2. Add the mushrooms and stir until they're slightly browned and start releasing their juices.
3. Add the crushed garlic and stir for a minute.
4. Sprinkle in the stock powder and tarragon, then pour in the wine. 
5. Stir thoroughly to deglaze the pan and let it reduce for a few minutes.
6. Take off the heat and leave to a little, then stir in the yoghurt.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Taste the mixture - if your yoghurt is particularly sour it might need a sprinkling of sugar just to balance the flavour.

Variation

Tarragon adds an original note to this pie, it's a classic combination with chicken type recipes. If you're not keen on tarragon, thyme is also great; lemon thyme is even better if you can get it.

For more luxury use double cream instead of yoghurt! For a more saucey pie make a small amount of white sauce. This is great but just takes more time, I'm all for quick and simple recipes but sometimes it's worth it.

Fake Duck and Ale Pie

There are all kinds of beefy meat alternatives available but since I discovered mock duck in a can in my local Asian supermarket, I absolutely love it. It's made with seitan, a surprisingly savoury and meaty form of wheat gluten.

• 1 can of mock duck (approx 250g shredded seitan)
• 200g button mushrooms, sliced
• 1 onion
• 1 large carrot
• 1 large stick celery
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 heaped tsp Marmite (optional)
• ½ pint dark brown ale
• 1 tsp plain flour

1. If using canned seitan, drain off the liquid and dry the seitan on a tea towel. If it's in large pieces, shred it with your fingers into bite-sized chunks.
2. Dice the onion, carrot and celery.
3. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan on a moderate to high heat and fry the seitan until it starts to brown.
4. Add the vegetables and cook off the onions til slightly translucent.
5. Add the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.
6. Sprinkle in the flour and stir til everything is coat, then add the brown ale and spoonful of Marmite.
7. Mix thoroughly and reduce on a gentle heat until the sauce becomes thick and savoury.
8. Season with salt and pepper. If the beer and Marmite leave it tasting a little bit sharp, soften with half a tsp of sugar.

Variations

Use whatever kind of ale you like, but the darker and richer the ale, the tastier the pie will be. I didn't use herbs this time but thyme is a good addition.

Filling and baking your pie

I generally use an 8" loose-bottomed sandwich tin for my pies.

1. Preheat your oven to 200C and leave your pie filling to cool.
2. Retrieve your pastry from the fridge and cut off roughly a third of it to save for the top.
3. Sprinkle flour on your surface and roll out the pastry into a circle wide enough to cover the bottom and sides of your tin, plus a little bit more.
4. When rolled out, sprinkle with flour. Gently fold the pastry in half, then fold it in half again into a pie-wedge shape.
5. Centre the point of your pie wedge in the middle of your tin, unfold it, then unfold it again. I find this the best way of getting pastry into a tin.
6. Gently press the pastry into the corners of the tin. Using a spare lump of pastry helps with this.
7. Roll out the remainder of the pastry for the top, roughly an 8-9" circle.
8. Spoon your cooled filling into the pie and press down so it has an even surface.
9. Roll up the pastry top onto your rolling pin, then unroll it onto the top of the pie.
10. Press the pastry lid down onto the pie. I usually crimp it by pressing my thumb into the pastry but use whatever style you prefer, my gran used a fork!
11. With a sharp knife, trim off the excess pastry. I do this at a 45 degree angle but the pastry doesn't shrink much so this is mainly cosmetic.
12. For a shiny finish glaze the top with beaten egg. Pastry trimmings make a nice decoration too.
13. Cut a hole or cross in the middle to allow steam to escape.
14. Pop into the middle of your hot oven and bake at 200C for 30 minutes, until well browned.

Eat and enjoy!

Help your 5-a-day with this easy fruit cake

I'll admit it, I've not been great at getting my five a day recently, but there are some surprising things that actually count towards it.

