Sweet and simple granola, perfect for those cold autumn mornings, with a splash of milk or creamy yoghurt. Toasted coconut, nuts and rich, dark chocolate… This recipe takes just 25 minutes, and will leave your home smelling sweet…

It’s a caponata summer! Caponata is a summery Sicilian dish, often served as a starter or side, with fresh crusty bread. It’s sophisticated yet indulgent; sweet and sour; oily and downright delicious. Serve this at your next dinner party or make yourself a batch for the week.

A fresh, fuss-free falafel recipe that brings bold Middle Eastern flavours to your table, perfect for summer salads, wraps or snacks with some hummus or tzatziki. 

Herby and fragrant, this recipe utilises the humble white onion, stuffed with rice and mince, then cooked in a rich, tomato marinade. Onions dolma, also known as Sogan Dolma, is a traditional Turkish dish. Dolma simply translates to ‘stuffed’, a cooking technique attributed to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine whereby vegetables are stuffed with rice, herbs, spices and sometimes meat.

Grill sizzling, drinks on ice, and friends gathering in the garden as the sun lingers overhead - few things capture the spirit of summer like a barbecue. To celebrate the summer season, I’m sharing a vibrant series of recipes designed to bring bold flavours and effortless style to your outdoor table. 

It’s asparagus season! British asparagus typically runs from late April to late June, so now is the time to try this quick and easy prosciutto-wrapped asparagus. This recipe is the perfect spring side dish - simple, seasonal and delicious!

Quick to prepare, this green bean salad is perfect for your midweek lunches. Packed with plant-based protein and rich in antioxidants to make sure you stay full throughout your day, and well this spring. 

These cookies, or shortbread biscuits (cookies somehow sounds cosier in this context), can be offered as a gift, over coffee with a friend, just as they are, on a plate.  Or they can be wrapped up in pretty paper, or greaseproof, whatever you have to hand.  If you have a ribbon lying about why not use that to make it into a more special gift.

A comforting, affordable, winter warmer – and very versatile depending on what you fancy and what is in the fridge.

Full of fruit to give it wonderful sweetness, it is best served with salty butter liberally spread on a thick slice. The best thing is keep it in the oven long enough to make the top slightly crusty so you have a bit of texture to it too. My sister makes this every time we have a family event or picnic and it’s all I can do not to mug her for it as soon as she walks in the door. 

The term cocktail originated in the seventeenth century. The tail feather of the family rooster would be plucked and dipped into alcoholic bitters to dab on sore tonsils. A long history of the creative use of alcohol to help what ails us.

Koulourakia are light, buttery biscuits and a staple snack in Greek households, usually eaten in the morning or as an afternoon pick-me-up with a strong Greek coffee

I’ve been married for 20 years. The only advice I’ll impart is to have a trick up your sleeve that is your sure-fire way out of the penalty box. For me, atonement through food seems to work. Cooking Teevan, a traditional Sindhi curry, is my proof of ‘I love you’ when the words are so worn, they no longer resonate.

Melomakarona are thought to have derived from the ancient delicacy, makaria, which were eaten during funerals. Changes to the recipe and the addition of dipping them in honey inspired the name melomakarona, made up of the Greek word for honey “meli” and “makaria”.

I use an instant pot and just throw everything in and pressure cook for ten minutes. If using a pressure cooker, add half a cup of stock or a splash of wine for extra liquid to prevent the pot burning. For added heartiness, add a pack of slightly overcooked chopped sausages, or some chopped up feta cubes.

I don’t bake savoury food all that often but when I do, it just HAS to be warm cheese scones with lashings of garlic butter.

One for the plant lovers…

I have such fond memories of my yiayia (grandmother) making us her famous yemista. My sister and I would be enlisted to help out with the glamorous task of hollowing out the vegetables.

Lemon and ginger is what most people think of when you’re feeling rubbish in winter and have a sore throat, but I present to you this zesty, crunchy lemon pie that is the perfect summer dessert.

The hedgerows are whitening with hawthorn, cow parsley is eye high and generous flower heads are dripping off the elders, filling the air with fragrance and pollen. Time to make elderflower cordial.

