The weather is soggy and chilly, and we all need some comfort.

This is more of a snack than it is a dish, but you could always put some salad next to it to make it healthy!

You only need a few ingredients to make it, but do try to find the best mozzarella (buffalo is the best) and a very good bread, the one in the photo is granary wholemeal, but I think it might work better with italian breads, olive or tomatoes or just a sliced ciabatta. Don’t forget the olive oil has to be very good strong flavoured extra virgin.

This recipe is basically an Italian version of cheese on toast (or Welsh rarebit)

1 thick slice of bread per person

mozzarella (sliced) at room temperature

Extra virgin olive oil

salt, pepper, fresh lemon juice

Toast the bread and drizzle with a little olive oil, put the mozzarella, more olive oil, salt and pepper to taste and a few drops of lemon juice, don’t skip this because it give a right kick to the toast!

Put under a hot grill until the mozzarella starts to melt.

Eat straight away!

Otherwise called “messy rice”! This recipe has few ingredients, it is very straightforward to make and I think it has the “comfort food” feel. If you are a cheese eater, you can add crumbled goat’s cheese or some feta cheese at the very end.

Ingredients for 1 (multiply as needed!)

4 tablespoons of brown basmaty rice

1 small sweet potato (red flesh)

1 small red onion

2 tablespoons of cashew nuts

soy sauce (about 1-2 tablespoons, depending on how you like it)

2 tablespoons of groundnut oil (or other similar seed oil)

Wash the rice and put in boiling salted water, let it cook until the grains start to “open” (this will take some time, depending on the quantity of rice, for 1 portion it takes about 20 minutes).

While the rice is cooking, peel the onion, cut in half and slice thinly.

Skin the potato and cut in small chunks.

Heat the oil in a pan and put the potato, let it cook gently turning them every now and then, add the onions.

When the potatoes are nearly cooked put the cashews (no need to roast them, they taste just as lovely), cook a few more minutes and take off the heat.

When the rice is ready, strain it through a sieve, put it back in the pan and cover with a lid, let it fluff up for 2 minutes.

Transfer the potatoes on a dish, put a little bit more oil (one tablespoon is enough), heat the pan and throw the rice in.

Add the soy sauce and stir well.

What you are doing now is making the rice crunchy, it must form a golden crust, so turn it with a spoon so you can have as much crunch as you possibly can, that’s without burning the rice!

When the rice is almost done, put the potatoes back in the pan and mix everything together to heat it up.

Put on a plate and eat!

If you want, you can add crumbled cheese but if you do you might want to skip the say sauce or it can be too salty!

My favourite meal of the day is breakfast, I could never do without, sometimes I go to bed thinking of the next day’s breakfast, I always find the thought of breakfast very soothing and calming…no matter what happened that day, I’ll have a lovely meal in the morning!

The item that HAS to be on my breakfast table is bread, along with black tea (with sugar, no milk), sounds all rather boring, but if you make your own bread things get interesting.

The recipe is for a wholemeal bread with walnuts, so from a nutritional point of view this bread is really good for you!
Baking your bread is easy, it just take a bit of elbow grease (think of it as a de-stresser, visualize someone you’d like to punch while you knead the dough).

If you have a bread machine, it’s terribly easy, I use mine but I then bake the bread in the oven, because I find the machine dries the bread too much when baking it.

The photo is not good, I know…but this bread is eaten so quickly I never have the peace to take a decent picture!

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Summer is over, but you can still find very good tomatoes, so here is a recipe that is as good as it looks and very simple to prepare, you only have to have a little patience because it needs quite a long cooking time, but I always find lots to do in the meantime! Remember it’s not a light dish, so share it with your friends!

Makes a tarte for about 4 people

1 packet of ready rolled puffed pastry

6-8 round tomatoes

150 gr mascarpone cheese

50 gr grated veggie Parmigiano cheese

about 15 basil leaves, finely shredded

salt, black pepper, thyme

Defrost the puff pastry or if it’s the chilled one, roll it out on a round (or rectangular, whatever you have!) baking dish and leave it until it reaches room temperature.

Mix the two cheeses together with the basil leaves and add salt and pepper, mix well.

