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The summer months are often when I get asked the most questions about vegetarian cooking, and it’s all about the barbecue. The one thing I am asked over and over is: what can I feed a vegetarian at a barbecue?

The truth is that cooking over coals is so suited to vegetables, and almost any can be used. I find the subtlety of veg allows the smoky hum of the coals to come even more alive.

You’d be forgiven for assuming that this cavemanesque cooking over coals is all about meat, but in fact it’s simple to have vegetables sit centre stage. We’ve often overlooked how much a bit of char and smoke can compliment a beloved vegetable or boost a neutral cheese, such as halloumi or feta. An aubergine is an obvious pairing with a bit of smoke. Babaganoush is a friendly blend of vegetables and smoke, as is a halved aubergine grilled and basted in white miso on every turn. Onions too, work well grilled slowly and tossed through plump pearl barley grains. Even halved little gems are transformed when quickly charred and simply dressed in oil, vinegar and chopped herbs.

So, what do I put at the centre of the garden table at a barbecue? Below, for my paid subscribers are three quick ‘menus’ for the perfect vegetarian barbecue, with plenty of charred edges and some excellent salads. Fingers crossed these are so good everyone will want some.

If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, there are lots of barbecue ideas on my website too.

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Three very good vegetarian barbecue menus for the weekend + a guide to grilling any vegetable

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Today I am so pleased to have Anna Higham here with her thoughts and recipes. I have long admired Anna and her fruit and ingredient forward baking. I’ve followed her and her pastries from my old favourite Lyles to Flor then to the River Cafe and finally to Quince, her very own bakery. Always in awe of the layers, the fruit tasting so perfectly of itself, the flavours and herbs. Today the newsletter should really be called people I want to bake for me. Anna is very high on the list.

I’m so fascinated by the mind of a baker. I am an impatient cook. I like the freedom of throwing something together. Of being a free and reactive cook so patisserie, lamination and pastry has always been something I’ve been in awe of, the craft, the precision, the repetition. Which Anna obviously brings but I know from tasting her food she also has a freedom and creativity to how she bakes. It’s a killer combination.

After a few wonderful years of her well-loved Quince bakery in Islington, Anna’s offering is expanding and her latest cafe, Clementine, opens later this year on October 3rd. I can’t wait to join the queue.

So today, it gives me so much joy to share some of Anna’s excellent thoughts on eating more veg, her go-to 4pm snack, top five fruits right now as well as a perfectly seasonal recipe for baked cream and plums, which offers a deep dive into all things plum and preserving their season.

Thanks Anna for the recipes and your thoughtful words.

Anna's new cafe - Clementine

Quince

The Last Bite

What did you cook for dinner last night?
I made a slightly more involved dinner than usual as the bakery is closed for the week and I have a little more time. Whilst on honeymoon in June my husband had an aubergine timbale in Turin and he hasn’t stopped talking about it. I had some beautiful aubergines from Flourish Farm so I made a kind of ode to the timbale. I layered up slices of fried aubergines with a rich tomato, black lentil and spinach sauce and seasoned ricotta. I baked it topped with some more cheese and it was completely delicious. I can’t wait to have it for lunch again today.

What’s the most underrated ingredient for cooking with vegetables?
I just think all vegetables are happiest with some good olive oil. Whether cooked or raw, if they’re well seasoned and dressed in good olive oil they’ll always be delicious.

Your most loved vegetable?
I can eat endless courgettes in the summer (which is good as there always seems to be endless courgettes!). Although a bag of frozen peas is a starting point for a meal for me anytime of the year.

What’s the vegetable you reach for last?
Pears. It’s taken me a long time to come round to them. I blame the poor mix of my mum’s love of pear drops in the car with travel sickness, and lots of long car journeys as a child. I can eat them and appreciate them now but I never think “Oh, I just want to bite into a pear”.

What is the single ingredient you could not live without and why?
Quality flour. My entire business and life evolves around using the very best flour I can find. All our flour comes via Landrace Milling in Somerset. We work really closely with them so we know where every grain comes from and how it’s all grown. What is life without bread!?

In your opinion, what stands in the way of people eating more veg?
A lack of confidence in how to make it feel like a full meal. I still think people don’t look at a courgette or a tomato and see it as the starting point for their meal or see how it is enough to make it a full meal. So often people are still starting with a bit of protein or a starch and going from there.

What’s the best restaurant to eat at for vegetarians?
I go to Koya in Soho often and always feel so nourished from their vegetarian dishes. The udon noodles are fantastic, my favourite is with hot dashi, mushrooms and walnut miso. 40 Maltby Street will always be one of my favourite restaurants.

What’s the ice cream flavour you always pick?
I have a real soft spot for mint choc chip. I’m not really a chocolate person but something about it just calls to me. That or any kind of local or peak season fruit!

What chocolate bar and/or packet of crisps would you get from the corner shop?
Always McCoys Cheese and Onion, I love them! I also love a Twix as a sneaky treat.

What’s your go-to 4pm snack?
We make a danish style rye bread with quince cheese in it and I love a thin slice of that with some cheese. For a pastry chef I am actually more keen on savoury snacks than sweet ones.

What should we be baking this weekend?
A fruit galette. You can make some quick rough puff pastry and fill it with any or all of the beautiful fruit that’s around at the moment. You can bake it hot and fast so the oven doesn’t have to be on for too long and it’ll be perfect hot, cold or room temp.

What are your top 5 fruits?
Oh I always find this question so difficult to answer. I also find it changes depending on the season but at the moment in high summer -

1. Peaches
2. Cherries
3. Blackcurrants
4.Quinces
5.Clementines.

I’m eating at least a peach a day at the moment and positively gorged myself on cherries a few weeks ago when we had all of the heritage varieties from Brogdale National Fruit Collection. In the winter I’m the same with clementines! Quinces of course always have a special place in my heart ever since I first read about them in Nigella Lawson’s books.

Baked cream with Brighton Belle plums

From Anna H: “This dish would appear on the menu as soon as we started to feel the gentle ending of high summer when the mornings are not quite so bright and the evenings come a little quicker. The flavours are slowly moving from bright berry to something a little earthier. Use a dark-skinned plum here. My favourites are Brighton Belles but as I know only one farmer who grows them, and he has about six trees, I don’t expect you to be able to get them. You want a plum that will impart a deeply plummy flavour to every element and that can hold its shape once poached; red-skinned varieties such as pluots or quetsch will work well.

I use mahlab to flavour the baked cream. Made from the dried and crushed seeds of the St Lucy’s cherry, mahlab shares the warming bitter almond flavour of the plum kernel.”

SERVES 1

1 generous dessert spoon baked cream
2 poached plum halves (recipe below)
½ dried plum (recipe below)
3–4 tbsp plum poaching juices (p66)
light brown soft sugar, to taste
lemon juice, to taste
plum brandy or amaretto, to taste (optional)
1 small scoop plum or your favourite sorbet (optional)
1 small sheet plum leather (optional, recipe below

Make the baked cream according to the recipe below, adding 5g or 1 tsp of mahlab to the cream as you warm it before whisking it into the sugar and egg whites.

Put a wide shallow bowl in the freezer to chill 30 minutes before serving. Slice the poached plum halves into 3–5 thin wedges depending on their size. Chop the dried plum into small pieces, around 5mm wide.

Add the plum poaching juices to a small saucepan and warm gently. Taste and add some brown sugar if it needs any extra sweetness, or a tiny squeeze of lemon juice if acidity is required. You could also add a splash of alcohol at this point such as plum brandy or amaretto. Once seasoned to your liking, set the pan aside.

Place the baked cream slightly to the left of centre in the bowl. Add the chopped, dried plums in a small mound just to the right of this. Top the baked cream with the wedges of poached plum, allowing them to tumble of it into the bowl. Scoop an elegant quenelle of sorbet, if using, and place on top of the dried plums. If using, tear a small sheet of plum leather and artfully drape it over the baked cream and poached plums. It should be placed so you get little peeks of what lies underneath. Try to create texture and a little height with the folds of the leather, if using.

Finally, warm the plum juices until steaming and pour a couple of spoons over the top of the leather so that they spill over the cream and plums.

Baked cream

1kg rich double cream
50g caster sugar
180g egg whites, from about 6 eggs

Heat the cream in a saucepan over a medium heat to just below the boil. If you are flavouring it, pour the hot cream over your flavouring, cool, then leave to infuse overnight in the fridge. The next day, warm the cream gently and strain out the infused ingredient.

Preheat the oven to 110°C (230°F). Mix the sugar and egg whites together, not to aerate them but just to combine the ingredients and break up the whites.

Add the warm cream to the egg whites and mix well.

Again, this is not about incorporating any air into the mix so go gently. Pass through a fine sieve or chinois and pour into a shallow baking dish.

Set the dish inside a larger baking tray and fill with enough water to come halfway up the outside of the dish. Bake for 60–90 minutes. When the cream is cooked, it will no longer look liquid when you give the tray a gentle shake but rather have a gelatinous wobble. It should resemble a dense, thick cream like a crème brûlée. Leave to cool to room temperature then chill slightly before serving.

Poached plums

plums
caster sugar
lemon juice

Cut the plums in half and remove the stones. Taste a small piece to see how sweet they are. Weigh the plums and calculate how much sugar you need by multiplying the weight by 0.12 or 0.14, so for 1kg of plums, you would need 120–140g of sugar depending on the percentage required. Toss the plums with the sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice and leave to macerate for 15 minutes. Pour the plums and their juices into a saucepan that fits them snuggly. Turn the plums so they are cut side down and add 50–100ml (3–6 tbsp) of water, just enough to dissolve the sugar and generate a little steam. Place a circle of baking parchment directly on top of the plums and tuck it in so it is tightly fitting. Place the pan over a medium heat and bring to a simmer. Once the water starts bubbling, turn down the heat to the lowest possible setting. After 3–4 minutes, gently flip the plums and continue cooking until the flesh is tender but not so soft it is collapsing. You should be able to pierce it with a skewer or small knife with little resistance.

The cooking time will depend on the size of the fruit but, for a Victoria plum, it will be a further 2–3 minutes; for a larger variety or pluot it could be a further 5–6 minutes once they’ve been flipped.

