roast butternut squash salad with pomegranate and tahini dressing

roast butternut squash salad with pomegranate and tahini dressing

A spicy, sweet and sour roasted squash salad topped with tangy cheese, crunchy hazelnuts and beautiful jewel-like pomegranate seeds. It is simple yet sumptuous and the perfect autumn salad.

urap: indonesian cooked vegetable salad with coconut and lime dressing

urap: indonesian cooked vegetable salad with coconut and lime dressing

It's that time of year when you start wondering about what to wear. Is it cold enough to wear a coat? If I wear my coat will I be too hot? If I don't, will I be too cold? And the perennial question of what to eat for supper ... do I have a salad? (I love salads.) But it is chilly at night, perhaps I should cook up some greens; something a little more autumnal?

salmon and blackberry salad with blackberry dressing

salmon and blackberry salad with blackberry dressing

I had this glorious Chinese-style blackberry sauce on a piece of salmon recently. It's sweet and tart and, if I say so myself, utterly divine. The sauce actually works rather well with grilled chicken too. I suspect it would be lovely with pork chops too.

Goat's cheese and blackberry salad with blackberry vinaigrette

Goat's cheese and blackberry salad with blackberry vinaigrette

I live a simpler life these days. Part of it is a case of cutting my coat according to my cloth. Part is wanting to live a more sustainable life. I suppose my priorities have changed and these days I just don't feel a sense of envy for the things I don't have (mainly my lack of designer shoes!).

a zesty beluga lentil and roasted tomato salad with herbs

a zesty beluga lentil and roasted tomato salad with herbs

I love the taste and texture of beluga (black) lentils, so-called for their supposed resemblance to caviar. Admittedly, when wet, the lentils seem to glisten like caviar fish eggs. But sadly, I find that they do lose their intense black colour during cooking. But brown or not, it really doesn't matter as they still taste good. If you can't get hold of beluga lentils then use Puy or French green lentils (which won't disintegrate during cooking).

too hot to cook? zhejiang "drunken" chicken is the solution

Zheijang "drunken" chicken

The only downside of having a kitchen that faces south is that during the hot weather it can approach furnace-like temperatures, despite the fact that I leave the back door open while I am cooking. I find myself either cooking less or cooking things that can be prepared ahead of time, when the temperatures are a bit cooler, either late in the evening or early in the morning.

summer garden rice salad with preserved lemon dressing

summer garden rice salad with preserved lemon dressing

I have to confess that I approach rice salads with caution. I think it is because they remind me of school or office canteen salads where the cooks have a load of leftover rice and vegtables and a lack of imagination. They bung a load of gloopy vinaigrette over the sticky over-cooked mess and serve it up. Yuk!

roasted carrots with crème fraîche and harissa dressing

roasted carrots with crème fraîche and harissa dressing

It's June in England, where we are caught in that strange limbo over what to eat and what to wear. That might sound a bit odd, but you never know whether it is a time for fresh summer salads or warming winter casseroles. T-shirts or woollens? Flip-flops or galoshes? June's weather is so very often quite capricious. Two days ago, it was sweltering heat in London. Today it is grey and overcast; it feels like autumn. But this side dish of roasted carrots with harissa and crème fraîche seems to me to be the perfect compromise, since the fresh tart flavour of crème fraîche combines beautifully with sweet roasted carrots and toasty cumin and warming cinnamon. It is perfect, whatever the weather.

chargrilled asparagus with tomato, mint, chilli and lemon dressing

chargrilled asparagus with tomato, mint, chilli and lemon dressing

Yikes! Time is running out; the British asparagus season is so damned short, although perhaps that's what makes it all the more sweeter for asparagus lovers such as me. Frankly, I just can't get enough, which is why I am posting yet another asparagus recipe. Officially the season runs until late June, so I need to cram in as much of the good stuff as I can.

a little home-grown silliness; chargrilled courgettes, leeks and asparagus with lemon and walnuts

chargrilled courgettes, leeks and asparagus with lemon and walnuts

You know you've had a good night out when you wake up the next morning having lost your voice with a few hazy memories of floating home fuelled by far too much ale . . . or perhaps that's just me. (I don't get out much these days!)

the gentle heart of a recipe: hilda leyel's salad of mint leaves and beans

hilda leyel's salad of mint leaves and beans

Whenever I can, I like to wallow in old cookbooks. It both comforts and relaxes me; I enjoy immersing myself in the food of older times; ferreting out bits of lost knowledge and useful thoughts.

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.

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.

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.

Grilled honeyed figs and labneh cheese salad (infused with middle eastern flavours)

grilled honeyed figs and labneh cheese salad

I wanted to create a salad suitable for the colder weather. (Yes, you can eat salads in the autumn and winter!) I wanted something that looked pretty on the plate, which reflected the warm muted colours of an English autumn. Seasonal figs seemed perfect in every way; such a beautiful colour both inside and out, as well as sweetly delicious. I couldn't make up my mind whether to serve the fig salad as a savoury course or a dessert, but my nub of saucisson sec won me over to the savoury side, which worked beautifully with the sweet perfumed flavour of the figs.

roasted butternut squash salad with spiced plums, hazelnuts and blue cheese

roasted butternut squash salad

A few years ago I bought a rather trashy but adorable pink leather slouch bag. What I loved most about it was that the bag was covered with enormous pink fish scale sequins that dangled, clattered and caught the light in a rather flashy way. (I have never made any claims to taste except in things concerning food . . . )

stuffed nasturtium flowers

stuffed nasturtium flowers

My best friend and I had been shopping; a wedding dress for her and a bridesmaid's dress for me. My friend was slim, blonde, blue-eyed and very pretty. She wanted a purple-blue theme for the wedding. It was her day so I went along with her choices. But a little part of me died that day.

sweet and sour marinated roasted courgettes with goats’ cheese, basil and toasted pine nuts

sweet and sour marinated roasted courgettes with
goats’ cheese, basil and toasted pine nuts

I am always looking for new ways of cooking up an abundance of courgettes and this summer I have loved this salad of sweet and sour marinated roast courgettes, goats' cheese and toasted pine nuts.

It has worked beautifully with roast chicken, and rather good with grilled fish too (although I would omit the cheese).

Definitely the perfect way to celebrate that end-of-summer glut.

lost in france: my salade lyonnaise

salade lyonnaise (bacon and egg salad)

After walking around a small town in southern France for what seemed like hours, we still hadn't found either our friends we were meeting for lunch. We are lost in France and not in a big-haired, floaty chiffon 1970s soft focus kind of way; no birds singing, bands playing or people dancing (just the rumble of traffic and me scowling). I am hot, dusty, and footsore and, possibly more importantly, I haven't eaten for more than three hours. Quelle horreur! 

smoky chargrilled aubergine salad

smoky chargrilled aubergine salad

There is a dish on the menus of Turkish restaurants called Hünkar Beğendi. I don't read Turkish, but I understand it to mean "the Sultan's Delight"; a simple lamb stew served on a bed of creamy aubergine puree. But whenever I see these words, I translate them in my head as "whole hunk of love on a plate" because this peasant adores the stuff.