Firstly: beans and pulses. Beans on toast is one of my quick on-the-go shameful secrets, but beans are packed full of beneficial nutrients that make them count as a portion of vegetables. They're stuffed with magnesium, iron and potassium: beans beans really are good for your heart! Even a portion of hummus counts, just don't have it too often as it's full of oil. I have a couple of delicious recipes for Boston Beer-Baked Beans and Healthy Hummus, I'll write them up when I next make a batch.

Also onions. I put onions in almost everything I cook but I hadn't really thought of them as a vegetable counting to my five a day! But they contain many essential nutrients and are even a good source of folic acid, important for pregnant women.

Fruit juice is also one that's obvious but easily overlooked, but one more healthy secret: dried fruit. A handful of dried fruit definitely counts as one serving. And what's the best and most comforting way to eat dried fruit? A slice of fruit cake!

Here's my recipe for a fat free, and if you insist, sugar-free fruit cake that you wouldn't guess is actually good for you.

Tea Fruit Loaf

Fruit cakes have to be moist, which usually means loading them with butter. This simple wartime recipe tea loaf replaces the fat with moisture soaked into the fruit, which means the cake won't last for weeks or months like a traditional cake, but is so delicious it won't need to! The recipe is endlessly variable, I make a different version of it every other week for guests and afternoon snacking.

• 75g/2¾oz raisins
• 75g/2¾oz sultanas
• 75g/2¾oz currants
• 300ml/½ pint lukewarm tea
• 250g/9oz self-raising flour
• 200g/7oz soft light brown sugar
• 2 tbsp demerara sugar (optional)
• 1 free-range egg, beaten
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp grated nutmeg

1. Put the dried fruit into a large mixing bowl, pour in the tea and stir.
2. Cover the bowl and leave to soak for eight hours or overnight.
3. Next day, preheat the oven to 170C/335F.
4. Add the beaten egg, sugar and spices to the fruit and mix well. One done, add the flour.
5. Grease or line a 1lb/medium loaf tin. Spoon the mixture into the tin.
6. Sprinkle the demerara sugar on top, if using.
7. Transfer to the oven and bake for one and a quarter hours, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
8. When cooled, store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Serve sliced with a nice cup of tea, and congratulate yourself that since it's fat free, you're entitled to spread it some with good unsalted butter!

Tropical fruit cake

Variations

This recipe is very forgiving so long as you stick to the proportions outlined. You can use 225g of any combination of dried fruits to get different results. Use whatever tea you fancy, I tend to save up whatever is left from my teapot whether it's Earl Grey, Darjeeling or builders tea. Changing the spices also works, I sometimes add two teaspoons of ground ginger instead.

Tropical Fruit Cake: For a light fruit cake, use a combination of chopped apricots, golden raisins and mixed tropical fruits steeped in green tea. Add a teaspoon of almond extract, and top with flaked almonds or dessicated coconut.

Apple tea cake

Apple Tea Cake: Soak only the raisins and sultanas, then add a whole grated eating apple along with the sugar and spices. Peel a second apple and cut it into slices, arranging it on top of the cake with a sprinkling of brown sugar. Once cooked, brush the cake top with a spoonful of hot apricot jam to give a glossy finish.

Sugar-free Tea Cake: Replace the sugar with 80g of stevia powder, or any other sugar substitute suitable for baking.

Everything you ever wanted to know about bread!

Look at this lascivious pair of doughy beauties, fresh from the oven! How could you resist them?

Home made bread is so satisfying, delicious and addictive. It takes time and patience to learn the knack, but these two loaves only took me 15 mins of actual work, the rest of the time you can get on with other things. Isn't gorgeous fresh bread worth 15 minutes of your time each week?!

Healthy and Cheap!

Home made bread is so much better for you than mass-produced stuff from the supermarket, which is saturated with yeast and preservatives. It's also much cheaper! I recently calculated that if I buy basic ingredients from the supermarket, my loaf costs 52p  - which includes the cost of having the oven on for half an hour. If you cook other things at the same time, or make two loaves at once, it's even more economical. (Today I made two loafs plus baked some eggs for my lunch, might give that recipe another time!)