Remove the pan from the heat and leave the plums to cool, still covered, to room temperature. The colour in the fruit and the plum juices will intensify.

Store them in a container with their cut faces down and keep them submerged in their juices, or place a piece of baking parchment directly on top, to prevent oxidation.

Dried plums

poached plums (see above)

Cut the poached plum halves into 2 or 3 depending on their size and lay on a rack so that the flesh is facing up. Dry in a very low oven for 4–6 hours. Keep an eye on them as the sugar is likely to caramelize and the flesh will collapse if the temperature gets too high. Alternatively, dry in a dehydrator at 60–70°C (140–160°F) for 4–6 hours. Once the plums are dry, they can be stored in an airtight container somewhere cool and dark.

Plum leather

1kg cooking plums
lemon juice, to taste
500g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Wash and remove any stems from the plums. Lay the whole plums in a single layer on a baking tray and roast for 20–25 minutes. The skins should have split open and the juices will have started to caramelize. Leave to cool for 10–15 minutes until you can handle them comfortably. Remove the stones from the fruit and blend the pulp to a smooth purée.

Weigh the purée and multiply by 0.6 to calculate the weight of sugar required (or . cup sugar for every 1 cup purée). Add the sugar to the fruit purée and mix to dissolve. If the purée has completely cooled, then gently warm it in a pan until the sugar is well dissolved. Season with a little lemon juice if the plums are not acidic enough.

You can either use a very low oven or a dehydrator set to 60°C (140°F) to dry the leather. Spread the sweetened purée evenly onto pieces of baking parchment or silicone mats to a thickness of 2–3mm. Dry the leather for around 6 hours until it is no longer tacky and peels easily from the paper. Store layered between sheets of baking parchment in an airtight container.

Extracted from The Last Bite by Anna Higham.

Follow along with Anna

Thanks so much to Anna for her words this week. Can I please ask that if you like this week’s newsletter and recipe, that you add a like or comment below and perhaps share it with someone who might also like it. Thank you.

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

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It’s an ice cream summer. In fact every summer is an ice cream summer. One of the first things I do on holiday is find the best ice cream shop. One that makes its own, with fun flavours that use good ingredients. There will always be one. You might just have to look. Once we’ve found it, we will make a trip there everyday for ice cream. Sometimes just after breakfast, sometimes at midnight but every single day we will eat ice cream. This is the only holiday rule I have - a daily ice cream.

Since the sun has been out in London for what seems like forever I have also been in holiday mode here and outings for good ice cream have been worked into most weeks. The most recent was a trip to Soft and Swirly at E5 in London Fields where I had a lemon verbena honey and vanilla soft serve for which I have no notes. Soft serve perfection. On the table next to us there were two women who ordered one scoop of every ice cream on the menu. I am going into summer with this energy and will be copying them all summer.

At home we have been very much making ice cream part of our day. And it centres around making our own instant ice cream which we turn into what my littlest son calls magic sundaes. This frozen berry ice cream is topped with some Greek yoghurt or crème frîache, honey, more berries and a little but very important scattering of sprinkles (M&S do ones that are dyed with fruit and veg).

This is a quick-as-a-flash summer dessert. No need to churn or allow to set, this is ice cream in minutes thanks to frozen berries. Sprinkles are optional.

Along with the recipe, for paid subscribers this week, is an ice cream summer things to click on.

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Instant frozen berry ice cream

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I am out for Summer, summering, away with my family for a few weeks; it’s bliss, it’s wild and hectic. It’s sticky hot days, peaches from trees and sea swims. It’s the only time of year I really get to read as much as I would like. So I have lined up some summer reading for you. No, it’s not a list of summer novels (I’ve added to these here), but a little reading list of the back catalogue of newsletter takeovers over the last few years.

We, and by that I mean Jess, Rachael and I who have worked on this newsletter over the years, started these monthly takeovers 6 years ago in an attempt to bring some new, underrepresented voices in food to you and to your tables. These takeovers quickly became my most loved part of this newsletter, allowing us a space to share the thoughts, food and writing of incredible people from brilliant Melissa Thompson to Jenny Lau and Adriann Ramirez to Bunhead Bakery.

So today I’m sharing a few favourite takeovers, and we’ve put together an index of all the takeovers so you can have them all in one place to look over and read.

All the newsletters in one place

A few favourite takeovers

• Jenny Lau, author of A-Z of Chinese Food and her list of books on Eastern/Sino-centric spirituality, philosophy and history

• Claire Ratinon on How to grow your dinner

• Adriann Ramirez’s strawberry + brown butter custard doughnuts

• Melissa Thompson’s excellent recommendations

• Marie Mitchell and her book Kin

• Bunhead Bakery’s British / Palestinian Buns

Takeover things to click on that have been recommended over + over

• Vittles, of course

• Rambutan, both the book and restaurant

• All consuming

• Rose harissa

• Katto Knives

• Honest Toil olive oil

• Big Night

• Table Manners, Off Menu and Dish

• This excellent lemon squeezer

• Very good sea salt

• Al Yaman tahini

• Every food writers favourite TV show?

• Colourful tomato knives

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

Can I please ask that if you like this week’s newsletter that you add a like or comment below and perhaps share it with someone who might also like it. It’s free for everyone this week and a lot of time, love and brilliant recommendations have gone into it. Let me know if you have a favourite takeover too. Thank you.

Fun berries

Do you know about fun berries? They will make your life better. You might not be able to buy them as easily as a strawberries or raspberries, but that's the fun. And they have the best names of any food. Jostaberries, Worcesterberries, Tayberries, Loganberries, Mulberries, Boysenberries and finally, the winner of the best-named berry, the Chuckleberry. These are all UK-grown berries and they are at their peak now. Some are native berries that we just don’t eat as much as strawbs and blueberries. Some are hybrid berries - berries that have been bred to be a mix of two or more berries - Jostaberries are a cross between gooseberries and blackcurrants and chuckleberries which are a cross of a cross (stay with me) between jostaberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants. My 3-year-old son picks mulberries in our local park with his nursery. So while most of these berries might need to come from a really good greengrocer or a gardener friend, some are ready and waiting on the mulberry trees. They are the most British of fruits, and I love them all. I eat them like sweets from their paper boxes but jam them, cordial them or pavlova them.

What’s the Deal?

I spent a really lovely few days in Deal before school was out. It is the easiest and most perfect trip from where I live in East London. I spent the first few days there on my own working on some writing (without being too big reveal about it I’ll tell you more about that soon). I stayed at The Rose in Deal which has been a writing retreat for me several times. I love it there so much. I wrote at the end of Deal pier surrounded on all sides by sea - the pier is one of my most loved places to write in the whole world. While I was there I was treated to a transcendent massage and reflexology treatment with Kate at the Pelican rooms and to a brilliant yoga class with Matt from Ashtanga Yoga Deal, an ex-Hacienda DJ who made me feel so welcome and it properly set me up.

Updown Farmhouse

John and I spent a night at Updown Farmhouse. We were hosted by Ruth and Ollie the owners but I am planning to go back very soon on my own dime. We were there for our tenth wedding anniversary and it was very special. Updown is the English country dream. Red brick house, rambling gardens and a sunny lawn brought up to date with bold wall hangings and pops of colour. I loved the interiors so much. But it all started with the food, which was the real treat. Seasonal food over fire, simple and perfect, eaten under a pergola in the magic summer evening light. Ruth told me that since opening they have made the focaccia to one of my recipes which was a very sweet thing to know, though theirs tasted better. The amazing team were so kind to us and all the other guests. And there is a perfect green and white striped swimming pool surrounded by trees and birds. A very, very special treat to toast 10 years.

Below for my paid subscribers is a summer reading list for food lovers and a holiday cooking ‘hack’. Tomorrow, free for everyone, is a deep dive into all my newsletter takeovers.

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This week’s newsletter is an invitation not to cook. For the coming weeks I will not cook. I will, chop, season and assemble. Summer cooking, to me, is about assembling peak summer ingredients with some good seasoning and some interesting flavours and herbs.

Right now, when ingredients are at their absolute apex of sweetness, ripeness and summerness, is simply not the time to cook. I could forgive some just boiled pasta thrown into garlic, caper and olive oil dressed chopped tomatoes or turning on the oven very early in the day to make a focaccia to dip into your assemblies of summer fruit and veg but, on the whole, no cooking really happens in my house.

I roughly follow this formula - I pick two or three fruits or vegetables, perfectly in season, season with salt and acid (maybe even a bit of chilli or spice), add a flavouring or two and serve it with something filling fresh cheese, eggs, beans, flatbreads. You could even serve it on ice.

All summer long and especially in this heat, lunches and suppers will be a series of….

Arranging these fruits/vegetables:

• Tomatoes (good ones)

• Corn on the cob (cut from the cob into kernels)

• Cucumber

• Melon

• Watermelon

• Peaches/Nectarines

• Cherries

• Apricots

• Any stone fruit

• Runner beans (blanched or charred)

• Green beans (blanched or charred)

• Courgettes (thinly sliced, roasted or charred)

• Red peppers (for me these must be roasted or roasted from a jar)

With these flavourings:

• Summer herbs, this year it’s tarragon, lovage and fennel fronds

• Green chilli

• Capers, from the jar or crisped quickly in oil

• Pickled chillies

• Gherkins/pickles

• Dates

• Olives

• Thinly sliced and fried garlic

Sometimes with some dairy;

• Feta

• Mozzarella

• Ricotta

• Thick Greek yoghurt or labneh

• Crème fraîche

• A jammy egg

And serving it all with:

• My favourite crisps, I’m into Torres Pickle Crisps right now

• Flatbreads

• Jarred chickpeas

• Some toasted sourdough

It is actually as simple as that because I can safely say that any combination of these things will make a good summer dinner. I will rarely reach for a pan until mid September.

Of course there can be some cooking (if you really must)....