Now prepare the tomatoes: with a pointy knife take away the hard yellow bit in the middle, and then slice it, trying to get regular slices about 5 mm thick.

Turn the oven on at 200 degrees.

Spread the mascarpone mixture on the pastry, leaving some space at the sides, then arrange the slices as close and as nicely as possible. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt, pepper, thyme and sugar (just a little bit!).

Put in the middle shelf of the oven and leave for about 30 minutes, then get the oven temperature down to 150 degrees and let cook for 45 more minutes.

When ready, no need to let cool down, you can cut it and eat it immediately with a nice side of salad.

Not the prettiest of dish but it’s is easy, very tasty, light but filling.

Frittata is a rich Italian dish, made with beaten eggs and whatever you might have in the fridge, it’s one of those things people do when they don’t have a clear idea of what to cook, or when it’s too late for any demanding preparation. It’s usually a savoury dish and never eaten for breakfast, as it’s the case with French omelettes.

Even though I am not vegan, I don’t like the taste of cooked eggs, so frittata is something I always avoided, even the smell puts me completely off!

So, this is something that looks like an Italian omelette but it’s vegan. Of course, if you want, you can add grated cheese.

The key is to get a nice mix of vegetables and cut them really small, I have grated potato, carrot and courgette and chopped the onion  and the kale, you can mix whatever vegetable you like, and add your favourite spices and fresh herbs, flat leaf parsley works really well, I didn’t have any at the time I made the one in the photo.

As for the chickpea (garbanzo) flour, it’s very popular in Indian cooking, so if you don’t find it in health food shops try in Indian shops, it’s probably cheaper as well!

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It’s my lovely husband’s Birthday and I made this little cupcakes with all his favourite ingredients, japanese tea matcha, chestnuts and chocolate.

We had them and they taste sooo nice!

A word about matcha tea: first of all, it’s very expensive, but you only use a little, and if you have never tried it before…well, you should! it has a fresh “grassy” taste, so it might feel weird if you are completely new to the world of real green teas.

Matcha is sold in little tins and it’s a powder, that you prepare by whisking with a special bamboo whisk in a cup.

Look it up on wikipedia

So, my suggestion is to use less matcha powder if you’re not too sure about it.

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This salad is easy to make and tastes so good I have had it as a light lunch many times.

The key ingredient is ground cumin, and I don’t think it could do without, but you also need a very good orange (one that has some sharpness in it, not a very sweet one).

It gets better if you leave it for a couple of hours (in the fridge, but take it out some 20 minutes before eating it).

Feel free to increase the quantity of the ingredients you like, aim for a good visual balance: when you look at the salad you should see a bit of all the ingredients… and yes, I do put more orange because I love it!

INGREDIENTS for a small bowl

1 big carrot, in julienne

1 orange

2 tablespoons of raisins

2 tablespoons of almonds (sliced)

juice of half a lemon

ground cumin about 1/4 of a teaspoon (the quantity depends on how big the carrot is and on your taste, so it’s up to you!)

extra virgin olive oil, salt

Put the raisins in the bowl and cut the orange above the bowl so that any juice will fall in the bowl.

Peel the orange taking away the white, then with a very sharp knife, cut the slices without their skin, then cut each slice in half.

When you’re finished, squeeze the skins for some juice.

Add the carrot julienne, the almonds and give it a good stir.

Add the lemon juice, ground cumin, salt to taste and a sprinkle of olive oil, mix well and leave to stand for anytime between 20 minutes and 2 hours.

I baked this cake today, and in the book where I got the recipe from it’s called “Vegan Victoria Sandwich Cake”, but for me it really is a dream cake: it’s super yummy, vegan, fast and easy to make…what more do you want?

Nobody will actually believe it doesn’t contain eggs or milk, as it’s so moist and looks like a “normal” cake.

First, a few word about the cookbook: it’s “Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook” by Rose Elliot, from BBC Books, it sells for 12.99£ and it’s worth every penny. All the dishes I’ve tried from it are very very good and turn out just as they should, no need to tweak the recipe, which is uncommon, I think!

There are plenty of beautiful photos, too, and the name of the author is a guarantee by itself.

So, click on the link down here for the recipe…

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