Storage

Some people complain that home bread goes off too quickly. I really don't find this to be the case, so long as you store bread properly. Since it takes me a week to eat a loaf, once it's baked I cut it down the middle and pop one half in a plastic bag in the freezer. The other half I either wrap in brown paper, or just put it in a plastic bag. It keeps perfectly fine for 3-4 days, which is more than long enough.

You can buy special reusable bread bags, they work very well. But don't put bread in the fridge: the cold makes starch molecules crystallise and dry out, so while your bread won't go mouldy, it goes hard. You're better off freezing half a loaf and just defrosting it to room temperature when you need it.

Breadmakers

I've owned a couple of breadmakers but they

invariably languish in a cupboard. While they take some of the manual effort out of bread making, to me they always produce slightly odd loaves that aren't quite the right shape, or taste, or colour, and often have that awkward hole in the bottom. The only effort they really save you is ten minutes of kneading, since you still have to measure out the ingredients, wait for it to cook, and wash the pan afterwards!

I genuinely think they end up discouraging people from making their own bread, because the results from them aren't good enough to justify the effort.

Bread tins

You don't need a tin to make bread, but investing in a good quality one will last you a long time and produce a better loaf. The two loafs above are a good example.

The fatter one was made in a cheap tin I bought a long time ago. It's shallow and has rounded sides, so bread I make in it often mushrooms over the top, producing awkward mushroom-shaped slices like on the right. It also has a poor-quality non stick finish which has disintegrated after a lot of use. The loaf just above was made in my high-sided 3lb tin which was more expensive, but produces a sharp-edged, professional loaf, with much more regular slices.

Simple White Bread Recipe

This is a simple, tried and tested recipe for a bog standard, one rise loaf. I've experimented with no-knead recipes, long slow rising and other fancy methods, but I've settled with this very simple method which gives great results from minimal effort. You can have a loaf ready in under two hours - and almost all of that time you can put your feet up.

I've tried all kinds of flours from artisan heritage-variety stone-ground to supermarket basic. They all give their own flavours, but don't be afraid of buying the economy supermarket own-brand. Even the cheap stuff will produce a great loaf compared with any ordinary white sliced.

Fresh or activated yeast are said to give a better flavour but instant yeast is more reliable. You can buy it in 7g sachets which saves weighing, but the most economical way is to buy a yeast in a small tin. Once opened, store it in the fridge to keep it fresh.

• 500 g white bread flour
• 7 g fast action dried yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 300 ml warm water

1. Measure the flour into a bowl. Make a hollow in the flour on one side of the bowl, and measure the dried yeast into it.
2. Dissolve the sugar and salt in the water, add the oil and stir.
3. Make a hollow in the opposite side of the bowl from the yeast, and pour in the water mixture. Start mixing into the flour until it's all well combined. I usually start with a fork and finish with my hands.
4. At this stage I often cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave it for 5-10 minutes. During this time the flour soaks up the water, which stops the mixture from being too sticky.
5. Oil your hands and a surface. I try not to add flour at this stage, since you want your bread to stay moist and soft.
6. Knead the dough for ten minutes. What you're doing is stretching the dough so it forms gluten strands. There are lots of different techniques; I recommend browsing Youtube for videos. I alternate with a few methods:
• Grab one end of the dough nearest to you in one hand, then with the heel of your other hand, gently push the other end away from you. Fold over, and repeat.
• Stretch out into a long sausage, roll up the end one turn, then gently stretch it out. Repeat until you've rolled it all up back into a long sausage, then repeat.
• With a length of dough, hold one end, lift up the whole thing and thwack it against your surface. Repeat. The dough will stretch and lengthen, but don't let it get so long that it snaps!