• Tomatoes could be blistered in a pan or the oven with olive oil and garlic

• Corn on the cob could be cut from its cob into kernels and charred in the pan to take the raw edge off or charred whole on the BBQ

• Peaches or nectarines could be charred in butter in a pan, cut side down or on a grill of BBQ

• Runner beans should be cooked, simply blanched in salted water until they have lost their squeak or charred whole in a hot pan or on a BBQ

• Courgettes can be quickly pan fried, grilled, roasted or charred

• Peppers - these would be the only thing I insist you cook as I don’t like raw red peppers, if you use some from a jar I will not be mad.

• Feta can be roasted in the oven with spices, lemon and oil for 30 mins

• Garlic - I am not a raw garlic on salads person so if I am eating garlic in the summer I fry it (you could also add capers and olives if they fit) in olive oil or butter until crisp and if the butter browns all the better

• New potatoes can be quickly roasted and crisped up in the oven

• 7-minute egg - this is an egg boiled in water at a rolling boil for 7 minutes then drained, the shell is smashed by shaking it in the pan then it is covered in cold water and then peeled. This to me is the perfect egg.

10 salads that will carry you into to September:

If all of this feels too free then I see you, and here are ten summer salad recipes to follow along with all summer instead.

• Melon, potato + feta salad

• Crispy, crunchy hot weather salad

• Ice cold melon, tomato + mozzarella with two chillies

• Too Hot salad

• All summer salad

• Green melon, cucumber + herby green yoghurt freezer salad

• Summer corn + tomato salad

• Icy melon salad

• All time favourite chopped salad

• Spiced + herbed Puy lentil salad

• Blackened corn salad

• Special mention to this no cook tomato pasta from nearly 10 years ago!

Some good things to click on:

• The grandmother of summer knives

• On preferring Hellman’s mayonnaise

• Organic veg but even better

• How to make your dips look pretty

• Cold brew everything, make it sparkling?

• Need to get my hands in one of these, please

• Perfect, miniature vegetable candles

• The sun and the moon

• Italy’s magical lentil bloom

• The best and the worst mozzarella

• Butterscotch pocket frogs

• More from me on salads

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

Can I please ask that if you like this week’s newsletter that you add a like or comment below and perhaps share it with someone who might also like it. It’s free for everyone this week and a lot of time, love and salads have gone into it. Thank you.

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This week’s newsletter is part of an occasional series on my favourite ingredients and this week it’s Olive Oil. The issue on capers is here and the love of tahini here, find vinegar here. These are the ingredients I rely on to add flavour and texture quickly.

I think if I asked all the cooks I know the one ingredient they could not cook without, the winner would be olive oil. I certainly couldn’t cook without it. A good olive oil improves almost anything – it’s one of my most-loved and most-used ingredients. Your food will always taste good if you start with a good olive oil. It can feel hard to know which oil to use. There are so many, and they vary hugely in taste, quality and cost. And the expensive ones are not always the best.

In my kitchen, I have two olive oils on the go at any time. I use a decent but affordable extra virgin olive oil for almost all frying and cooking. A favourite more expensive extra virgin olive oil for best – and by that I mean for drizzling on food that’s already cooked, from soups to salads. Sometimes I will also have a light olive oil that I use occasionally for making mayonnaise and for frying when I don’t want a deep olive flavour. I go into the detail of all the different types of olive oil and my favourites below.

Olive oils range from peppery to buttery, and while it may seem silly to taste your oil like you might a wine, it’s not. Finding an oil you like the taste of in your price range will make all your cooking better. To me, the most important factor in olive oil is freshness. So when you buy oil, only buy as much as you will use in a couple of weeks, use it up and don’t keep it for ages in your cupboard.

I am generous with olive oil when I am cooking. As well as for the flavour I use olive oil for the texture and mouth-feel it gives, and for that you need more than a drizzle. Olive oil is a fat our body likes and needs, the kind of fat that’s good for us and I know lovingly cooked dishes will still have far less fat than processed food.

Today I’m sharing with you a recipe I come back to every summer, which is a lesson in how olive oil is the maker of greatness in a dish, and it comes from Stanley Tucci. It’s the pasta I dream about most.

After watching Stanley and Felicity (who is my friend and agent) eat it on TV a few summers back, this pasta has also become a marker of summer in our house. I dream of making this pasta on a great big hob outside at dusk on a hillside in Amalfi, but my back garden is also good.

The recipe this week for my paid subscribers, along with everything I know about olive oil and a guide which olive oil to spend your money on.

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Everything I know about olive oil and Stanley Tucci’s Spaghetti alla Nerano

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Today’s newsletter is part of an occasional series where I talk to the chefs and food writers who I admire most and who make great things with vegetables. These are the cooks I would like to cook for me. The food that gets me really excited and I want to know all the things they love to eat and cook and how they do it.

I want to particularly shine a light on people doing amazing things with vegetables. That’s what I am all about and I feel like a lot of the enthusiasm we had for eating more veg and in doing so, living more sustainably, has waned over the last few years. I want to reignite that conversation. And I want your thoughts too.

This week I am beside myself to welcome Georgina Hayden, Georgie to me. Georgie and I go way back. We started our cooking lives together more than 20 years ago when we both worked for Jamie Oliver as recipe testers, developers and stylists. It was a wildly fun time and was so formative for me and my cooking.

The list of weird and great things Georgie and I have done together is long, and it weaves together work, love and life. We lived together in Los Angeles working on a food TV show, I had a broken heart and Georgie helped piece me back together. We have cooked together in the lemon groves of Amalfi and on New York streets. I danced around her, pinning money on her wedding dress in true Greek girl style. The last 20 years of our lives have run alongside each other.

Georgie is joy. She is honest, open and full of enthusiasm for almost everything, but crucially she’s quick to tell you what she is not a fan of. She is one of my favourite people in the whole world and to be in her company is the best. When Georgie's light is shining it’s hard to stay away.

Having cooked side by side with Georgie for so long, I feel very well qualified to tell you that her food is great. Her cakes and sweet things are some of the best I have ever eaten and her recipes are always big in flavour and low on annoying fuss. She’s a heart cook, my favourite kind.

Working together at Jamie’s, we learnt so much about how to write a good recipe, how to build flavour and how to get there with the least effort. These are the recipes Georgie writes.

So today, it gives me so much joy to share a little of Georgie with you all as well as a recipe for a Spinach, courgette and feta galette from her most recent book MEDesque, which I love so much. From homemade basil Vienetta to her saganaki honey and cheese triangles, I know every recipe will hit. And while Georgie does cook with meat, she has a deftness for veg that comes from her Greek roots, her amazing palate and her creativity in the kitchen.

Thanks Georgie for the recipe, your words and everything - I could not love you more.

Follow along with Georgina

MEDesque

What did you cook for dinner last night?
It’s very hot at the moment, so I can’t claim to be doing much in the way of cooking but I did make an enormous bowl of trampo - a Mallorcan chopped salad that I feature in my latest book. It is incredibly simple - tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, olives, avocado which are all finely chopped and dressed in a mildly garlicky lemon dressing. It is glorious and perfect in the sun. Also, it's one of the few salads that is better made in advance, which is always music to my ears. I live in fear of sad limp salad leaves.

What’s the most underrated ingredient for cooking with vegetables?
Coriander seeds. I mean, I don’t think it’s underrated necessarily, more that it’s just something I’ve grown up eating a lot with roasted vegetables - lemon and coriander seeds are a very popular way of dressing veggies in Cyprus before roasting. I always think they quietly work hard without being too attention-seeking and work with so many veggies.

Your most loved vegetable?
Cabbage. I will bore on about this until the cows come home, but I have such a deep love for cabbage. And culturally, Cypriots love it. I grew up on cabbage salad (shredded white cabbage and onion, dressed in a lip puckering amount of lemon), cabbage soup - a brothy soup with rice and white onions. I love savoy cabbage as a side, or tossed through pasta, cavolo nero any which way and red cabbage is my favourite part of Christmas dinner.

What’s the vegetable you reach for last?
Okra. It’s one of the only things I don’t love. I don’t hate it, I’ll eat almost anything, but it’s not my favourite. Especially the way my yiayia’s would cook it - braised in tomatoes and onions and often a bit slimy. Deep fried as chips, I can get on board with. But slimy? No thanks.

What is the single ingredient you could not live without and why?
Olive oil. It is in everything, on everything, its versatility knows no bounds. For cooking and finishing dishes, to pouring over ice cream, even doused on cotton wool when you have an earache. I massaged my babies in olive oil - it really is the Mediterranean’s answer to everything. I genuinely believe it’s one of the key factors to a long and healthy life.

In your opinion, what stands in the way of people eating more veg?
That’s a hard one - I think ultimately it comes down to education and the only way to really change that is long term. You can try and convince people as adults, but really education and exposure needs to start young and when kids are at school. I grew up on a very vegetable, pulse and lentil heavy diet and knew no different. Lentils or chickpeas for dinner with a side salad was on the menu weekly, and were always some of my favourite meals. So better school dinners, proper cooking classes at school and eating together as a family. I didn’t always reach for the salad bowl, but it was always there. Then one day I took the plunge.

What’s the best restaurant to eat at for vegetarians?
One of my all time favourite places to eat is Diwana Bhel Poori House on Drummond Street. I just love it - once inside you are instantly transported to India. Their dosas and bhel poori are exceptional. You can eat well, without breaking the bank, and all of it is vegetarian. Plus, they do a cracking lunch time buffet, if that’s your vibe.

What’s the ice cream flavour you always pick?
Ice cream is a real weakness of mine, so I struggle to pick just one. Hazelnut has always been top tier for me, coffee too. But then I really love mastiha (Cypriot mastic ice cream) and triantaphyllo (rose ice cream) - both of those are deeply nostalgic and if they’re on the menu I can’t resist.

What chocolate bar and/or packet of crisps would you get from the corner shop?
I’m a full blown chocoholic and don’t discriminate. I love a Double Decker and a Twirl. Flakes are good too. Plus Whisper… Let’s be honest, I’ll take any.

What’s your go-to 4pm snack?
I’m not a huge snacker and tend to eat dinner really early with my kids. So I’m usually cooking around this time and then eat around 5.30. Which feels deeply UN-Mediterranean of me, but I quite enjoy an early dinner. I also find whenever I sit with my kids they enjoy their food so much more and are more likely to try new things.

