Category: Frugal

Wild Blackberry & Apple Jam

Sometimes things just gel and so it is with this fruit-forward jam. The wild blackberries are more intense than their farmed cousins and they marry pleasingly with the tart under-ripe windfall apples. The shiny black jars tho’ make the scratches and the brushes with stinging nettles all worthwhile!

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Roast Golden Tomato Sauce

does what it says on the tin

Sweet, ripe, fleshy orbs of sunshine just beg to be bottled for darker days – think punchy pasta sauce, ricotta gnocchi pure white pillows peeping through a blanket of yellow or a warming tomato soup base.

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Golden Goddess Soup


Golden Goddess Soup/ Dahl

This is my go-to January/February blues tonic. It warms, revitalizes and gives me the central heating I crave – so I glow like a “goddess”! If you are want to cleanse after the season of excess, if you are doing “Veganuary”,  if you are feeling the “SAD” then this is your liquor!

The method is simplicity itself and as it thickens it becomes  “dahl” to serve as a nourising and cheap meal.

Ingredients: for 6-8 generous portions

  • 500g red lentils
  • 1 large onion chopped lazily
  • 5 cloves of garlic chopped in half
  • 2 tbsp olive oil,
  • 50g-100g ginger, peeled with teaspoons – chopped roughly
  • 1 tsp ground coriander seeds
  • 3 tsp turmeric
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp cardamom pods (remove before blitzing)
  • 1.5 litres of organic vegetable stock
  • Optional: 300g boiled carrots, pumpkin, squash (use leftovers)
  • Salt to taste

How To

  1. Lightly fry the onions and spices and garlic until just translucent. Do not brown.  Add any veggies the stock and the lentils and the ginger.
  2. Bring to the boil
  3. Lower to a very gentle simmer and cook until the lentils and veggies are soft – approximately 30minutes
  4. Take out the cardamom pods
  5. Blitz until smooth. If it is thick – reserve a portion to eat as dahl with rice. Thin the remainder with water to serve as your soup.
  6. I like to serve the soup garnished with olive oil and fresh coriander but thick yogurt is nice too.  The dahl I serve with rice, a fresh chutney and slices of avocado.