Honey & ginger yoghurt tart

Ingredients 12 ginger biscuits, butter, crystallised stem ginger, 2 eggs, Rachel's organic Greek honey yoghurt

Serves: 6 Preparation: 45 minutes


1) Crush the ginger biscuits in a mortar and pestle, blender or by putting them in a freezer bag and bashing them with a rolling pin. Stir in 2 tablespoons of melted butter and press into tart cases. Put in the fridge to cool.


2) Whisk 2 eggs and whisk 1 pot of Rachel's Organic Greek honey yoghurt into the eggs. Pour into the tart cases and top with a few cubes of crystallised ginger.


3) Bake for 30 minutes and serve once cool.

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients 1 large pumpkin, 2 small butternut squashes, 1 onion, 3 cloves garlic, 1 pint vegetable stock, 1 tablespoon cumin, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 300ml double cream, butter, sage.

Serves: 8 Preparation: 2 hours


1) Peel the butternut squash and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Cut into cubes and set aside.

2) Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds and pith with a spoon. Make sure all the stringiness has been removed. Peel away the skin with a chef's knife and cut the flesh into cubes and set aside.
3) Roast both in the oven in an ovenproof dish with a lid for 50 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the roast vegetables and blend until smooth. The excess juice in in the ovenproof dish should make about a pint of liquid - do not discard it.
4) Peel and finely dice an onion and 3 cloves of garlic. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a stock pot and sizzle the onions until soft. Add the garlic and chopped sage leaves and then stir through the pureed pumpkin, pumpkin/squash juice and pint of vegetable stock.
5) Add the vegetable stock, cumin and pepper and stir through.
6) After 20 minutes, carefully strain the liquid from the mashed vegetables and pass them through a sieve. Be patient as this will take a while but the result - velvety smooth soup - is worth it.
7) Return to the hob along with the cream and leave to simmer for half an hour to one hour before serving.

Avocado & pea soup

Ingredients 1 can marrowfat peas, 3 avocados, 2 tablespoons vanilla yoghurt, parsley, 1/2 pint vegetable stock, avocado oil.

Serves: 4 Preparation: 20 minutes

This soup is thick and velvety and amazingly comforting to eat - a definite winter favourite.

1) Pour the can of marrowfat peas into a pan and simmer for 5 minutes, strain the peas from the juice and put the juice back into the pan along with the half pint of vegetable stock and stir through.

2) Halve the avocados and scoop the fruit from the shell, discarding the stone. Pulse the avocado in the blender along with 2 tablespoons of Rachel's organic vanilla yoghurt (this may sound strange but trust me, it works!)

3) Add the peas into the blender and blitz through until they have been fully incorporated, then pass the pea, avocado and yoghurt mix through a sieve and back into the pan. This removes the shells from the peas and gives the soup that wonderful smooth, moussy texture.

4) Simmer on a low heat for a further 5 minutes and then serve, sprinkled with parsley and a dollop of yoghurt.

Almond buttered green beans

Ingredients Green beans, almond butter

Serves: 2 Preparation 10 minutes

I use green beans quite a lot in pasta or curry because I love the crunchy, sweet contrast to the other ingredients but they are also a great side dish in their own right. This is a great way of sexing them up

1) Steam the green beans for 5 minutes

2) Stir in a teaspoon of almond butter and serve

Curried cabbage

Ingredients White cabbage, mustard seeds, cumin, vanilla yoghurt, salt, paprika, butter.

Serves: 6 Preparation: 20 minutes

I love cabbage. It's loaded with vitamin C and is famed for its medicinal uses - it helps with mastitis, joint inflammation and when eaten raw has cancer fighting properties. It's also notoriously popular as a dietary aid though using it in soup will give you chronic flatulence!

1) Finely dice the cabbage and parboil for 4 minutes, just enough to soften it but not long enough for it to start giving off that horrible boiled cabbage stench.

2) Strain the cabbage in a colander and set aside.

3) Using a wok or a large frying pan, add a tablespoon of mustard seeds and toast until they start to pop. Add a tablespoon of butter and a teaspoon of cumin, then stir in the cabbage.

4) Sautee the cabbage for 5 minutes and then stir through 2 tablespoons of Rachel's organic vanilla yoghurt. (I know that might sound weird but trust me!)

5) Serve dusted with paprika.

