socca "pizza" topped with lamb, aubergine and feta

socca "pizza" with lamb, aubergine and feta

Pizza is one of the dishes that I know from my friends on a gluten-free diet that they miss the most. So I just use socca, a chickpea flour pancake, as my dough base. I am not entirely sure whether I actually prefer the pancake base. I have to confess that I've been eating these a lot recently because firstly I am lazy, secondly I have been quite busy cooking for other people (yay! more of this another time.) and they are both easy to make and utterly delicious.

mango with sweet chilli and lime dipping salt - a heavenly taste of the far east

mango with sweet chilli and lime dipping salt

I always seem to buy either mangoes or papayas that aren't quite ripe. I know that you are supposed to gently squeeze them - if they give slightly then they are ripe; if they still feel firm (like a crisp apple) then they are unripe.

nasturtium pesto

nasturtium pesto

My neighbourhood was a riot of colourful nasturtiums, that have self-seeded in any nook and cranny they can find. It was a bright spot in what is normally a somewhat grey patch of inner city London.

tomato and chilli jam

tomato and chilli jam

I am very fond of toast, fashionable or not, particularly the cheesy kind (and a version I make with plum jam and bacon. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!)

beetroot and lentil spicy kofta

beetroot and lentil spicy kofta

Since I decided that I liked beetroot, I have become pretty evangelical about the stuff. These days I am making up for wasted beetroot opportunities, or the “lost Beta Vulgaris years” as I now regard them.

nutty beetroot, nashi pear and carrot salad

nutty beetroot, nashi pear and carrot salad

Salads don't have to be boring. I feel a spot of singing coming on; "all things bright and beautiful"! This rather sums up both how gorgeous and vibrant this salad looks and rather sums up how it tastes too.

roasted vegetable frittata

roasted vegetable frittata

There is an advert on the telly at the moment for a well-known food brand. It irritates me for a number of reasons, not least because it is twee and patronising. (That the company in question have hash tagged it with #cosy, probably says it all.)

malaysian chicken satay

malaysian chicken satay

Campbell Road in downtown Kuala Lumpur in the 1970s was where the best hawker food was. It was where my father and I indulged in our passion for noodles and satay. At 10 cents a stick, you would order batches of five or six sticks at a time or 10 or 12 if feeling a bit hungrier, which would satisfy us until the next week when we could fill our boots again.

egg sambal (malaysian spicy eggs)

egg sambal

I don't have a bucket list. If I did, it would be more likely to be a big, fat cauldron - a list of fabulous things that I must eat or cook before I die. Recently I cooked something that I can now cross off my cauldron list, one that I would suggest everyone should try at least once. If you have never experienced deep-fried hard-boiled eggs, you really haven't lived.

wild leek, lemongrass and chilli paste

wild leek, lemongrass and chilli paste

The old adage that my mother used to drum in to me was "Rachel, don't play with your food!" In those far off days I probably heeded her eventually, little angel that I pretended to be. But these days I try to play with my food whenever possible. With the foraged food from my garden, I can experiment and take a few risks with this season's rampant wild leeks.

a little time travel: kamut kisir

kamut kisir

The myths behind the whole grain, Khorasan Wheat (Kamut), are the food equivalent of an Indiana Jones-type boys own story; rediscovered in the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh, the ancient grains were sent to the US and replanted by a farmer in Montana. The truth is sadly more prosaic. But what is indisputable is that khorasan wheat had fallen out of use over centuries, very largely because yields are relatively low and farmers started to develop higher yielding grains.

in memory of my father: seafood laksa lemak (malaysian spicy coconut noodle soup)

seafood laksa lemak (malaysian spicy coconut noodle soup)

If you are regular reader of this blog, you will know that I often talk about my father, Henry, a larger-than-life character who taught me so much about how to eat and enjoy food, although not about how to cook. (Frankly Henry's cooking skills generally served as a warning to others).

nothing says "I love you" like a heart-shaped potato . . .

On a dark and stormy Valentine's night, my secret admirer left me a heart-shaped potato . . . and they say romance is dead!

pearled spelt salad with kale and lemon-tahini dressing

pearled spelt salad with kale and lemon-tahini dressing

Out shopping and I'm caught in a dilemma. Do I choose dark, sleek and elegant, or bright, frilly and frivolous? No I am not shopping for [whisper]  unmentionables, but one of my favourite winter vegetables. Do I choose calvo nero or frilly kale? These are the kind of important decisions that I like to make.

caldo verde: portuguese pork, potato and kale soup

caldo verde
(Portuguese pork, potato and kale soup)

I feel as if I am working with a northern-accented voiceover at the moment: "Day 35 in the Marmaduke Scarlet house. Rachel is in the kitchen making soup again." You get the picture. I am continuing to make soup for my friend Chris. Things seem to be going quite well; Chris seems healthy and he certainly hasn't lost his appetite; well at least not for soup.

in praise of damien trench: baked camembert

baked camembert with garlic, rosemary and bacon

My favourite radio food writer, Damien Trench, is back. He returns on Radio 4 for another series of his superlative programme, In and Out of the Kitchen. I have so missed his wise, fulsome words and unflappable approach to food.

Damien Trench is the comic creation of Miles Jupp; a gentle parody of the most florid aspects of food writing. The programme is an absolute hoot.

an easy vegetarian curry (pea, egg and potato)

pea, egg and potato curry

I arrived at University several decades ago with a box of books, a suitcase of vintage clothing and a complete inability to cook. The days of me pouring over my copy of My Learn to Cook Book ended the moment I discovered boys, booze and thick black mascara.

a winter warmer: felicity cloake's perfect borscht

borscht soup

In a bizarre reversal of the Goldilocks story, a couple in Siberia, spending a night in their holiday cottage, were disturbed by the sounds of breaking glass and the pitter-patter of enormous clawed feet. A bear was breaking and entering, encouraged by the smell of a pan of borscht that had been left on the stove to cool.

seafood chowder

seafood chowder

For the foreseeable future I shall be cooking for a friend of mine who is quite unwell. But while Chris is poorly, he hasn't lost his appetite at all; just his usual ease in swallowing. Feeling a bit helpless, I offered to make him soup and his eyes lit up. Poor old Chris had been living off baked beans and scrambled eggs, so he welcomed my intervention.

This arrangement is brilliant for both of us: Chris gets healthy, strengthening soups and I get to try out old favourites and make new discoveries. One of my first discoveries is that I don't hate seafood chowder at all.

blood orange and lime zinger

blood orange and lime zinger

Now seems to be the season for healthy smoothies and fruit drinks, as well as pledges of alcohol abstinence. I have to admit that I am not much of a fan of smoothies, largely because most of the commercially available ones have bananas in them; I am guessing because they are low in fat and give some bulk, as well as being jam packed full of vitamins.