It snowed here again last week (in April!) so we’re still cooking wintery food and dreaming of fresh tomatoes and summer berries. On the stove are hearty soups like this one made of tomato, fennel, beans, leeks and wholewheat noodles providing a complete meal in a bowl.

There are two types of soup in the world, the sort that needs a good chunk of bread and the sort that is a complete meal in itself.  This soup is the latter type with at least 3 servings of veg per portion, wholegrain carbohydrate and plant-based protein from the cannellini beans.  As well as covering everything I look for in a balanced meal the combination of fibre, fluid and protein mean that the soup is really filling.

The recipe is completely inspired by a much loved ‘Chickpea and spinach soup’ from the 1st edition of An honest kitchen, a genius recipe which is much brightened by shoyu sauce and a handful of fresh mint.

It’s a very well though out recipe:

• minimal pans are used, the noodles are just cooked by pouring hot water over and leaving them
• shoyu sauce provides a complex salty note but with less sodium overall than adding salt
• all of the ingredients are ones that we usually have in
• You can swap in different fresh veg (I always try to include one from the allium family)

My version here keeps all of the cleverness of the original recipe but with ingredients well suited to a UK winter pantry, including parsley, the only soft herb to grow in my garden right the way through the Winter. Recipe étiquette is a tricky thing, but having just read Kathryn’s post on the Honest Kitchen blog on how much she enjoys seeing her and Lucy’s recipes tweaked and adapted, I think she will be more than happy to see her ideas put to good use.

Eating well all week undeniably takes time and effort. Much as magazines and certain celebrity chefs would like to tell us that it’s possible to put a healthy, balanced and brilliantly tasty  meal on the table in less than 10 minutes, most of us just aren’t that speedy in the kitchen (and nor should we be. As Kathryn has so eloquently put it, eating well is a choice of personal priority, and if you want to eat well it often means making a bit more time to cook and shop, and spending a bit less time on something else).

Having said that, the more you cook the more patterns and opportunities you see. That old adage of “work smarter, not harder” isn’t just for, well, work.  That mirepoix of carrots, celery and onion for tonight’s stew, well that’s going to be showing up again later in the week for a soup so why not chop double the quantity now? That brown rice that take’s a while to cook – throw in an extra handful and you’re much closer to an easy lunch for work, especially if you doubled that lemony dressing too.

If you watch for them, the kitchen is bristling with these little opportunities to double up.

At the moment one of these steps is for me is sauteing more vegetables that I need to use for the dish that I’m making.  I use this cycle of cook – eat – repeat in our house for all kinds of wintery dish.  Chopping a handful or two extra veg is easy enough and the cooking time isn’t really altered but by the time you’ve finished one meal you have a head-start in your fridge for later in the week.

A bit extra of vegetables that soften down well (such as courgettes and leeks) are perfect to save for scrambled eggs such as these courgette scrambled eggs .  Or more often that not I end up making a sort of shakshuka or pisto style dish with the eggs cooked in a tomato-based sauce.

These pictures are more of a template than a recipe.  Most vegetables that saute well can sit happily in a tomato sauce (leeks, onions, shallots, mushrooms, french beans, fennel, celery, cauliflower, asparagus, spring onion, aubergine, courgette, peppers).

A sort of shakshuka made with leftover veg

1. Pour a little olive oil into a deep-sided pan and turn the heat up to medium

2. Add your leftover cooked veg (I had a fennel and onion mix) and heat until just warmed through

3. Add a can of chopped tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes.  You might also add some additional seasoning at this point – harissa, chilli flakes, black pepper, ground cumin and coriander are all tasty and easy

4. Taste your tomato sauce and add more seasoning if you like

5. Crack your eggs into small bowls.  I use one or two per person depending how hungry we are and what else we might be having alongside. Make a little dent for each egg in your tomato sauce and gently pour in the eggs.  Reduce the heat to a minimal simmer, cover the pan with a lid and leave the eggs to cook. Without a lid the tops of your eggs just won’t cook but that’s OK – just finish your eggs under the grill.