What are your top 5 fruits?
Ooooh, excellent question. Let’s see. I’d go for these, when they’re all peak season:

1. Cherries

2. Apricots

3. Peaches

4. Clementines

5. Figs

What should we cook from MEDesque this week?
Any of the salads, so the aforementioned trampo. Roasted peaches with tarragon and burrata is SO good and perfect at the moment. Plus the smacked cucumber with olives and herbs. Anything refreshing while the sun is shining. If you have the energy to turn on the oven then the spinach, courgette and feta galette (recipe below) is glorious. Oh and the sorbet cocktails would be a treat when entertaining.

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Spinach, courgette and feta galette

From Georgina: ‘I wrote a section in my last book, Greekish, called Spanakopita Appreciation Society, filled with (unsurprisingly) spanakopita-inspired recipes. But I couldn’t leave it there, so this is my SAS offering for MEDesque. Salting spinach gives such a nicer flavour than wilting it: I will die on this hill! It’s a technique my yiayia taught me; you salt spinach, then you extract its liquid by squeezing it in a sink. Here, I use it in a freeform easy galette, and who doesn’t love a pie? This is great eaten at room temperature as well.’

SERVES 4 - 6

1 leek
120g baby spinach
½ bunch of mint (and dill, if you like it)
1 courgette
125g mature Cheddar 1 unwaxed lemon 100g feta
320g ready-rolled puff pastry
Olive oil
1 large egg
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
2 teaspoons nigella seeds
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Prepare the galette
Trim and finely slice the leek, giving it a thorough wash. Roughly chop the spinach and place in a colander with the leek, then set in the sink. Toss with 1 teaspoon of sea salt flakes, or ½ teaspoon of fine sea salt. Mix together well and leave the colander in the sink for 10 minutes to draw out the moisture. Meanwhile, pick and finely chop the herbs and place in a large mixing bowl. Trim the courgette, halve lengthways and slice into 5mm half moons. Add to the bowl with the herbs and coarsely grate in the Cheddar. Finely grate in the lemon zest and crumble in most of the feta. Give the spinach mixture a good squeeze in the colander to really extract all the water – it will wilt down as you squeeze it, and keep going to get rid of as much of the green liquid as possible – then transfer to the bowl. Season with pepper and mix everything together well.

Bake the galette
When you are ready to bake your galette, preheat your oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas mark 6. Unroll the pastry on the paper it comes in and slide it on to a baking sheet. Spread the spinach filling out evenly over the pastry, leaving a 4–5cm border around the edges. Fold the pastry border over the spinach filling, overlapping and pressing it down as needed, just leaving the central part exposed. Scatter the remaining feta over the top and drizzle with a little olive oil. Crack the egg into a small bowl, whisk with a pinch of sea salt and brush over the exposed pastry. Mix together the sesame seeds, nigella seeds and a good pinch each of sea salt and pepper and sprinkle all over the egg-brushed pastry. Bake the galette for around 45 minutes, until the pastry is golden, then leave to cool on the tray for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Extracted from MEDesque by Georgina Hayden published by Bloomsbury.

Thanks so much to Georgie for her words this week. Can I please ask that if you like this week’s newsletter and words, that you add a like or comment below and perhaps share it with someone who might also like it. Thank you.

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

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When it’s this hot, I don’t cook, I cool. In summer I use my fridge and freezer in the way I use my oven the rest of the year. I plate up salads, dips and dishes, then put them into the fridge (or freezer if they can handle it) to get super cold for maximum freshness.

If it’s really hot, I might even add a couple of ice cubes to my dips (I make them a touch thicker than normal to counter the thinning of the ice melting) or my salads so they are super super cold and refreshing.

Summer eating lends itself well to this. All the things I like to eat in the summer are veg with a high water content that works well cold - cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, courgettes and runner beans. Corn too as the summer rolls on.

Here, I’ve taken it one step further and cooled my dressing as well as the ingredients in the freezer. Inspired by a magically cooling plate of melon and a garlicky ajo blanco dressing at Moro on another of these hot hot summer days. I don’t freeze the dressing until it's frozen hard but just until it’s a little icy and crystal-y and slushy so it holds onto the coolness once it’s on the table.

I’ve made this salad every few days since we first tested it. There’s a plate of the icy, freezer dressing in my freezer right now, ready to pile high with cool crunchy veg - cucumber and grassy galia melon.

This week’s brand-new recipe is for my much cherished paid subscribers. If you need something to eat while it’s too hot, make this.

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Melon, cucumber + herby green yoghurt freezer salad

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My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins - a Sunday Times bestseller. There are hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

From Anna

Once a month I hand my newsletter over to another voice whose food and writing is worthy of your attention. I am so happy to hand you over to Nour from nuun cakes this week. Nour is a baker, a creator of pieces of art that can be eaten. nunn cakes is driven by her love of food, of giving people something to gather and celebrate around and of finding a way to work in food and do what she loves while raising her daughter. All things I share a deep desire to do too.

I’ve just finished the last of Nour’s Greek yoghurt cream, roasted cherries and salted honey almonds. It is my kind of dessert. Not very sweet, fruit forward with a decent hit of salt. A great summer pudding which feels fresh and fun.

Thank you Nour for this recipe and for all your thoughts and recommendations this week, from essays on identity to her favourite spatula with a little bit of Meryl Streep and Steve Martin.

From Nour

A running joke in my family is that the main topic of conversation at meal times is what to have for the next meal. It is somewhat of an obsession and a definite genetic predisposition to cook, feed and eat; think and talk about food continuously. When I left my career in the arts to pursue my love for food - particularly pastry - I went straight into restaurant kitchens. My head chefs and colleagues were surprised by how comfortable and confident I seemed, having not had a shred of formal training. But I had been trained- in my mother’s kitchen. An experience not for the weak.

I started nuun when my daughter was one, with the singular focus of creating beautiful cake centrepieces, bringing together the pastry skills I learned, my background in the arts and my ever-increasing preoccupation with seasonality. Menus and design choices are led by what produce is available at any given time.

Four years and hundreds of unique cakes later, bespoke work remains the heart of the business. We recently launched a line of cake jars designed to bring a little everyday joy on the go and have started hosting intimate events at home that have brought the nuun cake community together in beautiful ways. You can sign up (scroll to the bottom for the sign-up box) to receive announcements of the next gathering.

This summer, we will run our first cake design experiences which will give people the chance to create their own cake masterpiece using flowers, fruit and veg sourced from my favourite local suppliers.

With cake as the medium, each year I develop a styled shoot which allows my creativity to run wild. This year, the aesthetic was influenced by hours pouring over Flemish still life paintings in the National Gallery, Cecily Brown, the wild overgrown beauty of Hampstead Heath and a Gothic inspired colour palette.

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Things to read

• The Last Bite by Anna Higham is a beautiful collection of dessert recipes that vary in complexity. I love that the book is divided into seasons and is led by what is available at different times of the year.

• I recently moved into a house with a small garden and have been trying my hand at growing fruit and veg with my daughter. Give it a Grow by Martha Swales is a great companion for achievable growing projects.

• Hazem Jamjoum’s translation of No One Knows Their Blood Type by Maya Abu Al Hayyat. The story is personal, delicate and wounding but it is the passages in there about food that leap off the page and straight into your mouth.

• Slop magazine for their obsessive dedication to seasonality, often radical takes and great visuals.

Things to cook with + eat

• Anything Olive Odyssey sells. They have a unique selection of small-batch olive oils made in Palestine, each with its own characteristic, flavour profile and story. Their sumac is the best I have ever tasted. Most importantly, they champion and support their farmers who face unimaginable living and working conditions under occupation.

• I eat far too much salt and was recently sent some Welsh Oak Smoked Sea Salt by Halen Môn which adds so much depth and complexity to anything it touches. I love it with chocolate and in my salted caramel sauce.

• Cake Jars by me. My answer to the single-serve cake - sponge and filling beautifully layered in a reusable glass jar. The perfectly proportioned portable dessert, to have alone or in company!

• Spatulas are the pastry chef’s best friend. Silicone, flexible, small, straight, angled, off-set. They each have their own use and I love them all equally

• Toast’s enamel salad bowl is so multipurpose and the perfect size for mixing up a one-bowl cake, serving salad or storing fruit. My best friend bought me one as a housewarming gift last year - I use it most days and think of her.

• Milad in Kilburn is my local Iraqi/Iranian supermarket of dreams. I buy everything from there, but particularly cherish their in house bakery making fresh fatayer and mana’eesh throughout the day.

• Queens Park farmer’s market is a great Sunday morning vibe. I pop in most weeks while my daughter does gymnastics up the road but don’t tend to buy much because I find the fresh produce very expensive. Instead, I prefer to go the fruit shack next door run by Alfie Caine who is carrying on his family’s 100 year legacy of fruit selling.

Things to watch + listen to

I have embarrassing and strange listening habits, especially while I am working. I will listen to the same song to death and can create beautiful, whimsical and feminine floral cakes while listening to podcasts about serial killings.

• Short form recipe content produced by Olive Odyssey and their chef Masa Bezra is the best out there. Showcasing seasonal Palestinian produce, the videos are joyful, innovative and sexy.

• All competitive Korean cooking shows, particularly Culinary Class Wars. The drama of it all.

• It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin. Her café-come-deli is the stuff of my dreams. The scene where they bake chocolate croissants after hours while having the munchies is iconic.

Greek yoghurt cream, roasted cherries + salted honey almonds

The temperature in London at the time of writing is 34 degrees and the last thing I can think about is baking. This a simple, cooling dessert that only requires the oven to be on for 15 mins. You can swap out the cherries for anything that is in season but I like the combo of the cooked and the raw fruit.

Serves 4

60g flaked almonds
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons honey
sea salt
250g cherries, pitted
a sprig of lemon thyme or thyme
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
200ml double cream
200ml Greek yoghurt
olive oil

Prepare the almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan. Melt the butter and honey together in a pan, then stir in the flaked almonds and a good pinch of sea salt and take off the heat. Transfer to a baking tray and spread into a thin layer.

