In case you didn’t know, winter is not, I repeat: not, my favourite time of the year. I crave brightness and warmth, beaches and forest hikes amidst sun drenched foliage, weather worthy of serious summery picnicking.

Alas I do like a hot beverage, and rarely are they as satisfying as on a cold wintry day (except every morning, when I’m capable of anything to get some caffeine pumping through these here veins, but that’s a whole different story).

Apple cider isn’t something that’s available in the UK, a tragedy in so many ways, and something I miss from my American youth. This spiced apple drink has been my solution, despite its not really coming close to that beloved beverage, and it’s something I’ve been drinking every winter since moving to England nearly ten years ago.

For years I’ve read about this seasonal goodie, the edible flower of the summer squash which we know as courgette (or zucchini, depending on where you’re from). It’s a vegetable which takes over supermarket shelves in late summer, but sadly the blossoms rarely come attached to their counterpart. For the first time in, well, ever, I found some at a farm shop last weekend. My initial reaction was to greedily purchase the entire basket, but I settled with a mere half dozen.

I should have gone with the whole basket.

Recipe notes

What to do? Make stuffed courgette flowers? Yes. Deep fried in beer batter? Most definitely.

For the beer batter I used a moderately light lager, Becks if I remember correctly. I’d stick with light, even so much as something like Corona. If you don’t consume alcohol, try soda water instead.

And yes, I realise Daiya cheese isn’t available here in the UK. I hoard it like my mother hoards cereal on sale (sorry mom, it was the best analogy I could think of), using it sparingly for a treat (I go to the US a couple of times a year). Try any melty vegan cheese here, a cheddar or mozzarella style preferably, and it’ll be good.

Crown prince squash comes highly recommended from this messy amateur cook. It’s a tough one to peel, however, so roasting is an ideal way to enjoy this delectable winter vegetable.

Recipe Notes

This is a very rich and dense squash, one of the best I’ve tasted, and it makes for a lovely soup. Its density, however, means you may have to add more liqiud than you would normally to a squash based soup. In this recipe I’ve suggested 2-3 cups, but that will still leave you with a very thick end result. If you prefer a more liquefied soup, consider adding more water or stock.

Recipe Notes

The concept for these mini tarts is one which lends itself to a variety of fillings, so if you’ve got oodles of frozen fruit from the summer and autumn in your freezer like I do, then go crazy!

If you’d rather make slightly large snack pies, simply use a normal sized cupcake or muffin tin and make slightly larger pastry circles with which to fill them. If you’re feeling extra decadent, try topping these large tarts with Angel Food’s vegan merginue cookies. Similarly, you can upside to a full scale 9 inch pie.

I was just finishing a batch of this as P, the husband, came in the door for lunch. “It’s good,” I said, “but it’s not going to interest you because it’s salad dressing.”

“I like salad dressing. I just don’t like the salad,” was his reply.

Before you go judging him for being saladist, you must understand the English concept of salad has come leaps and bounds in the past 8-10 years. This is not as complimentary a statement as it seems. Instead of quizzical looks from restaurant staff and the concept of salad as a piece of lettuce with a slice of tomato and cucumber, a decorative side to your main meal, you might now get 3 pieces of lettuce and perhaps even some oil and vinegar. If you’re lucky, an onion and a slice of pepper or two might be thrown in.

This is not as salad-friendly a country as the United States.

Recipe Notes

This is reminiscent of a thick creamy Italian dressing, the sort made with hard fat cheese (think Olive Garden), only there’s no cheese and it’s completely cruelty free.

It can be consumed straight away, but like with many dressings and sauces the flavour develops if left for a little while before use. It’s tasty on pasta dishes, too!

I used okara in this because I like the added grainy texture, but that’s not an obligatory ingredient. In fact it’s a perfectly good dressing without any of the cheesy components either, but it does add a nice bonus if you can include them. If you don’t use okara, you can leave the tablespoon of water out if you’d like. Nobody will suffer either way, I promise.

Finally, I apologise for my vagueness in how much this recipe makes. What I got out of it was around 110ml, but I also lost a whole lot to the counter, floor, and my body due to unexpected flinging issues. Thus I suspect it’s possible to produce more if you can manage to keep it all in one place.

Cannellini beans are a Tuscan white kidney bean, smooth and nutty in taste, also known as fazolia beans. Perfect for a cold summer salad, comforting as a relaxing winter warmer, this simple vegan recipe is suitable year-round.

Sweet white miso paste adds a creamy texture and combined with white wine creates a hearty salty-sweet flavour which is sure to go down well with just about anyone (anyone who isn’t a crazy cretin anyway).

Recipe Notes

The use of rosemary isn’t set in stone. Think bold herbs which roast well- rosemary, thyme, sage, and the like. The incorporation of a bay leaf into the cooking process may also yield good results!

Serve either as a side, with salad, or on toast (this is a great alternative beans on toast recipe, seriously). Come to think of it, eat it however you bloody well like.

Who doesn’t love pizza? Since adopting a more vegan-friendly lifestyle, I’ve been experimenting a lot with pizzas. Fairly straightforward and 100% delicious, the standard tomato based pie is where we all start, but a childhood memory suddenly struck as I prepared to make yet another round of dough.