Avgolemono is traditionally served to those who are ill and those who have been travelling – it is thought the nourishment it contains is all a person needs. Its creamy, silky consistency is comforting and the lemony tang makes it unique.

These guys are next-level of decadence to gluten-free cinnamon buns but these managed to hit the mark. They are maple and butter pecan cinnamon buns just in time for the yearly sugaring off and they are quite frankly the best gluten-free dessert I have ever had. Quite the decadent treat; fluffy, sticky, and oh so ooey-gooey.

Mackerel is loaded with goodness - protein, omega 3, selenium, vitamins… and it is also one of the most sustainable fishes you can eat (North Atlantic is the best), makes you really brainy and it is a very reasonable in price.

I have spent years of my life trying pancake recipes and I truly feel I’ve found perfection here, it makes the right amount for 2 people- very handily only uses one egg, and is the perfect mix of thick, but light and fluffy!

Amba is a quick tasty mango sauce traditionally eaten in Israel and parts of the Middle East, and it can be used as a condiment, dip or spread. Perfect with falafel!

In the last few weeks, TikTok had gone mad for the feta/ tomato pasta - one woman claiming when she shared it that Finland ‘ran out of feta!’ because everyone wanted to try it. Being the true foodie here that I am, I have sacrificially tried and tested this recipe for you, and I’m here with my review.

Spring is in the air. Finally. So here is a recipe to really celebrate the brilliant variety of vegetables springtime has to offer - sub in any vegetables you have in the fridge like asparagus, broccoli, fennel, you name it.

Full of chocolate and biscuits and ready to eat in less than an hour! You can thank me later…

I am a Parisian. I was brought up in Paris from a French father and an Algerian mother. I ate lots of Algerian food growing up, either cooked by my mother, my grandmother, or one of my numerous aunts. This type of mixed Arabic/French background is very common in France, which is one of the reasons why more and more Arabic influenced dishes are appearing in French cuisine.

Second dates are like axolotls; they require extremely specific conditions in which to thrive. We are not in the business of recommending restaurants for first dates, because everybody knows that going for dinner on a first date is a terrible idea. A first date must be low-stakes on the commitment front, one that can be evacuated quickly if events turn south. A subsequent date offers a wealth of opportunity. As Robert De Niro observed in Taxi Driver, “you can tell a lot about someone from how they eat”. 

As their name suggests, their noodles really aren’t just noodles. Made fresh every day using local wheat, their noodles are bouncy, delicate and simply delicious. In the last year, Nala have fast become Clifton’s go to noodle bar and its easy to see why.

Known as the foodie capital of Europe, you’d be hard-pressed to have a bad meal in San Sebastian. That being said, there are some dishes that’ll really blow your socks off. Here’s mine.

My childhood home in Bombay always smelt of filter coffee. If you ask me what else it smelled of, I would certainly smile and without a doubt of hesitation say Dosa.

In the spirit of figuring out where I’m eating or drinking this weekend, I thought I’d share my current Hot List — the top 5 spots in London I’m desperate to check out.

Last week marked the opening of Jikoni’s brand new restaurant location in Bristol city centre.

Jikoni East Africa serve street food from Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia. We have been firm favourites of Jikoni since their pop up at the Pipe and Slippers, earlier this year, so you can imagine our delight when we were kindly invited to celebrate with them at their soft launch.

This July, we were lucky enough to be invited to Feast On, Bristol’s biggest, independent food festival. We were delighted to dine and relish in the collective joy of food for foods sake and to meet so many likeminded people and local talent.

Making pickles, especially mango pickle, was a ritual at home in Bombay. Today, on an unusually hot summer day in the UK I was transported back to my grandmother‘s kitchen in the midst of all those flavours, smells and sounds. 

Parkinson’s disease robs you of many things. Of ALL the things that Parkinson’s has stolen from me, I would most certainly put food right up there in the top five - the other contenders being spontaneity, independence, movement and dignity. 