7. After ten minutes of abuse, the dough should be ready. Test it by putting some flour on your finger and gently pressing into the dough. If it's done, the dough should spring back.
8. You're now ready to shape the loaf. The dough will have aborbed all the oil from your kneading surface, so now you need to dust the surface with flour.
9. Cute the loaf in half. With one half, pinch a flap of dough on the edge of the lump, pull it out and over into the middle of the ball, and stick it down. Rotate the dough slightly and keep repeating until the dough is shaped into a tight ball. The bottom of the surface tension on the dough ball will give you a good finish. Repeat with the other half.
10. Pop both balls into an oiled tin, with the smooth side upwards. If you have a deep tin, cover it with cling film. Alternatively I put the tin into a plastic bag, wrapped so it leaves a tent over the top, but with the plastic tucked tightly under the tin. You want to keep the air and moisture inside.
11. Leave to rise for approximately an hour or more until it doubles in size. In a warm place it will rise more quickly. Slow rising at cool temperatures will develop a slightly better flavour.
12. After 50 minutes, switch on the oven to 220C (fan) to preheat.
13. Once risen, uncover the loaf and slash the top lengthways with a sharp knife. At this stage you can glaze the top by either dusting with flour, or brushing with milk, melted butter, beaten egg or egg white.
14. Bake on high heat for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 180C.
15. (Optional) To crisp up the crust, at this stage pop the loaf out of the tin and return to the oven shelf for another 10 minutes.
16. Leave to cool. It's tempting to slice straight away, but the bread carries on cooking inside so shouldn't be sliced til it's cool.

Variations

Replacing the sugar with honey and the oil with butter gives a much richer flavour.

I often mix half wholemeal and half white flour (like the ones pictured), which is the same recipe but needs an extra 25 ml of water.

Piedmontese Roast Peppers

These stuffed peppers are a classic Elizabeth David recipe. They're unbelievably delicious given how simple the recipe is. This is my own version. It works as a starter, an accompaniment to salads, or even a simple supper with some good bread to mop up the lovely oily juices. Cooked in advance they’ll last a few days - like many veggie recipes they taste better the day after!

• 2 large red peppers
• 4 medium or 2 large garlic cloves
• 4 medium tomatoes
• Good olive oil

1. Wash the peppers and slice them lengthwise through the stem to make two halves. Keep the stalk, it holds the pepper together and makes a useful handle.
2. Place them cut side up in a shallow baking tray.
3. Preheat the oven to 180C.
4. Place the tomatoes in a pan or heatproof bowl and pour boiling water over them. Leave for a couple of minutes until the skins start to split.
5. Meanwhile, skin and roughly chop the garlic.
6. Take the tomatoes out of the water and remove the skin. If it doesn’t come off easily, return to the hot water. (If you don’t have asbestos fingers, transfer them to a bowl of cold water before skinning.)
7. Roughly chop or quarter the tomatoes, then wedge them into the pepper shells along with pieces of chopped garlic.
8. Generously drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
9. Place in the hot oven and cook for an hour.
10. Serve either hot from the oven, or chilled the next day.

Variations 

The classic version dresses them with a cross of anchovies once taking them out of the oven. The peppers don't really need any dressing, but as an alternative to anchovies try strips of sun-dried tomato, put on top after 45 minutes in the oven. Thin sticks of halloumi are also heavenly.

A scattering of fresh basil on top is a nice touch.

Cherry tomatoes also work well since they're sweeter, they're just fiddly to de-skin. Wedge four of them into each pepper half and cook as usual.

Cheese and onion soda bread rolls

I ran out of bread so quickly knocked up these rolls to go with my soup, they baked while the soup was cooking. If you've never made bread before, soda bread is the easiest way to start, I was quite proud of the results!

Soda bread is pretty forgiving, you just mix it up and go. The proportions are very roughly 2 parts flour to one part liquid, it's quickest to just use cups or whatever measuring implement you have handy, especially if you're in a hurry! Sodabread traditionally uses buttermilk, but who has that hanging about? Milk and yoghurt do just fine.

This makes about four smallish long rolls (obviously I ate one of the above, just to check). Soda bread doesn't last more than a day, so therefore I was entirely justified to gobble one fresh from the oven!