Prepare the cherries

Pit all of the cherries. Chop a third of the cherries and put them in a small bowl with lemon thyme leaves and set aside. Toss the rest of the cherries with the sugar and put in a baking dish.

Bake the cherries and almonds

Bake the whole sugared cherries for 15-20 mins and the honeyed flaked almonds until the cherries are deep red and the sugar and juice have formed a thick syrup and the almonds are caramelised and toasted and chewy but not brittle. Let cool.

Whip the Greek yoghurt cream

Whip (by hand! this is very important so that you do not over mix) the double cream to soft peaks. Fold in the Greek yoghurt and refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

Finish and serve

To serve, plate a large spoonful of the cream and create a well in the middle. Fill the well with a drizzle of olive oil, spoon in the cooked cherries, then garnish with fresh cherries and almonds.

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What isn’t in season?

This is the time. The time when all the things I love the most are here. We all know this is the time of plenty. It's not news to anyone, but it's still a THRILL. Let’s lean in. Watermelon, cherries, big juicy tomatoes, icy cold cucumbers, apricots, all the herbs, little courgettes, the last of the peas and broad beans and the first of the runners and green beans. Grapes are coming, so is corn. It's truly the golden time. GOLDEN. This is when my cooking turns from cooking to assembling because when food/life/things are this good, the less done with them the better. This week I have eaten tomatoes with nectarines, herbs and mozz, twice. Cherries with yoghurt, honey and almonds (in tomorrow's newsletter), more cherries on ice, iced cucumber dip. Tomatoes, eggs and ricotta three times.

Moro Sunday Lunch Club Alumi series

There are a few restaurants and chefs who have truly had a hand in shaping how we eat now. High on that list for me would be Sam and Sam Clark from Moro. In the late 90s, they were cooking food from Spain, Morocco and beyond that was not very visible in London at the time. Their food was pivotal in shaping how many cooks of my generation and I cook. Moro celebrates 30 (!!) years this year. To celebrate, they have invited some alumni back to cook Sunday lunch. I went a couple of weeks ago when Jacob Kennedy from Boca di Lupo was in the kitchen with Sam & Sam, and it was such a great meal. It felt like being at a good friend’s wedding, everyone chatting and celebrating food and life and connection. Go. Still to come are Olly Templeton of Carousel, Ellen Parr of my local Lucky and Joy and Tim Siadatan of Trullo (who I used to cook with as well).

Ice Cream City

This magical little booklet came through my letterbox this morning and my main focus now is planning my first ice cream crawl with Dylan. It’s a very portable pocket-sized guide to London’s best ice cream, written by Ruby Tandoh - the author of All Consuming. Ruby eats all the bad ice cream so that we don’t have to. A significant public service, thanks Ruby.

I would very much recommend you buy one, but until then a my favourite places to eat/buy ice cream are…..

Below for my paid subscribers are my ice cream reccs, a holiday eating ticklist (what I will be doing instead of sight seeing), my forever tip for always finding a good restaurant on holiday wherever you are. Tomorrow, free for everyone, is a takeover from Nour Yakoob of nuun Cakes and a really good cherry recipe.

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This week’s newsletter is part of an occasional series on my favourite ingredients. The first issue on capers is here, tahini here and vinegar here. These are the ingredients I rely heavily on in my kitchen to add flavour quickly.

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This newsletter is coming to you a day early because you/we/I need these recipes in this heat. God, do we need them. I’ve been thinking about what it is I want in this heat. It’s cold food, hot chilli and shattering crunch. These recipes bring it all.

As I spooned this ice cold melon salad onto my plate and as I scooped icy yoghurt dip onto crisps both of these recipes felt like exactly the perfect thing to eat right now.

In this weather it feels fitting to be talking about heat, chilli heat. Chillies feel like a world of flavour in themselves, from searing heat to gentle hum. I love the verdant brightness of a fresh green chilli, the fruity burn of a scotch bonnet, the mellow, rounded heat from dried chillies - whole raisiny ancho chillies, spoonable bright harissa, smoky chipotle in adobo.

Chilli gives heat, a warming sensation in your mouth. This warming feeling is not actually your mouth heating up, but something called chemesthesis – your mouth’s response to irritation.

When we eat something spicy, from a hot chilli to a peppercorn, our sensory receptors get irritated and that gives the sensation we get from ‘hot’ or spicy food. Chilli heat is measured in Scovilles and ranges from a mild red pepper to chillies that will blow your socks off.

Chilli also contains capsaicin, which triggers temperature receptors in the brain and makes you sweat. As liquid evaporates off your skin, it creates an effective cooling effect so as we all know eating chilli in the heat just makes sense.

My Dad can’t eat chilli. Some people just can’t. We have lost count of the number of times we’ve had to get him milk or a lassi when a curry is too hot. It’s always quite dramatic. We find it funny, Rog finds it less funny. Sorry Rog.

In Mexico alone, there are close to a hundred varieties of chilli. In the UK, we use very few varieties but I would make an argument for bringing as many chillies as you can into your cooking. I’ve shared a list of my favourites that we can get our hands on in the UK for you below.

It might seem strange to be writing about chilli heat this week but this is when I really crave chilli and this salad is what I want on a hot day. Cooling, bright and fresh and most importantly COLD.

So this week for my paid subscribers along with everything I know about chilli, I have the salad I make when it’s really hot and an ice-cold dip that goes in the freezer…

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Ice cold Melon, tomatoes two chillies with mozzarella, Icy yoghurt dip and everything I know about chilli

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Today we celebrate! We celebrate two years of this newsletter in its current home here on Substack and 12 years since I sent out my first-ever newsletter to a hundred or so people. Sure, it feels like quite an abstract thing to celebrate. The birthday of a newsletter - an email that I send once a week? It might seem a bit annoying, irrelevant, navel-gazing. And I am sure it is all of those things, but this newsletter is something more - hear me out.

Over the years, this newsletter has been a place where I have shared news (books, babies, getting married) as well as recipes, and feels like the place where my recipes and writing are most at home. It’s been a place where I’ve been able to respond to cultural, political and environmental things I care about, usually in my own fairly gentle way.

It’s also been a place that has allowed me to lift other people up and it’s this part of this newsletter that has been the most meaningful to me. Whether it’s telling you about an incredible chocolate bar made in small batches by artisans, a petition on something I care about, an ingredient I feel bereft without or to speak up for someone who is not able to do so themselves. This is a place for recipes, but I hope this is also a place for humanness. I hope you feel my humanness in the words I write and the things I share.

Also, this newsletter has renewed something in me; my commitment to you has made me a better and more consistent recipe writer (and I hope in some way it has made my actual non-recipe writing better too).

I aim to write two new recipes here a month, and those recipes are tested and tested until they are bulletproof. I write the recipes carefully with great attention to detail to make sure that not a moment of your precious time is wasted, the same for the ingredients you buy. The art of a recipe is very important to me and you might notice that my recipes are written differently from other people’s to make them the easiest and clearest for you with subheadings, with ingredients amounts listed in the method as well as the ingredients list. Small details but ones that I hope make it easier for you to cook from them.

Today is also about celebrating the three women who help/have helped me publish this every week. Jess sent out that very first newsletter 12 years ago and has been a friend, force and creative crutch ever since. Rach presses send on this newsletter each week and is a creative and cultural wing woman, photographer, copy editor and everything in between as well as a true and loyal friend. Chloe helps me make and write my recipes and is a sunshine girl. Work is not really like work when your days are spent with people as good as these.

But, more than that, today I want to celebrate you all. All 55,888 of you. Once, to try and imagine how many inboxes my writing reaches, I worked out that it was the 02 arena filled almost 3 times. That’s a lot of you. Most of you open and read this every single week and I am so grateful for that. In a world where attention is now an actual part of the economy and in every direction there are people who want yours I am overjoyed that what I do is worthy of your time. I do not take it for granted and I will work to my last to keep the work I do new, fresh and honest.

So in an attempt to celebrate everything I am proud of here we’ve put together an index of all my recipes which live here on my newsletter (well the last 2 years worth anyway). This will hopefully be an easy way for you to find what you are looking for and also to be a jumping off point for inspiration when you can’t decide what to make for dinner.

Recipe Index

As well as the recipe index today, I’d also like to offer you a one off special birthday discount on yearly memberships, so you can make the most of all these recipes. Until Monday night, yearly membership is 20% off, just about £10 off the regular subscription price, which works out as about £3.25 a month.

I love to support other people's writing here on Substack. I feel I am slowly understanding more and more that only by supporting do the things we care about remain and exist. Supporting art, writing, craft, and humanness is how I want to spend my money.

I am always so thrilled to hear from you all. The emails and comments you send over about your love for this newsletter just make me so happy. It’s good to know there are good people on the other end. So here’s to you and thanks for allowing me to write this every week. It’s an honour to spend time with you.

Also a little note here - if you are viewing this on Substack (the platform I use to send you this newsletter) then please do subscribe to get my newsletters rather than follow me, following me is the same a social media follow you just get to see what I post in the notes (read social media) section of this site. But if you subscribe you get my actual writing once a week, the slower side of things which is where I want my work to live.

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Things to click on:

Your favourite things to click on over the last few year -

• My all-time favourite chocolate bar and my new favourite

• Weeknight vegetarian

• The best ever salt, delivered to your door

• Lady Grey iced tea for hot days

• Something + Nothing

• Inside the world of GBBO

• The knife I use everyday and the knife that brings the most joy

• A look round my kitchen

• Sunshine bowls

• Some very colourful cutlery

• My favourite noodles, just around the corner in Hackney

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

Can I please ask that if you like this week’s newsletter that you add a like or comment below and perhaps share it with someone who might also like it. It’s free for everyone this week and a lot of time, love has gone into it. Thank you.

Welcome to my Recipe Index. Here, you’ll find every single recipe from my newsletter over the last couple of years, categorised. We’ll aim to keep this updated with each new recipe.