I do sympathise with those who ardently hate on the small plate. It’s easy to feel conned when a £14 dish arrives on a plate the size of a coffee coaster, and you realise you could easily devour the morsel in a singular bite. Or - a small plates favourite - when you dutifully order the recommended ‘2-3 plates per person’, wind up £50 lighter - and still leave the restaurant hungry. This modern phenomenon of small plates is an extremely fine line to balance, and let's be honest, some restaurants aren't quite getting it right.

Cardiff’s City Road might not strike you at first as a place buzzing with Gen-Z hangouts. But take a stroll down the street a hundred yards and you’ll find a café-shop that might persuade you otherwise. Heralded as a hidden gem amongst plant fanatics, Eartha attracts green-fingered students by day and hungry foodies by night.

Now, it may be cliche to admit that from the very first course of the mezze feast I knew we were in for a treat, but cliches exist for a reason and, in the case of this particular feast, it was true.

Cooking can cause all sorts of anxiety, stress and some embarrassment not because you can’t cook but perhaps, you feel like others will judge you. Maybe you have a favourite snack which is just combo mad, perhaps you’ve never even heard of hummus or don’t know how to use a microwave!

Christmas is just around the corner and with recent trends showing a consistent rise in plant-based eating. Statistically speaking a recent survey shows that 19.6% of Brits are expected to choose vegetarian or vegan food this Christmas and in 2021 82% of people who tried Veganuary had drastically cut meat intake, according to a 6-month survey carried out by Veganuary.

According to the ONS, one in eight adults were left unable to buy essential goods in their local supermarket in October due to the shortages we’ve seen in recent months. Politicians have spoken about a potential “winter of discontent”, with rising energy bills, increasing prices and a critical shortage of workers resulting in significant food and fuel shortages due to supply constraints.

It is Ruby Tandoh’s Eat Up: a small, green sliver of magic that encourages us to eat for joy, and the recipes that are sprinkled throughout were the first time I felt seen when faced with cooking.

Our leading biodiversity experts predict there will be more pandemics in the future unless we stop the senseless destruction of the natural world. If you have ever considered changing to a plant-based diet specifically to save the planet, you have to do it now.

On a planet with finite resources and entering the not-so-humble beginnings of an irreversible climate crisis, the way that we are currently producing, manufacturing, and consuming our food is unsustainable and inexcusable.

Knowledge and wine appreciation are two completely different things. It’s easy to feel intimidated out of appreciating wine by not having a comprehensive understanding of what it is and what differentiates wines.

We have a systemic problem with the way we interact with food in this country. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) released a report last year that explains in blunt reality just how much food the UK has wantonly disposed of in the last few years, how it has been wasted, and by whom. It quickly reveals that in 2018 we as a nation wasted 6.65 million tonnes of food.

There is no hot drink as pleasurable to sip than a cup of tea at its perfect drinking temperature, but getting tea at its best needs a certain degree of patience. It can be lip scaldingly hot at first, so timing is crucial here. Wait too long and it will be disappointingly cool, but there is a perfect temperature for each of us. For me, it is 57.3C precisely. I know this because I am a sad tea anorak and have measured it.

I woke up to my complacency, maybe even entitlement when queuing outside Sainsbury’s in March 2019. Overnight, shelves were stripped of old faithful fusilli, and passive-aggressive loo roll disputes broke out. Before Christmas, freight out of the UK was blocked by European countries after the emergence of the super spreader Covid-19 strain, triggering concerns over fresh food shortages.

It is an inconceivable privilege that in some parts of the UK we can sample Ethiopian injera one week and Georgian khachapuri the next.

Nothing brings back those nostalgic memories quite like dumplings. Specifically, Slovak pirohy. Stodgy, potato-y, fatty dumplings that hug me from the inside and make me feel like everything’s going to be okay.

If there was a book called The Coolest Things You Can Do To Help the Planet and You, it would say the latest thinking is to start eating more plant-based foods.

After a trip to New York, and plenty of lockdown recipe testing, Wes Thompson opened Little Bagel Co. Known for its delicious special edition fillings, perfectly baked bagels, and for being Marco Pierre White’s favourite bagel spot in the UK, Little Bagel Co. has gone from strength to strength since opening in 2022.

It is food writing that dares to ruffle feathers - not through disrespect of the hospitality sector, but, in fact, the opposite. The writing is rife with a genuine understanding and love for the Bristol food industry - and the people who make it what it is. 