• 200 g self-raising flour
• 100 ml milk
• 1 big tbsp natural yoghurt
• Sprinkling of salt
• Smattering of cheddar cheese
• 1 spring onion

1. Finely chop the onion.
2. Plop the yoghurt and salt into the milk and mix.
3. Preheat the oven to 200C fan (220C or equivalent)
4. Put the flour and onion in a large bowl and pour in the milk mixture. Stir with a fork until it comes together into a mass.
5. Transfer to a floured surface, and knead very gently. Essentially all you're doing is making sure it's mixed thoroughly into a not-too-sticky dough, soda bread mustn't be overworked.
6. With your hands roll it into a sausage about 12"/30cm in length. Cut into four equal portions and flatten to form four rectangular rolls about two fingers thick.
7. As a decoration I snipped the top of these with scissors at an angle to form triangular points - either do that or just slash across the top.
8. Top them with some grated cheddar. In the picture I also sprinkled black onion/nigella seeds but in retrospect this is slightly gilding the lilly!
9. Pop onto a baking tray then into the oven for 15-20 mins. Tap underneath, a hollow sound says they're cooked.

Leave them to cool a bit, then eat with gusto.

Lentil and tomato soup

Another veggie staple today: a quick and tasty lentil soup.

I must confess, I came pretty late to the lentil world. To me they were just those orange things you put into soups and stews to thicken them, but not much else. But after experimenting with green and brown lentils a few years ago I now really love them. Brown lentils in particular are a great alternative in any recipe where you'd use mince: shepherds pie, soups, stews, even a good old British spag bol! Even if you eat meat, add half meat and half lentils, a good way to reduce fat and increase nutrients

Lentils can also be incredibly cheap. Ethnic food shops are the best place to buy staples like lentils, rice and spices. I buy a huge bag of brown lentils from a local African shop for only a few pounds.

Lentil & Tomato Soup

Like most of my recipes this is just something I knocked up on the fly with what I had available, it takes about 30 minutes. Taste it yourself and see if it needs anything more. I used fresh tomatoes as I had them available - it makes a lighter soup than tinned, either is fine.

A good stock is vital to the success of any soup, and this recipe has a couple of unusual secret ingredients that make it really special. The first is miso paste which I got from an Asian supermarket. It makes a delicious savoury hot drink but is very good as a vegetable stock for beefing up the flavour of soups. If you don't have it, just add another spoon of vegetable stock powder. Swiss Marigold is by far the best.

The sweet soy sauce was a random experiment, but it's delicious and definitely brings out the flavour of the tomatoes. Substitute a sprinkling of sugar if you don't have it.

• 1 onion
• 2 carrots
• 1 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 2 handfuls of brown lentils
• 4 large tomatoes (or a tin of chopped)
• 1 tbsp miso paste
• 1 tsp Swiss Marigold vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp sweet soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 bay leaf
• 500 ml boiling water

1. If using fresh tomatoes, steep them in boiling water for a few minutes to remove the skin, and chop into rough chunks
2. Chop the onions and carrot into small chunks. Not too fine, you want to see pieces in the soup.
3. Slosh some oil into a saucepan and fry the carrots and onions on a gentle heat for a few minutes until pale. 
4. Meanwhile, make a stock with 500ml of boiling water, the miso paste, vegetable stock and sweet soy sauce and bay leaf. (If necessary strain the stock, miso often has bits of soybean in, depending on brand.)
5. Add the garlic and paprika, stir for a minute then add the tomatoes.
6. Top up with the stock, bring to a boil then put on the lid and simmer.
7. Cook for 20-30 minutes until the lentils are tender. Top up with boiling water if it gets too thick.
8. Do a final check for seasoning, then serve hot with a sprinkle of parmesan on top!

Variations: Add chopped celery with the carrots and onion if you like, I didn't have any. Chopped parsley or basil add a note of freshness, add right at the end of cooking.