BREAKFAST

• All you need overnight oats

• Almond milk french toast

• Black bean + tofu scramble

• My very best pancakes

• Ricotta + tomato omelette - a one-person breakfast

• Strawberry chia bowls

SALADS

• All-time favourite chopped salad with honey dressing

• All summer salad

• Asparagus, pea + parmesan chopped salad

• Asparagus Spring panzanella

• Asparagus with creme fraîche, green chilli and almond crunch

• Carrot, crispy olive and pistachio salad

• Crispy crunchy hot weather salad

• Double-dressed potato salad

• Greens and Brussels sprout Caesar slaw

• Grilled Caesar salad with crispy chickpeas

• Herb salad with crisped garlic

• Herby corn salad

• Hetty’s ginger-peanut warm kale salad

• Icy melon salad

• Joe Woodhouse’s tomato salad with smashed crispy potatoes + mojo verde

• Winter chopped salad with orange and caper dressing

• Salted lemon, ricotta + sticky dates

• Spiced and herbed puy lentil salad

• Spring onions + little gems with miso dressing

• Too hot salad

• Yasmin Khan’s Broccoli and lentil salad with curried tahini and dates

DINNERS

• Asparagus and greens frittata

• Butter bean stew with kale + sticky blood oranges

• Crispy chickpea & spring onion pancake with peanut and lime

• Deeply crunchy pickle potatoes with herby dip

• Dhal with crispy sweet potato and quick coconut chutney

• Fadi Kattan’s Mujadara

• Halloumi + squash fritters with a chilli yoghurt dip

• Lemon, asparagus + giant couscous traybake

• Lemon traybake with green olives and herbs

• Lemony beans with green herb swirl

• Miso and lime spring noodle broth

• Mushroom and caramelised onion galette

• My ribollita recipe

• Noor Murad’s Machboos

• Proper Chilli

• Quick asparagus, lemon + sesame sauté

• Rhubarb, feta + potato tray bake

• Roast mushroom autumn bowl

• Sami Tamimi’s couscous fritters

• Sesame and chilli oil noodles

• Simple Jersey Royals with four dressings

• Sticky sesame baked cauliflower

• Squash, chestnut and cavolo parmigiana

• Squash, ricotta and citrus tart

• Tomato and coconut cassoulet

• Traybake lemon dal with pickled green chillies

• Wild garlic + yogurt baked eggs

PASTA

• All summer green brothy pasta

• Corner shop pasta

• Kale, tomato and lemon zest one-pot spaghetti

• One-pot asparagus, pea + lemon pasta

• Pasta with green sauce and crispy garlic greens

• Pink pasta with radicchio, walnuts and herbs

• Pistachio and courgette pasta salad with lemon hot honey

• Summer holiday herby courgette and tomato pasta

• Squash + chickpea pasta cacio e pepe

• Tomato, caper and brown butter pasta

SWEET THINGS

• A magic bowl of chocolate mousse

• Brown butter lemonies

• Canditi semifreddo

• Chewy white chocolate, stem ginger and rhubarb cookies

• Chocolate, olive oil and rosemary cake

• Date caramel, chocolate and sour cherry shortbread

• Double lemon cake with streusel topping

• Easy florentine chocolate drops with cherries and pistachios

• Edd Kimber’s Dinner party double baked flourless chocolate cake

• Elderflower and pistachio cake

• Little blood orange cakes

• Rhubarb + blood orange streusel cake

• Roast strawberries

• Spicy margarita meringues with summer fruit

• Strawberry halva yoghurt sundae

• Strawberry lemon shortcakes with vanilla yoghurt

• The anything goes cake (the cake that can do anything)

• Winter Sunshine Carrot cake

SOUPS

• Carrot soup with tahini + rosemary

• Cauliflower + ginger soup with maple spiced cashews

• Celeriac soup with hazelnuts + sage

• Coriander, lemon and sweet potato soup

• Garlic + ginger pickle broth

• Golden turmeric + ginger udon noodle soup

• Lemony lentil + crispy kale soup

• Lemon, coconut and ginger broth

• Miso noodle broth with greens

• Not-chicken soup

• One soup, three ways

• Persian noodle soup

• Purple pickled cabbage soup

• Spiced tomato soup with lemon + herb flatbreads

• Sweet tomato and black bean tortilla bowls

SNACKS

• Burrata with lemon, chilli and thyme

• Deeply crunchy pickle potatoes with herby dip

• Dina Macki’s Black eyed bean and mung bean falafel

• Mimi Aye’s Burmese Charred Tomato Salsa (Pan Htway Hpyaw)

• Omek Houria’s Tunisian Carrot ‘Salad’ Dip

• Orange + lemon marinated olives

• Red + green roast potatoes

• Ricotta, basil + roasted strawberries

• Roasted grape + soft cheese toasts

• Winter rainbow snack platter + date caramel dip

SANDWICHES

• Crispy pea, lemon + herb toasted sandwich

• Greens, sesame + Cheddar toastie

• Squash, ricotta, crispy kale + sage fun buns

INGREDIENT DEEP DIVES

• 12 ways to eat (new) potatoes

• A fanfare for runner beans

• Capers, why I love them

• Corn-off-the-cob

• Four ways to make a tomato salad

• Tahini, I love you

• Vinegar (and pickles) I love you

FESTIVE & CELEBRATION

• Braised red cabbage with candied pumpkin seeds

• Canditi semifreddo

• Christmas olive oil and citrus pandoro cake

• Confit garlic cauliflower cheese

• Greens and Brussels sprout Caesar slaw

• Nut roast with pistachios and cranberries

• Mushroom and caramelised onion galette

• Roast potatoes

• Roast vegetable and winter herb gravy

• Speedy vegan stuffing

• Squash and chestnut parmigiana

• Winter Sunshine Cake

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

You are walking around a supermarket somewhere in in Europe. You need to make dinner for everyone, you are staying in a holiday house and theres not much equipment. In the shop there is, as there always is in Europe, a nice bag of pasta, a bottle of good olive oil, a few skinny pale green courgettes, some bursting red tomatoes and a bunch of herbs. At the last min you throw in some mozzarella. This is the pasta you should make. Whether you are actually on holiday or just at home and want to feel like you are on holiday.

Pasta is perpetual, I eat it a few times a week all year round. As it’s got hotter here, the pasta I want to eat has changed. I want barely cooked summer veg, I want olive oil-rich sauce that splits into a rich red tomato oil at the side of the pan, I want a kind of pasta salad feeling to my summer pasta.

Let me explain what I mean by that. Most of my pastas involve hot pasta going into a hot sauce, with a good bit of salty pasta water and some butter or parm or both to finish it off. But, when the hot weather comes, I move into a different pasta mode. A fresh sauce, mixed with cooked but not piping hot pasta, mixed in a big serving bowl, not the pan. With lots of herbs and cold or room-temperature add ins. If it did not give you the wrong impression, I would be close to calling this a pasta salad.

I know many of you will have bad memories of pasta salad. I do. There was a pasta salad that did the rounds in the late 1980s, twirly pasta with kidney beans, chopped red pepper and sweetcorn and dressing from a bottle. I actually used to love it but it’s a particular thing all of its own and most probably best left in the 1980s. Would I have a spoonful of it on the side of my plate at a BBQ or buffet today? The answer is yes. Would I make it? That’s a hard no.

The main things I had in my head when I thought about this pasta was that I wanted the veg (courgettes and tomatoes) to still feel very fresh, I wanted them to be cooked but only just, still sweet. I wanted a lot of oil, the oil to pool at the edges of the sauce as it bubbles up and to coat the pasta generously with bright pinky red tomato oil. I wanted it to be room temperature so the flavours could SING in their very, very best way.

This pasta felt very close to a few things I love to eat and all the things I was into eating that day (and in fact all summer) a Caprese salad, the grated veg makes the sauce coat the pasta like a ragu (excellent), and the freshness of the veg reminded me of those simple pastas with only grated tomato, a bit of garlic and oil.

I will be making this all summer. Some days I’ll change up the herbs, some days I might add some tiny cubes of olive oil roasted aubergine. If I don’t have mozz I could imagine myself adding a crumbled pack of feta or spoonfuls of ricotta. This will be my pasta of the summer. I know it already.

Today’s brand new recipe is for my paid subscribers who support my work and allow me to write, test and shoot brand new recipes. If you would like to become a paid subscriber, you can do that below. Whoever you are thank you for being here, there are hundreds of recipes on my website - all for free.

Summer holiday herby courgette and tomato pasta

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From Anna:

I am very happy to be handing this week’s newsletter over to Nathalie from Sohaila restaurant. My family and I have eaten a couple of memorable meals at Sohaila. The food was so good but what I remember most is the feeling of being looked after. Nathalie explains that Sohaila means ease and that’s what I felt as it sat at their table. I was there with my sister and her brand new baby and someone offered for her to sit in the manager’s office if she needed some quiet for the baby. True hospitality. Seeing and feeling the needs of the people in your care.

And the food. This is happy food. Small plates with big flavour and colour on top of colour. Food from the heart. If you go get the leeks, the rhubarb ezme and the batara harra. In fact, get one of everything.

Sohaila is also a social enterprise working with Fat Macy’s to help people in temporary housing find work in hospitality and move on to the next stage of their lives. Every meal eaten at Sohalia goes towards supporting more people in doing this.

Natalie and Meg, the female founders of Sohaila, also have a book out soon which you can preorder. So, if getting to London is impossible for you, then you can still eat their food. Nathalie has also shared with us a recipe from the book - halloumi with cherries and candied walnuts which I made and ate for lunch and will be something I make again and again this summer.

Pre-order Nathalie's book

From Nathalie:

Food, for me, has always been about memory. Growing up in a partly Lebanese household, the kitchen was never just a place to cook — it was where the day began and ended, where love was expressed without being said, and where the table was always set for more people than you expected.

Sohaila is my attempt to bring that feeling to London. The name means “ease” — a guiding star — and that is exactly what I want every meal in the restaurant to feel like. Not performance. Not theatre. Just the quiet confidence of food that knows what it is.

The menu draws on the recipes I grew up with: dishes passed through generations, shaped by the landscapes of Lebanon — the mountains, the coast, the cedar-scented air. We have refined them, adjusted them for a London dining room. The best Lebanese cooking asks only to be understood, and the chefs at Sohaila have done just that.

What matters to me is that every ingredient earns its place on the plate. We work with producers who care as deeply about their craft as we do about ours. The spices, the meat, the fish, the grains — they all carry a story, and we want our guests to experience it.

