I was sent the ingredients to recreate a Leek Recipe by the British Leek Growers Association in time for St. David's Day this weekend. This is a rare occasion where a recipe post doesn't feel like work, because Leeks really are one of my all-time favourite vegetables and they are very under-used in the modern day UK.


I particularly like the look of the Leek and Garlic Twist Bread and I was sent everything I'd need to create the recipe. My 11 year old son was chef and I just gave him a little advice (and kneeded the dough, and did the sticky bits, and the oven).

We all know that what you put into your mouth has a massive effect on your health. That can include your immune system, and your strength to fight any bugs that come your way. December to March is flu season in the UK, and obviously we are currently unaware whether COVID-19 (Coronavirus) will become a widespread issue in our area of the world.

Flu is nasty, it can make you really ill and it can take a long time to recover, as we found out when we all caught real flu last Winter. It was 4 months before we were all back to full health.



Don't 'feed a cold, starve a fever'. You need some fuel in your body to fight, and heating up is a way your body fights intruders. Eat small amounts of easily digestible foods, such as runny soup or broth. Fever is actually helpful to a point, but any patient with fever of 93.4C (103F) needs to be referred to a doctor.

1. Water. It's not a food, but clear, clean water is necessary to prevent dehydration and you will not get better without it. If your patient is struggling to drink or keep anything down, try to sip 2oz an hour, every hour, until the situation improves. Ice cubes or ice lollies can be a great way to keep someone hydrated when they are hot and struggling to drink.

2. Garlic. People have known garlic has benefits since before your Gran's Grandmother was born. It gives a great immune system boost, although it will NOT prevent you becoming ill or cure any illness by itself, including the 2019 Coronavirus.

3. Mushrooms are an amazing anti-viral immune-system booster. They contain B vitamins as well as the antioxidant Selenium and Beta-Glucan (see Oats). They actively help your body fight flu. Try light mushroom soup if you are struggling to eat.

Matador Publishing work with self-published authors. Four of the recently released paperback children's books that they've sent me for review have a common theme looking at, and celebrating, difference, so I've put them all together in one post.

These are all nicely illustrated picture books suitable for reading together with children from a very young age, or for independent readers aged around 5-6+ to tackle alone.

I home cook a lot, and I use a good variety of different seasonings for different meals. Schwartz asked me if I'd create some dishes using my favourite seasoning from their extensive range, and as I use it in potato dishes, pasta dishes, curries, stir fries, barbeques, mayonnaise dips, chilli and a host of other meals, I chose Smoked Paprika.


I love Smoked Paprika because it adds depth of flavour and a little heat to your dish really easily, as well as adding colour, throughout the food, or sprinkled over the top. It's ridiculously versatile. It goes very well with potatoes, pasta, rice, beans and vegetables, as well as your protein - chicken, fish, or a substitute. Just don't burn it, or it'll taste bitter. Unless you are roasting, add it during cooking or afterwards...

It's been a little while since I reviewed a cookery book, but I've dusted off my apron for Karen Burns-Booth's debut cookbook, Lavender & Lovage: A Culinary Notebook Of Memories And Recipes From Home And Abroad. I think the title pretty much says it all really...


I read Karen's blog even before I had The Brick Castle and her food is good, unpretentious, tasty fare. Born in South Africa, she's lived in countries all over the world and has soaked up the food from every one. This is a gigantic recipe book with around 160 recipes. Alongside are snippets giving history, origins or a short tale about the recipe or it's ingredients. They're short and sweet, and really do add to the dish, often giving useful hints for home cooks too.

Back in September we waved 3 of our young people off to uni, 2 of them as Freshers starting their 1st Year. Before she went I had a special 'goodbye tea' with my daughter and last Friday we turned the tables. It was my turn to visit her at Uni and she had to cook for me. I also had a peep in her kitchen cupboards to see if she really is eating healthily...


My daughter had mock exams until late afternoon, so I met her straight afterwards at the Student Union. There's a Co-op food store really close by and we headed over there and picked up the ingredients. It's a gorgeous Co-op with loads of space...