Tips

Whenever I make a soup, I make a batch and freeze the leftovers. I always have numerous plastic containers (from the pound shop), just pop a portion or two in each container, then you'll have fresh soup to take to work or pop into the microwave.

Have you had your 7-a-day?!

My first post! Today a piece of University of London research declares that eating seven portions of fruit and veg a day would save even more lives than the recommended five! So as a veggie that seemed an auspicious day to start, with a post about what everyone thinks vegetarians only ever eat: salad.

I've been vegetarian all of my adult life, but despite what people often think, even for veggies it can be hard cramming five pieces of fruit and veg a day into your diet, let alone seven. Especially when there are so many other tempting things to eat!

I find the best way is try to eat one piece of fruit per day as a snack, and add an extra portion of fruit or veg to whatever else you planned on eating, for every meal. However, the real trick is to add flavour and make them a bit more interesting, without adding too many calories. It really doesn't have to be complicated.

I just had a big salad for lunch, which is a great way of doing it all in one go. Chop up lots of different vegetables and fruits, add a tasty dressing, and that's it. It really works.

I really like cutting wedges of iceberg lettuce as in the above. Somehow, having chunks of lettuce on your plate somehow tricks you into thinking the meal was more substantial!

This avocado recipe above is actually an old pic, since I'm working and scoffed my lunch far too quickly to take a picture. So I'll tell you: today's lunch was boiled eggs with iceberg wedges, carrot and orange salad, potato salad, chopped tomatoes and a sprinkling of walnuts (my favourite nuts). Adding a healthy mustard-yoghurt dressing makes it seem more luxurious without piling on the pounds, and an hour later I can't say I'm hungry yet!

You can easily take a salad like this to work. Put the lettuce and drier ingredients in a square tupperware box, and add the wetter ingredients plus dressing after.

Quick recipes:

Carrot and Orange Salad

This is a great way of levering two whole portions into your diet.

• Couple of large carrots
• A small orange or half a large one
• 1 tbsp white vinegar (wine, cider, whatever you have)
• Salt and pepper

1. Coarsely grate a couple of large carrots into a mixing bowl.
2. Take the orange and cut the off the peel to remove skin and pith, then cut into segments. (You can do the fiddly method of removing segments from their skin, but life's too short.) 
3. Add to the carrots, along with any stray orange juice on the chopping board.
4. Add one tbsp of white vinegar.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Stir it all up and eat when you fancy.

Variations: a handful of raisins or sultanas is also a nice addition - they also count as a portion, just don't eat too many.

Yoghurt Dressing

• 2 tbsp low fat set yoghurt
• 1 tsp mustard
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• Pinch of salt

This yoghurt dressing is insultingly easy but essential to livening up what otherwise seems the dull prospect of an healthy meal. Spoon it over iceberg wedges and it can look surprisingly elegant. Another tip, dust some paprika on top of the white dressing, adds a little kick as well as some colour.

Healthy Potato Salad

• Leftover boiled potatoes, chopped
• Couple of tbsps low fat set yoghurt
• 1 tsp mustard
• 1 spring onion, chopped
• Sprinkling of salt

Rather than mayonnaise I often use low fat set yoghurt - the thickness of the yoghurt adds something that it otherwise lacks. Mix them all up and you're ready to go. I've not given proportions because how much onion or mustard is totally a matter of taste.

Garlicky Avocado & Pumpkin Seed Salad

Since I posted the picture it seems unfair not to give you the recipe. Avocado marinaded in sherry in garlic is so yummy!

• 1 avocado, stoned and sliced lengthways
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 (or 2) tbspns sherry

1. Crush the garlic, mix with the sherry and marinade the avocado slices for up to an hour before serving.
2. To toast the pumpkin seeds, sprinkle them with salt and toast in a moderate oven, 150C for 10 minutes until they start to pop and go brown. Leave to cool.
3. When you're ready, splay the avocado slices on top of your salad. Drizzle any remaining marinade liquid over the top.