6. Cook until the white of your eggs are just set, so usually between 10 and 15 minutes

Serve straight away while the yolks are still gloriously runny.  Nice additions include a slice of granary toast to dip in the yolk, a sprinkle of parsley for freshness, a handful of dark green leafy salad or a sprinkling of feta cheese.

This soup was inspired by one that I had a new local restaurant Florio on my last visit there, a simple butternut squash soup topped with greek yogurt and almonds. A pretty straightforward soup, but much more enjoyable than expected because of the deep lemon flavour and the clever garnishes. This is not a fancy soup by any means but the combined tang of citrus juice and the sweeter zest really lift the soup and the yogurt and almonds mean that each mouthful is slightly different, right the way to the bottom of the bowl.  Happily for once my experiments at home turned out pleasingly similar first time.

Early in the Autumn a soup can be a simple thing like this.  I’m sure that come February our collective taste in soup will become more demanding and we’ll be looking for full nutrition-in-a-bowl, rejuvenating solutions complete with protein and whole grains and fresh asian flavours.  But for now this little squash and citrus number will do just fine.

p.s if you’re after a spicier,more robust squash soup this one arrived in my inbox while I was writing up my recipe

You know my feelings about oats. They are far too modest to say so themselves, but how many other foods are wholegrain, low GI and more than usually endowed with cholesterol mopping soluble fibre?  And so versatile in the kitchen too.  I’m always pleased to find another excuse to include them in my week and hence my delight at having these spinach, cottage cheese and oat pancakes as a new savoury oaty option.

I know some people pooh-pooh cottage cheese but if you buy the normal stuff it’s actually rather nice and creamy. I think it was all the extra low fat cottage cheese (very watery and lumpy) and those strange additions like prawns and pineapple that did for its reputation. That, and all those flavour free, soul-destroying diets of the 1970s and 1980s.  But if you’re still sceptical about the merits of cottage cheese then give this Baked cottage cheese french toast with a courgette and corn salsa a whirl as a stepping stone to moving on to these pancakes (honestly, I dare you not to like them).

Those savoury oat, spinach and cottage cheese pancakes combine both of these ingredients and are literally a case of blitz and cook.  Credit where it’s due to the awesome Shauna for spotting the sheer simplicity of this recipe. We like these as brunch and making a savoury twist on the original fruity recipe makes it really easy to fit in some extra portions of fruit and veg alongside the pancakes (today a heap of salad leaves and some roast cherry tomatoes).

People with problems absorbing lactose be aware that cottage cheese has much more lactose in it than hard cheeses.

Many more ideas for including more oats in your diet over here, plus a whole host of cheese and egg recipes.

Broad beans are finally in season over here after bravely battling through an eternity of rainy days and plant-destroying gales.  I had what looked like a big paper bag full in my veg box a couple of weeks ago. Nik and I shelled them together the day before I cooked them, standing side by side in the kitchen.  Marvelling, as every year, at the thick protective cushioning in each pod.  So thick and tempting looking. But a little lavish perhaps on the bean to pod ratio – by the time we were done there were barely enough beans to fill a cup.

Starting out to make lunch for the two of us the the next day there were barely enough beans to feed one, never mind two.  I stuck to most of my original plan for the beans but padded them out with some leftover chickpeas.  This worked well so I thought I’d share the tip; chickpeas make a great substitution if you don’t have enough broad beans as the flavour and colour of the chickpeas don’t compete with the long-awaited broad beans and the texture is surprisingly similar.

There’s a very similar amount of protein in both broad beans and the chick peas (about 8g of protein per 100g) and just a little bit less fibre in the chickpeas (4g versus 6g per 100g) so they make a great nutritional substitution too.  The protein and fibre together make them a satisfying option for lunch.

I double podded my beans here. If they’re in a creamy sauce like this tagliatelle with broad beans, chicken, mustard and mint it doesn’t matter so much, but in a spread like this you want to see the splendid emerald of the inner bean, not the greyer outer casing.  Besides, by the time you’ve podded them once it’s not really so much of a stretch to do it again.

You can serve this on toast like I did (or anything else designed for spreading), or else eat it as a side dish or dip. I think it would be particularly lovely with fresh trout or salmon.