The origin of Gigi’s is that of a culinary meet-cute. Rapha approached Alberto - who was running his pop-up, Grano - with the idea of collaborating on a joint pop-up at the Old Vic Theatre. To use their words, “what started as a professional partnership soon became a shared journey”, which then led to a pizza-eating trip through London, Rome and New York City - and thus, Gigi’s was born.

Born and raised in the lesser-known coastal city of Ancona in Italy, Riccardo Damiani moved to Bristol where he opened La Panza - a traditional Italian trattoria. Loosely translated to ‘big, full, happy belly’ in Italian, La Panza embodies the trattoria-style - the sort of friendly, laid-back restaurant that Redcliffe locals are lucky to have on their doorstep.

On the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday of each month, Gather, a stand-style coffee shop on Bristol’s Park Street turns into an intimate, candle-lit dining room where eighteen delighted diners are served a three-course set menu featuring fresh homemade pasta, and some of the best local produce that the South-West has to offer. But this very easily could not have been the case. Because the creator behind Bristol Pasta Club and Monday Pasta Club, Ed Barrow, started off his life studying to be a lawyer - not a Chef… But, wow, isn’t Bristol glad that he found his way into the culinary world?

Bristol's food scene is full of truly awesome places. Every corner of this city is home to incredible restaurants, cafes, bars and vibrant street-food markets. There are countless choices to pick from, but some of them are an absolute must - and I had the pleasure to talk to one of the most iconic of them. Here is my interview with Zak Hitchman, Head Chef at the Michelin-star restaurant, and true gem of Bristol, Casamia

My name is James Stuart and I'm both a buyer in the Fine Foods department of Arthur David, a local wholesaler for the hospitality industry, as well as a ramen chef for my company Tomo no Ramen.

As the author of the fabulous Pulse, a recipe book all about, you guessed it, pulses, Jenny became The United Nations FAO European Ambassador for the International Year of Pulses and was asked to speak all around the world.

Farming has a pretty murky rep when it comes to climate change, and consumers want more traceability than ever when it comes to food. So we spoke to several young farmers about how they’re driving sustainable change — and how you can support them.

Mel went on to build her own fantastic business called Gopals Curry Shack which became very successful. However, like most small food businesses it was very hand to mouth and as covid loomed it took a hit and Mel had to make a choice to stay or leave.

I first met Ginny when I ran the Folk House Café on Park Street in Bristol. The Folk House is a haven in this (normally) bustling world, a place of adult education just for its pleasure, live music, and good food. Ginny was one of the many students who frequented the cafe, and it was always lovely to chat with her. Still, it wasn’t until I began working at the Stockwood Food Club where Ginny volunteers that I really started to know her and learn more about her incredible life and her huge and generous spirit.

Yumello is a Bristol-based company that strives to produce healthy and sustainable peanut butter. They bring us the ancient knowledge and tradition of Berber people, supporting a cooperative of 300 women and, therefore, helping us spread some love on our lonely toast.

Kate is the author of Aperitif: A Spirited Guide to the Drinks, History and Culture of the Aperitif, a fascinating and hilarious book packed with delicious recipes for all sorts of aperitifs and cocktails, including the perfect Negroni, my all-time favourite.

“We need to bring back the interest in agriculture. We need to show what’s actually happening because a lot of media attention on farming has been negative for recent years”

One of my favourite desserts is cheesecake, which is why this month I was particularly excited to interview the lovely Cheesecake Lady NE; my favourite Instagram foodie account and all-round amazing girl-boss.

The problem with wine in the UK is that for many, wine (beyond the supermarket aisle) is still seen to be the preserve of stuffy, pretentious show-offs who wrap it up in pontification, ‘bourgeois bollocks’ and expert opinion.

Bristol Food Union is a project that comes straight from the heart of the city of Bristol. This initiative originates within the industry that perhaps has been hit most by the Covid-19 crisis: the Food and Hospitality sector. I had the pleasure to talk with Tessa Lidstone, from BOX-E, who has been overseeing the provision for vulnerable young people.