But Sohaila is more than a restaurant. It is the trading arm of Fat Macy’s, the social enterprise founded to create real pathways out of temporary accommodation and into hospitality careers.

Every table you sit at, every dish you eat, is part of that work. The two things — great food and genuine social purpose — are not in tension here. They are the same thing.

This is a restaurant built on generosity. Come hungry. Come often.

Get the book

More about Fat Macy's

Follow along with Nathalie

Things to read:

• My go to read that I keep coming back to is “Food from the Arab World.” My neighbour gave me a copy a few years ago and I find it deeply fascinating and informative. It has a beautiful structure that makes it a fun cookbook to read. It’s a genuine primary source of food knowledge and recipes published in Beirut. Full of real recipes, not an Americanised version. My go-to recipes include hummus bi tahini, baba ganoush, tabbouleh, fattoush, mujaddara, stuffed grape leaves. All very straightforward and delicious.

• I follow and get loads of local London info from LondOntheinside - it’s super helpful to have something out there that truly understands what’s going on in London and my local area for me specifically. Hospitality is really tough right now for so many reasons, especially with no government support. It’s so refreshing to feel like there is a space that understands this and supports you as a small business and social enterprise.

Things to listen to:

• I totally love listening to Off Menu; I am obsessed with what people choose to eat.

Things to watch:

• There are so many beautiful movies centred around food, nostalgia, love and hate. But without shame every time I keep going back to Big Night when I need to relax and feel inspired. Even thinking about it now I feel like someone is hugging me.

Sohaila’s grilled halloumi with cherries and candied walnuts

This recipe emerged from Nathalie’s home and dates back to the earliest days of Sohaila. From Natalie - ‘Cherries are a joy to cook with, whether in sweet or savoury dishes. Roast cherries go really well with strong-tasting softer cheeses – goat and blue varieties particularly. Here, salty halloumi (a favourite with customers), sticky cherries and sweet crunchy walnuts are a winning combination. Use frozen or fresh cherries, the advantage of frozen being that they’re already stoned. This makes an elegant starter or communal dish as part of a mezze selection.’

Serves 4

250g halloumi, sliced into 8 x 1cm thick slices
1 tablespoon olive oil

For the candied walnuts

80g walnut halves or pieces
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 tablespoon water
Pinch sea salt flakes

For the cherry dressing

200g pitted cherries, halved if fresh (you can use frozen here)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and ground black pepper

Start by preparing the candied walnuts. Toast the walnuts in a frying pan over a medium heat for about 2-3 minutes until lightly golden. Don’t take your eyes off them. Have the caster sugar and water ready and add them in very quick succession to the pan, stirring immediately until the sugar dissolves and coats the walnuts.

Tip the candied walnuts onto a sheet of baking parchment and leave them to cool and harden. You can sprinkle them with a little salt, but bear in mind the halloumi is salty, and there’s a pinch in the cherry dressing too.

For the cherry dressing, combine the cherries (if they are frozen there’s no need to halve them), honey, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper in a small saucepan. Cook over a medium heat for 15 minutes or more until the cherries soften and release their juice and flavour. Stir occasionally. When it has reduced to a saucy consistency, not too thick and sticky as it will thicken as it cools, turn off the heat and leave.

The last stage is to grill the halloumi. First brush the slices on both sides with a little oil. Heat a ridged griddle or frying pan (or outdoor grill) over a medium-high heat. Fry the halloumi for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until golden grill marks form and the cheese is slightly softened.

Arrange the grilled halloumi slices on individual plates if serving as a starter, or one large dish if it’s for sharing. Drizzle the cherry dressing over it, letting the cherries and their syrupy sauce cover the cheese. Scatter with the candied walnuts.

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Thanks for reading The Anna Jones newsletter, a celebration of cooking, vegetables and life. It’s great to have you here. If you have found yourself here but are not yet subscribed then you can sort that out below….

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins - a Sunday Times bestseller. There are hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

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How is it June? No, really, how? Did I inadvertently walk into a memory-wiping time machine on the 1st of March? Anyway it is actually June the 4th. I checked 3 times.

I’m just back from an absolutely incredible week on Anglesey, John’s homeland and in my opinion, one of the most beautiful / best places in the world. When the sun shines, it’s completely unbeatable. I am putting together a list of places to go if you ever find your way there soon.

Strawberries and sunshine

This is supposed to be the best year ever for British strawberries. I was eating them for a couple of weeks before I found this out, and I had been thinking that they are some of the most full-flavoured and sweet ones I can remember - all of them from the posh veg supplier ones to the supermarket punnets - they have all been good. This is, apparently, due to a colder than normal start to Spring, which let them ripen slowly on the plant. Our beach cool bag last week was packed with fizzy water, beers, strawberries and watermelon. Peak summer in May. Thrilled.

The Food season at the British Library

The Food season of talks and events starts next week and has some of the best conversations around food out there. I am particularly looking forward to one on food photography named from Apsic to Instagram (what a title). Making food for photographs was my job for a very long time, so I have history here and a lot of thoughts. There are talks with Ruthie Rogers and Neneh Cherry. Andi Oliver will be talking about Edna Lewis, and I am particularly keen to go to this one with Fadi and Sammi.

Summer Herbs

I’m a rubbish gardener, but I do seem (with the help of my friends Alice and Elisa who know their shit) to have been able to grow some herbs. My garden is full of herbs and it has become my entire personality. If you come round my house, I will show you them and then make you drink tea made from them, do not refuse. This year’s standouts are chocolate mint, which makes incredible tea, bronze and normal fennel, which I use daily, anywhere that needs dill/fennel/tarragon and lovage, which, in my opinion, is the best herb of all time but is only sold by niche restaurant veg suppliers. Loveage is the best thing to eat with tomatoes, or eggs, or courgettes. Plant some - it grows like a weed and you only need a couple of leaves for it to pack a punch, not like when you buy a bunch of basil, and it makes 20ml of pesto. There is a lot of bang for your buck with lovage.

Below for my paid subscribers is an insight into my colour book collecting habit and, in a departure from what I love, a few things I hate.

Heading out tomorrow, free for all you wonderful subscribers, is a takeover from a family favourite restaurant, Sohaila and thier halloumi and cherry recipe that is all the good things about summer eating.

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This week’s newsletter is part of an occasional series on my favourite ingredients. The first issue on capers is here and the love of tahini here. These are the ingredients I rely heavily on to add a lot of layers of flavour quickly.

Vinegar = acid and acidity is, in my opinion, the most important and most forgotten aspect of cooking. I like to use vinegar as an accent – a highlight, a top note – that brings a plate of food together.

Vinegar is something I find myself craving, and I keep as many vinegars on hand as I do oils. A red wine, a white wine, a sherry, a raw cider one, a rice vinegar, a balsamic and a few fun flavour-infused ones - right now that’s a homemade herb, a mandarin vinegar, a lovage and a blackcurrant. As well as rice wine vinegar, black vinegar and a malt for chips. I realise this is verging on a ridiculous amount of vinegars and unless you find it fun there is no need to have this many in your cupboard.

An essential collection of vinegars to me would be a white wine or cider, a red wine vinegar and a rice wine vinegar. With these vinegars, you can do everything.

The ‘fun’ or flavoured ones are good to cook with too. Each adds its own characteristics and is a chance to add a layer of flavour as well as some acidity. If you are keen on buying interesting vinegars then can I point you in the direction of Andy Harris at the Vinegar Shed? Most of mine come from him.

Of course, in the world of vinegar there are also pickles. They bring acidity and crunch and the flavour of whatever has been pickled so, in flavour terms, I think of them together. I buy a lot of pickles and at the bottom here is a list of my most loved ones.

The pickles I make are mostly very quick or instant ones. Thinly sliced cucumbers with some sugar and coriander seeds to go on a burger (see recipe below), lemon juice pickled onions to top a salad, things that pickle in the time it takes me to cook dinner.

The good thing about pickling is that, on the whole, it actually takes very little hands-on time, you just need to let the ingredients do the work in the jar or bowl when you’ve done all the chopping. Sometimes you need to do a bit of cooking, and some recipes need more time than others - maybe a couple of weeks for flavours to develop, but others, as I say, can pickle in minutes. As a general rule the softer the veg, the quicker it will pickle, and the thinner you cut it the more quickly it will be ready.

This week for my paid subscribers, along with everything I know about vinegar and pickles, I have three of my most made pickle recipes for you. They are three things I always have in my fridge and they make all my meals much, much better. The pink pickled onions and quick cucumber pickle are the work of minutes and vastly improve most things I eat - I eat one of these at least once a day. Sushi rice and some roasted broccoli is much better with a few spoons of a thousand-slice pickle. And if you want to pretend to be Andy from the Vinegar Shed, I’ve included my homemade herb vinegar recipe below too.

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Almost everything I know about vinegar and 3 easy pickles

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This week I am starting a new, occasional series where I talk to the chefs and food writers who I admire most and who make great things with vegetables. If given the choice, these are the cooks I would like to cook for me. The food that gets me really excited.

There is another fun reason why - I am in the middle of working on my next cookbook. So, as I put a lot of energy into that in the coming months, I will be sharing recipes from some of the very best cooks I know.

I am so interested in how and what people eat and the details of the way they cook, so I will be asking these cooks the questions I’ve always wanted to know the answers to alongside their recipes. I hope to give you (and me) an insight into how a cooks mind works, what’s most important to the cooks I love and why their recipes and writing are so good.

I want to particularly shine a light on people doing amazing things with vegetables. That’s what I am all about and I feel like a lot of the enthusiasm we had for eating more veg and in doing so, living more sustainably, has waned over the last few years. I want to reignite that conversation. And I want your thoughts too.

First up is Joe Woodhouse. His food is some of the best I’ve eaten and he’d certainly be high on the list of all-time cooks for me. Joe cooks from the heart, which might seem a cliché thing to say but for Joe it is absolutely the truest thing. Food is in his bones, I imagine that his whole day is choreographed around what his meals will be. He cooks intuitively and beautifully with great respect for ingredients, farmers and our land.