The Co-op are working with MOB Kitchen and you may have seen one of the crew, Ben, in the October issue of Co-op magazine (found in-store). They've put together a collection of recipes that are easy to make, healthy and filling, and so we decided to choose a recipe from the list.

I've always understood how valuable yogurt is nutritionally and it's something all of my children have loved to eat. We've often bought the big tubs and let the children add toppings of their choice, but Lancashire Farm Dairies have sent us some of their delicious Free Range Yogurt and their fantastic novelty game Toppers to really expand our horizons...


The yogurty game Toppers involves choosing a base yogurt card, picking a sauce card and then throwing the dice to see which two other toppings go in your bowl.

I have 3 young adults off to uni this September and 2 of them are freshers in their first year. It's a scary time for them, but also for me, and I've tried to prepare them all for independence as best I can. This includes making sure they can cook themselves something hearty and filling without breaking the bank or missing out on the nutrition they'll need to stay healthy.


I'm delighted to be working with Co-op Food on a campaign to get students cooking and eating healthy meals. It really is something I'm passionate about and I've even put together all of my family's favourite and most-used recipes, as well as a few others, on my recipes page. I have tried to keep costs down, skill levels easy and nutritional value high. There is rarely a prouder moment than when I discover one of my young people cooking from one of my recipes.


The Co-op meanwhile show their commitment to students by offering a 10% discount at over 2000 stores nationwide with a TOTUM card (previously called NUS Extra). This starts at £12 a year, so you can get your money back very quickly just on Co-op food shopping. That's on top of the regular Co-op member rewards.

Okay, a friend date with my cat is not something I'd ever have anticipated writing about and the people who have known me longest are entitled to laugh loudest. Go on, enjoy yourselves. Cats really weren't my thing until Gary landed at our door and forced us to care about him by being ill and cute. I've headed with his best model shot, you can see the cute...


I'm not made of stone, I tried to resist, but even I relented and it's taken a mere 2 years to get to this point... Cats will rule the universe one day. Whiskas have asked me to conjure up the perfect evening with my cat. Even Gary was surprised when I told him.


I'd have gone for the cinema, bowling and a nice sit down 3 course meal, but happily cats aren't generally allowed in restaurants or cinemas and they are rubbish at bowling, so I've settled for Gary's preferred choice, date night in. (That's a lie, but I'm not sitting on the back step for 3 hours watching the drizzle.)

Today I'm delighted to be taking part in the My Little Sous-Chef Blog Book Tour. I'm the second blog in the tour, check out the list towards the bottom to find the rest. As it's Easter, we took one of the recipes and added a little Easter twist....


My Little Sous-Chef is a brand new cookery book release from Caterina Falqui, Francesca Grassi and Laura Pantaleone. Completely unlike other cookery books, My Little Sous-Chef is actually two books.


One book is for children and the other is for their grown ups. Both books have exactly the same recipes, but one has all the boring stuff like oven temperatures, and the other focuses more on those tasks that children can take charge of.

Pickles And Ice Cream by Vicky Jacob-Ebbinghaus and Juarez Rodriguez is a cookbook with a difference - all of the recipes are cravings that real pregnant women have had, and they've been lovingly recreated to share with you, alongside a short story from the inventor.


I'm not pregnant just now thankfully, but I have been 5 times and I had some pretty interesting cravings. Mainly I just wanted beetroot and boiled brussels sprouts, but with my 3rd child (and only daughter) I dreamt of eating coloured glass. Whenever I saw coloured glass I felt I could taste it and it was so delicious. I did manage to beat that craving by eating boiled sweets, but I would wake up having dreamt I'd eaten the glass and in a panic about it. NEVER eat glass.

The full title of today's cookery book review is Let's Cook Spanish, A Family Cookbook: Vamos a Cocinar Espanol, Recetas Para Toda la Familia by Gabriella Llamas. I think the title is a pretty good description. This is a book of Spanish recipes ideal for cooking with your children.