Becoming mindful teaches you that the nothing is the same twice.  Each breath we take is different and though it might seem the same each cup of tea that we drink is subtly different in multitude of tiny of ways.  Same for those regular meals that we cook week in, week out.  So what has this got to do with leftovers and frittata I hear you ask? The same is true for portion sizes also. Cooking and eating mindfully includes deciding how much is enough today. Not the amount that’s usually enough or what worked last week but what seems enough today, at this particular one-off mealtime.

With these two lovely new chickens taking us up to five girls in total, we’re regular frittata eaters in our house.  The recipe I’ve posted below is for the amount that I always make. It’s a variation on this ever adjusting Parsnip, Red Onion, Kale and Gouda frittata which in turn is from this basic frittata recipe. I am forever indebted to Kathryn Elliott for pointing out the simple beauty of a frittata for those days when you don’t have anything planned. So long as you have some eggs, an indiscriminate assortment of vegetables and a few scraps of cheese then you have dinner.

A 6 egg frittata isn’t the right portion for two people every time. Sometimes it’s just perfect, other times it’s a bit too much.  Which leaves the happy accident of leftovers for breakfast or lunch.  Sometimes enough for two people, sometimes enough for one and sometimes none at all.

This post is for Helen’s Breakfast Club Event, hosted by Monica at SmarterFitter.  As I’m a big fan of Monica, Helen, breakfast and leftovers I thought I’d join in!

I’ve travelled just enough to know that here in the UK we don’t get sent the best fruit. I’m not blaming anyone – if you have the sun it’s reasonble that you also get the pick of the fruit. But I’ve seen enough Mediterranean markets to know that we get sent second pickings.   I wouldn’t bother – our homegrown brit-fruit is delicious – but in the  hungry gap at this time of year I crave a bit of variety and start to look around at what’s organic and hasn’t travelled across too many borders to get here. Hence these slightly too hard figs.

A little warmth brought them out of their skin a little and softened them up quite enough to make a decent breakfast, squidged onto ricotta-spread toast.  It’s as streamlined a breakfast to prepare as you could wish for; a portion each of fruit, dairy and decent quality low GI carbohydrate in the time it takes to make toast and jam. It’s super quick because the toast and fruit both go under the grill (broiler) together, which saves washing up too.

I’ve had good results with gently warming under-ripe pears, plums, nectarines and peaches in this way too.  It won’t save terrible fruit, but works for those that are just a little bit jet lagged or unyielding.  Thin slivers of apple could also work without the grilling, and in the summer mushed up raspberries on ricotta and toast eaten in the garden is a fine way to start the day.  If you really want to bring a taste of Italy to your breakfast you’ll not regret investing in a tiny pot of Honey Miele di Tartufo which in our house adds truffle-scented enchantment to anything it touches.

For three years in a row I have tried to grow my own brussels sprout ‘rubine’, the beautiful crimson flecked cousin of the common green brussel, and for three years I have failed. Brussels sprouts need care, love and attention right from sowing the seeds in March, through planting out the baby brassicas in early summer (protecting them from our cheeky chickens and the slugs until they are strong enough to stand alone), and then onwards to the first frost for that all important flavour boost. After three years of failure  I thought that it was just not meant to be.

My humble thanks and admiration then go to Marks and Spencer for putting in a lot of effort themselves into figuring out how to grow these little beauties so that I could buy them. Apparently it has taken them a few years of practicing too.  Happily I can finally chuck out my sprout seeds and stick to the simpler but still exciting stuff like funny coloured courgettes and oddly shaped carrots.

The red sprouts don’t taste particularly different to the usual green varieties but unlike many purple veggies they do keep their colour when you cook them.  All brussels sprouts are a great source of Vitamin C for people eating and shopping sustainably through the British Winter and the purple colour of these particular sprouts is because they have a high anthocyanin content, a group of antioxidant molecules with potential anti-cancer properties (that old nutrition advice to eat a rainbow has some pretty sound science behind it).

I was so excited to finally get my hands on these little chaps that I thought this was time to make good the final stage of my brussels sprout acceptance journey from being a long-time sprout hater; eating a raw sprout. Long time readers will know that I was planning to reach this last sprouty frontier way back in 2008, but somehow it never quite happened.