Avocado & pink grapefruit salad

Ingredients 1 avocado, 1 pink grapefruit, rocket, tsp balsamic vinegar, tsp avocado oil, feta

Serves: 2 Preparation: 10 minutes


I adore grapefruit. It's so refreshing and vibrantly coloured and better yet it's an acquired taste that I grew up wanting to like because my mother did so there's always that tiny sense of achievement that I trained myself to love it. It's the perfect partner to creamy avocado and this salad is a definite favourite of mine.


1) Slice the avocado in half and use a tablespoon to scoop it from the shell. If the avocado is ripe enough the stone will pop out with a spoon but another good method is to prick it with a knife and pull it out. Slice the avocado into segments.


2) Peeling a grapefruit is best done with a chef's knife - peel through the thick skin and white pith until the pink of the fruit is revealed. Remove the segments by cutting into the natural sections of the fruit and popping them out with your knife.


3) Toss your rocket in a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and avocado oil, then arrange the grapefruit and avocado over the top - this salad is perfect just as it is but I like to also add a little goats cheese to bring out the tang of the grapefruit.

Pink peppercorn sauce

Ingredients   100ml double cream, pink peppercorns, brandy, salt

Serves: 4 Preparation: 5 minutes (best made the day before required)


The picture above is of the peppercorn sauce when made just before required, if you allow this to mature overnight in the fridge it will thicken up to the texture of soured cream which is fabulous to spoon over steak or roast chicken.


1) Using a mortar and pestle, crush 2 tablespoons of pink peppercorns.


2) Add a tablespoon of brandy and a pinch of salt, then grind until a paste has formed.


3) Stir in the double cream and add a few whole peppercorns for decoration.

Cardamom & orange glazed carrots

Ingredients 4 carrots, 2 tablespoons butter, cardamom pods, 45ml orange juice

Serves: 4 preparation: 20 minutes


Carrot and orange are perfect partners - sweet and tangy and rich in colour but I like to go the extra distance and really enhance the citrus with cardamom for a more exotic twist.


1) Peel the carrots and slice off the top and bottom. Discard the ends and slice the carrot into 1/3 of a centimetre discs.


2) Slice open the cardamom pods and grind the seeds in a mortar and pestle


3) Parboil the carrots in hot, salted water for 5 minutes along with the cardamom pod skins. Remove these with a spoon before straining the carrots in a colander.


4) Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a frying pan and add the orange juice and crushed cardamoms. Stir through the carrots on a medium heat until they are coated in the spiced glaze. Sautee for 5 minutes and serve.

Stuffed piquante peppers

Ingredients Piquante peppers, cream cheese

Preparation: 2 minutes


When I have friends round to watch a movie, I love making finger foods or dips  that can be mindlessly scoffed without detracting attention away from the screen. Heston Blumenthal once famously proved one cannot tell the difference between stale popcorn and fresh popcorn during a movie but he did also prove that delicious treats do enhance the film experience!


1) Pat the piquante pepper dry and spoon the cream cheese into it


2) Serve! It's as simple as that!

Fig jam

Ingredients   7 figs, 3 cups jam sugar, water, 1 tsp red wine

Serves: 1 pint jam Preparation: 20 minutes


One of my favourite things to do is make jam. I like the fragrant steam that fills my kitchen, I find stirring and sieving and pouring very soothing and of course I am a fan of making anything which involves toast. Fig jam has a rich, heady flavour that is perfect to drizzle over goats cheese and a beautiful colour.


1) Slice the stalks from the figs and cut each fig into vertical quarters. If you would like textured, seedy jam then remove the skin - if like the picture above you prefer seedless jam then leave the skins intact. Put a spoon in the fridge.


2) Add into a saucepan with a pint of water and stir through on a medium heat, crushing the fruit with your wooden spoon to release as much juice and flavour as possible.


3) It will take about 15 minutes for the water to become infused - at this point remove the pan from the heat and if you're looking for seedless jam, pass the fruit through a sieve before returning it to the hob.


4) Turn the heat up high and add the sugar and a teaspoon of red wine. Stir through and allow the liquid to froth up to a rolling boil that can not be stirred back down. Remove from the heat and drip a little into the cold spoon. If it sets within a few seconds then the jam is ready. Return to the heat and allow it to froth up again for another 30 seconds until it sets in the spoon.


5) Transfer from the pan to a pouring jug or use a pouring ladle to transfer to hot, sterilised jars. Put the lids on (be careful not to burn yourself on the hot jars!) and set aside to cool to room temperature before putting in the fridge.


6) Once opened, this will keep for about a month and is best served with goats cheese on crusty ciabatta.