This is a  hardbacked cookbook which is written in English and Spanish, with introductions for the children in the family, and the grown ups. It takes the stance that cooking should be a fun, participatory event. I can't disagree with that. It also introduces Spanish into the English pages of the text, and my boys liked trying to pronounce the foreign words.

I have a huge freezer because I'm well aware of the #PowerOfFrozen. I've been asked by Iceland to take another look at their range and see if I can come up with an interesting meal for my family which demonstrates some of the benefits of using frozen food - quality and choice, value for money and convenience.


Freezing preserves vitamins and allows us to eat foods out of season, and it allows me to buy more cheaply for my large family. Among my shopping was this great 30 piece Barbeque Pack for only £5 - not only perfect for barbeques, also ideal for my little boys who often are the only ones eating meat at teatime in our house...

Over Easter Wilko sent me and my children a gorgeous bundle of goodies from their baking range to have a play with. Annoyingly people in my house were ill, so my plans for Easter cooking were a little delayed. We're all back on track and so I spent most of the weekend in the kitchen with help from my 2 young assistants...


Wilko's sent us some truly gorgeous equipment to help with our baking. The Mason Cash ceramic Mixing Bowl (£15) and Measuring Jug (£10) are absolutely gorgeous, I've taken a very possessive stance over them.

It pains me to hear clanking metal on ceramics, so I'm pleased to say Wilko's also sent us some plastic pig tools (£1 each), plus a Beech Wooden Rolling Pin (£3.50), a 9 inch spring form cake tin, silicone whisk (£1.25), heart cookie cutters and a mini kitchen scale (£2.50).

I'm a big fan of frozen food. It allows you to buy produce all year round, you can buy in bulk more cheaply and you always have something for dinner. You don't have to go shopping as often and you waste less. I am more than happy to Go Frozen With Iceland.

Apple Strudel originated in Austria over 300 years ago and has been popular especially in Eastern European countries for several generations. The perfect seasonal mix of carbohydrate, fruit and sugar, served with cream, ice cream or custard, it is comfort food at it's best, and using ready-made puff pastry it's ready to bake in 15 minutes, ready to eat in an hour.


The chefs who work at Gracewell Care Homes pride themselves on their quality food, and have enlisted Michelin Star Chefs to work on their recipes. They have created a recipe booklet featuring some of their resident's favourite dishes and asked me if I would like to pick a recipe to try, and they'd provide the ingredients and a gadget to help me cook. Apple Strudel is a favourite here, so it was an obvious candidate.

It's Pancake Day! Hurrah! And every year I stand in front of my oven for far too long cooking a mountain of pancakes for my large family, and at the end when everyone is full and the last orange has been squeezed and the chocolate sauce wiped away, we say "we should do that more often".

The UK is rare in that we eat pancakes, or crepes, but the majority of us only on one day a year. Pancakes can be part of a healthy varied diet, they're an excellent carbohydrate base and you can top them with pretty much anything you want.

For over 25 years Goodlife Foods have been providing the UK with good wholesome dishes that make mealtime easy and are full of tasty flavours. They don't resort to massively processed ingredients and the protein comes mainly from beans and cheeses.This is not 'meat substitute', this is good food that happens to be vegetarian.

As Winter draws in we all start spending more time indoors and looking to comfort foods to keep us warm. That's no different just because someone is a vegetarian, and cooking a main protein dish for someone who doesn't eat meat can be a daunting prospect for a carnivore.


We've a split of 4 vegetarians and 4 meat-eaters in our household. After over 30 years as a veggie, more than 20 of those raising my own veggie kids, I've tried and failed with a good few dishes. One dish which has proven consistently popular and makes everyone feel like I've gone to a lot of effort is the Vegetarian Beef Wellington. It's filling and tasty and a perfect veggie option whenever we go to the trouble to cook a joint of meat for the carnivores.

Roberts Bakery asked bloggers if we could come up with a Father's Day Bacon Butty creation. They want to bring out Dad's soft and fluffy side by plying him with a delicious bacon butty on Father's Day morning.

I'm not a meat eater, but my partner is, and bacon is one of his favourites. It's also a regular weekend breakfast here, so I was happy to take on the job for his benefit.