Anyway, if you’ve been holding off trying them raw (like I have), then don’t. There’s nothing scary about them – they just taste like raw cabbage. That raw brassica tang is lovely with the sweet, nutty gruyere cheese and creamy almonds I used in my little salad, and I bet they would make a brilliant winter coleslaw with dried cranberries and a mayo and yogurt dressing. What’s stopping you?

p.s I keep forgetting to tell you that I’ve made Facebook page for Mostly Eating.  It’s another way of following the blog (links to all new posts appear on there) but in addition I’ve been posting a small selection of links to other recipes and nutrition articles on there.

Our damson tree has never been so laden with powdery blue fruits and this year they’ve clumped together like bunches of giant, velvety grapes. Clusters and clusters of them all over the tree. I’m planning to make spiced damson chutney and damson gin but these are barely enough to make dent and so this year there has been jam too – a caramelised boozy jam of damsons and port.

Fingers crossed, this is our last year in our current house (probably, you know how these house moves go – nothing is certain until you get the keys). This also means that it is our last year in our current garden and so I’m especially determined to make good use of our plum, damson and apple trees. I’m a big fan of using freezer compotes as a low sugar way to preserve fruit, but with three fruit trees and one small freezer I’ve had to branch out.

Jam needs its high sugar content to make sure that the jam sets properly and doesn’t spoil and go mouldy in the jar.  Theoretically you can use a little less sugar in damson jam compared with other fruit jams because of the damson’s high pectin content (it should set at a lower concentration), but we’re not talking about eating half the jar as one of your ‘five a day’ here so to my mind what’s more important is a successful afternoon in the kitchen.  Damsons (and plums) are a great place to start out in jam making by the way because of the aforementioned high pectin content – they’re more than likely to set unlike some fussier preserves like strawberry.

My jam is a chunky full fruit preserve which contains the fruit skin but I have also made a batch of a smoother, jelly-esque damson jam.  If you’d like to try the smooth variety you can remove the fruit skin and the stones together in one clever step, bypassing the need to stone the damsons by hand. Boil the fruit and water as per my recipe but before you add the sugar press the fruit through a metal colander, thus retaining the stones and any big bits of fruit.  This bit of kitchen genius comes strangely from unruly haired Mayor of London, Boris Johnson who is also quite right in his promotion of jam making as a unisex activity. “If women can go to work and suffer the curse of ambition, then we men are entitled to the restful consolations of jam-making”.

The damsons go through a riot of colours before settling at a deep, rich burgundy that is nothing like the yellow of the fruit’s flesh or the blue outer.  Having made the jam the boy and I were impatient to try it out the next morning but the end slices of our supermarket granary just didn’t seem proper and so we whisked up a batch of Heidi Swanson’s Easy Little Bread Recipe from 101 Cookbooks. Its short, dense slices would be hopeless for making a sandwich but this slightly sweet, oaten bread was probably designed with homemade jam and a smudge of butter in mind.  And as the title suggests the recipe is really very easy.

I hated fruit salad when I was a kid. Hated it. And then I grew up and started to enjoy eating fruit, but strangely the dislike of fruit salad persisted. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve realised the the secret to making fruit salad enjoyable. Only use fruit that you enjoy!  D’uh. I know this sounds obvious but it’s taken me so many years to realise that feel that I should pass the message on in case somebody else hasn’t realised.

For me a fruit salad should never be tainted by the smell of a banana, nor the grind of kiwi seeds. And it should definitely have some of the sweet softness of berries to complement the crisp and fresh. But that’s the beauty of making your own, you can cater to all of your own little iodiosyncracies regarding texture and taste, not to mention saving the planet by buying local and seasonal fruit.

A big batch of fruit salad is an indispensable tool for fitting in your five-a-day. Twenty minutes prep at the weekend and you have instant delectable, flexible fruit to hand for the next four or five days.  A fruit salad will live happily in the fridge for the best part of the week ready to be eaten at a moments notice:

• with yogurt
• on porridge or quinoa
• as an impromptu dessert, eton mess style
• naked
• on pancakes or sweet incarnation of this baked cottage cheese French toast

This combination of nectarines, berries and orange zest is how I like my fruit salad in the summer – you can design your own or copy mine.