Joe is pretty much a life-long vegetarian. We share a desire not to preach or to label but to make great food that speaks to everyone. I am so inspired by people who cook this way, letting the food do the talking.

I was lucky enough to sit at Joe’s table just a few weeks ago with his wife, Olia and their amazing sons (This video of Joe cooking with his youngest Wilf made my day). Joe made us pizzas with the most perfect crust (a dough recipe lovingly refined over time to include a just right combination of flours). As we waited for the oven to cool enough that it would not burn the crusts, we ate salads on bright plates with herbs from his garden. Joe made us chocolate ice cream for dessert. I know that Joe, without saying or asking anything, remembered the things my kids would eat, and that’s why I say that his cooking is from the heart. Joe cooks to put smiles on people’s faces, and that’s why his food is so so good.

Follow along with Joe

Weeknight Vegetarian

Joe has written some very brilliant books. The third of which, ‘Weeknight Vegetarian’ came out recently. Since it arrived it has not left my kitchen counter. I’ve cooked from it so much. The stir fry fritters and the buffalo chickpea crunch wrap have been favourites so far but the whole book is crammed with things I am excited about. ‘Your Daily Veg’ and More Daily Veg are just as good.

Joe is sharing a recipe from Weeknight Vegetarian and he’s answered a few questions below. He’s shared this crunchy tomato salad with a bright green sauce (I can vouch for how completely delicious it is). Thanks Joe, I have endless love and respect for you.

What did you cook for dinner last night?
Tomatoey black lentils (from Hodmedods) with wholegrain spelt casarecce - I did a big bulk batch of the lentils and used them as a soupy sauce with the pasta. Which also comes from Hodmedods - the kids love it as it has loads of flavour. Plus I’m a massive Hodmedods fanboy!

What’s the most underrated ingredient for cooking with vegetables?
Vinegar - just a splash right at the end helps brighten flavours. A lot of veg can actually be naturally quite sweet so the vinegar can help to balance it out. In soups, stews and sauces as well as salads. It is such an important addition for me.

Your most loved vegetable?
Onions - anything in the allium family - but Onions all day every day. If I don’t have onions in the cupboard I start to feel like something is out of kilter. They form the start of so many dishes. Cooked down gently to become lovely and sweet. Or used raw or pickled to finish dishes. So actually you can have them twice on one plate. That is a massive win in my book!

What is the single ingredient you couldn’t live without?
Really good olive oil. And lemons. Oops, that’s two. But probably the olive oil wins, just.

How long have you been vegetarian? And why are you vegetarian?
30 years. I thought about it while watching a comedy show on TV when I was 10. The jokes about vegetarianism landed in a different way with 10 year old me. And I thought maybe I want to stop eating the way I am until I can answer some of the questions I have. The idea being that I would make my way back. It didn’t work that way. I ended up being a lifer. Essentially it is rooted in whether there is such a thing as a soul, and if it is ok for us to take someone else’s. I feel happy and satiated eating a vegetarian diet. I like the challenge of making complete meals that are vegetarian. Rather than relying on animal protein. Especially in the modern world, it feels like we are eating animals for every meal. The system has also become so mechanised. Full of really low animal welfare. It feels unsustainable and a bit boring. Eat the rainbow!

Is it important for you to get more people eating vegetables?
I think there is so much access to a whole world of new and interesting ingredients these days. As well as the usual ones prepared in new and different ways. It feels exciting and fun to taste outside of your comfort zone and maybe find new things to love. The importance of getting more people eating more veg comes from an inquisitive and feeder point of view for me. Because I don’t want to push anything on anyone. I am genuinely excited to share discoveries or ways of cooking or preparing veg that make it more interesting. And see if that ignites a similar response in others. Sharing the excitement, I guess! I find sharing enthusiasm a better way than lecturing… The short answer though is that I do feel it is extremely important that people eat in a more sustainable and veg centric diet. I love to give inspiration for helping with that. Make recipes your own and put your own stamp on them.

In your opinion, what stands in the way of people eating more veg?
I hear a lot from people that they are a little scared or intimidated by not knowing how to cook a specific ingredient. I mean you have to try it to learn how you like it. So take the plunge or ask someone how they like to cook something. Cooking something in a certain way can completely change your opinion of it. I like to roast a lot of veg in the oven simply with oil and salt. So you get an idea of it. Pair it with a simple sauce you like. A tutorial video will be available online if you really don’t know where to start. Have a look for some inspiration, and set about tackling that veg that has been staring at you from the veg drawer in the fridge!

The lack of excitement factor plays a big part for people, I think. The same old veg in the same old way. Boiled veg is great but it needs some dressing or sauce to bring it to life, a spritz of lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil. I love making a tangy green sauce in the fridge to toss through veg or dollop on top of dishes, hand chopped or blitzed up together. Think capers, cornichons, a little diced red onion or shallot, all the bits of soft herbs that are around, a little mustard, oil and vinegar. Taste and add more of what you like or it needs. Or take your usually boiled veg and griddle or roast it for a more intense flavour.

Best place to eat as a vegetarian? Best place to eat full stop (if that’s different)?
40 Maltby Street is my all time favourite. I have been going since it opened 15 years ago. The veg dishes are always so inspiring to me. The quality of ingredients and cooking is superb. I often daydream of when I can go next. My son loves it as well, just direct, outright delicious food. I don’t really seek out vegetarian restaurants. I seek out good restaurants, that have great produce and a good energy. The thinking being that if they care about the produce and are excited by cooking, it doesn’t matter if it’s a carrot or a chicken, it gets treated with the same respect! I look at where the good veg suppliers deliver to as a bit of starting point also.

The ice cream flavour you always pick?
Mint Choc Chip - out of nostalgia largely - it is my first memory. With my dad at the beach. Although if it is the luminous green version I hold off until a less vibrant one comes my way… Laura at Towpath does a natural mint soft serve version with chocolate sauce which is pretty ethereal.

What chocolate bar and/or packet of crisps would you get from the corner shop?Green & Blacks 85% - and something vinegary

What’s your 4pm snack?
I always say I don’t snack - but when I think back of course I do! When I do I try and lean into it and have something rather than picking endlessly. So maybe a small piece of wholemeal toast with good butter, set honey and a sprinkle of sea salt. A couple slices of cheese. Or I do like a handful of walnuts and a couple of sticky medjool dates.

Tomato salad with smashed crispy potatoes + mojo verde

SERVES 4

From Joe: ‘When tomatoes are good, I often look for ways to eat them where they remain centre stage. This salad has a lot of elements going on, each ticking its own cravings box: creamy, juicy, crispy, spicy. I love the burst of juicy, sweet, slightly acidic tomatoes against the salty, crispy, fluffy-centred potatoes, all tied together with a deliciously tangy sauce and creamy yielding cheese. If you want to go extra, sub in burrata or, for more tang, a soft goats’ cheese. Making up a big platter of this and dropping it in the centre of the table for everyone to help themselves is very satisfying.’

SERVES 4

600g new potatoes
flavourless oil, for roasting
400–500g ripe tomatoes, ideally a mix of colours, shapes and sizes
2 baby gem lettuce, roots trimmed, broken apart into leaves
300–400g mozzarella cheese, torn into quarters, or bocconcini
salt

For the mojo verde - (all ingredients to taste)

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
4 garlic cloves
50g coriander
1–2 green chillies
1 teaspoon ground cumin

Cook the potatoes
Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan (425°F), Gas Mark 7. Bring a saucepan of well-salted water to the boil and add the potatoes. Cook until tender when pierced with a knife; 15–20 minutes.

Make the mojo sauce
Meanwhile, put the mojo verde ingredients in a small blender or food processor and blitz until smooth, adding a good pinch of salt. Taste and add more of any ingredient you feel is needed.

Crisp up the potatoes
Drain the potatoes well. Drizzle a couple of tablespoons of oil on to a baking tray. Add the potatoes and crush with a pan or the bottom of a heavy-based glass; they just want to pop and increase the surface area in contact with the tray. Add a further drizzle of oil over the potatoes and put them in the oven. Cook for 30–40 minutes until crisp and golden, flipping them after 25 minutes.

Slice + prep the tomatoes
As the potatoes are finishing, slice any larger tomatoes thickly. Cut smaller ones in half across their equators.

Arrange + serve
When the potatoes are done, arrange the lettuce on a platter. Top with the warm crispy potatoes sprinkled with salt, followed by the tomatoes and the cheese. Dot over the mojo verde and serve.

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

Can I please ask that if you like this week’s newsletter and words, that you add a like or comment below and perhaps share it with someone who might also like it. Thank you.

All five of my cookbooks are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller. My website, on which you can find hundreds of free recipes is here.

Our family, I am sure like all families, is a multi-functioning organism. Maybe nicer to describe us as a constellation. We exist in holding pattern of joy, tenderness, laughter, meltdowns, responsibility, dishwashers, paint splatters, school runs and so much toast. All relying on each other in some way for it to work, we exist as a four in a beautiful, sometimes chaotic and extremely us way.

When something in that dynamic changes, it feels weird and we have to rebalance. John has been away for a couple of weeks and so our status quo has (temporarily) shifted. It’s a small shift but it’s had me thinking about how families change over time, how our family will change as kids grow and life changes - a feeling that’s felt by all families, however they look - children or not.

For a few weeks we have moved into a new way of doing things. As the only parent in the house it has given me endless respect for parents and people who do this day in, day out. I bow down to you all single parents and carers.

I have had to be more organised with everything, including our meals. I am an instinct cook, I cook based on mood, on want, on the feeling of the day, so I find it hard to forward plan and think about what I might feel like eating any other moment but right now.

In an attempt to help my future self, at the start of last week I cooked up a massive pot of Jersey royals, enough of a blank canvas to be taken so many different ways. I turned them into simple dinners with the addition of spring vegetables, cheese, eggs, herbs and dressings through the week. It meant I had the base of a meal in the fridge at all times. I have been running through my new potato back catalogue.

Today’s twelve favourite ways with new potato and how I make life easier with them, are for my treasured paid subscribers this week. If you would like to become a paid subscriber, you can do that below. If not, thank you for just being here, there are hundreds of recipes on my website - all for free.

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