My best friend from my youth, Lynn, had a mother by whom I always felt incredibly spoiled when it came to food. She didn’t seem to have qualms about prices for meals and would take me to places I otherwise wouldn’t have thought to visit. One such meal was at a local bar/restaurant close to my US home, and that was when I was introduced to the concept of a white pizza. I just had to try to veganise it.

Recipe Notes

I got the idea of a beer based pizza crust from Cute and Delicious, only I used a modified version of a Linda Majzlik recipe instead. The beer adds quite a unique flavour to the dough and I’d highly recommend giving it a try, but feel free to use your own favourite pizza crust.

You’ll notice a slightly rotund crust in the above imagine. That’s because I had a go at a mushroom and cheddar Scheese stuffed crust. This is of course optional, but it’s fun to play around with!

This pizza may be vegan, but it’s seriously rich. I could barely finish 3 slices, and the same goes for my husband. I had to wait at least 7 minutes before eating the entire rest of the pizza.

I know my last recipe was also soup, so apologies for the repetition. I cannot hide my love for this simple yet filling and wholesome method of eating veggies. There are so many possibilities, and crafting soup recipes is an all star method for learning herb and spice pairings. Plus home made soups are a great way to be made aware of how crazily salty commercial and even some restaurant preparations can be.

I am an avid fan of dill, a herb that I think is quite under-rated in that it seems almost exclusively paired with fish in the eyes of many. An old-fashioned idea at best I think, for dill is quite versatile if you are willing to experiment (try it in a dish heavily influenced by ginger).

Recipe Notes

People argue about the inclusion of sugar in tomato-based sauces and dishes, many claiming it’s a useless waste and others swearing by its ability to enhance the tomato flavour. Me? I’m somewhere in the middle and I believe the use of sugar (or in this case agave nectar) has to be considered with each tomato. If they are overly acidic from a tin, the sugar really helps to balance the flavour, and a pinch goes a long way to enhance what should already be a naturally sweet fruit. Finding the perfect balance of salt and sugar will make for a glorious sauce.

I used beer in the recipe because I like the deep yeasty flavour (my excuse for “it was right next to the hob so I figured I’d bung it in”), but a white wine or a low-salt vegetable stock would also suffice.

The use of herbs is something, in my opinion, with which a cook can always play around. I’ve used basil, oregano, and marjoram in the recipe, but any mix of italian herbs would I’m sure produce an acceptable end result.

Note in the recipe I added the dill both in the blending process and before serving. This is because the flavour of dill has a habit of being quickly lost in heat (unless used in larger quantities), so it’s important to add it close to the end so the flavour remains present.

The cream I used was Alpro single cream, but any will do. This isn’t a necessary ingredient, but makes for a smoother soup on the table.

My husband has a hard time with this one, not I believe because of its flavour, but because it’s hard for him (and many people) to conceive of certain foods being served in certain ways.

“But think about pumpkin pie,” I said. He reminded me pumpkin pie is not so common in the UK. Oops. Well I think it’s good.

So yes, it’s a little like pumpkin pie ice cream. I had a big kabocha/sweet mama squash sitting around being begged to be used and I got to thinking about what could be made of the thing. I knew I’d roast some, but not all, so what about the rest? Ice cream! Why not?

Recipe Notes

I steamed my squash by cutting into small pieces and placing in a bamboo steamer lined with greaseproof paper. If you have a steaming basket, that works too.

I purposely made the recipe not too sickly sweet, but hubby thinks it’s perhaps not sweet enough. I still disagree but if you’ve got a great big sweet tooth then you might want to consider adding more than 1/3 cup of sugar.

If preferred, you can filter the mixture through a sieve to remove any ginger pieces or little strands of squash before adding it to your ice cream maker. This is, however, by no means necessary.

Don’t have kabocha squash? How about trying pumpkin or butternut squash instead?

I currently have a refrigerator overflowing with so many glorious root vegetables and soup is one of my favourite ways to use them when I find myself in this state. Plus after a long day soup is both an easy and nutritious meal which can be prepared easily while planning a holiday on the phone with my mother.

People underestimate soup. Too many people think of it as a tinned (canned) emergency food, the sort of thing you plop into the microwave and give your kids as an easy afterschool snack or chuck into food drive boxes at the supermarket. This is soup that’s often heavy in salt, sugar, and who knows what other preservatives and colourings. Not that I’m completely against this (confession time: tinned tomato soup + grilled cheese (non-dairy of course) is a junk snack craving I get about once a year that must be filled).

What I’m saying is I don’t really get the idea of tinned soup for ease of preparation, because there aren’t many things you can do in the kitchen easier than making soup from fresh ingredients. Sure you have to wait a little while longer past the simple process of using a tin opener and pressing some buttons on the microwave, but it’s worth it in the end. I promise.

Did I mention we got rid of our microwave?

Recipe notes

This is, like most soups, a recipe easily prepared by even the greatest kitchen novice. I usually use my pressure cooker for soups, but if you don’t have one that’s okay too; it will just take a bit longer to prepare. If you aren’t using a pressure cooker simply follow the same instructions, only in a large pot, cooking the vegetables until tender.

An interesting concoction for bean curd lovers at least, this bastardised form of nigari tofu came to me after a discussion with someone about Vietnamese food. Vietnam is the only Southeast Asian country that uses dill (in fact, the Vietnamese use more fresh herbs than any of the others), and this is due to the past French influences (they are also the only country who can bake decent bread, a fact for which I also thank the French).

While not really a Vietnamese style dish in any way, I made the decision to create a tofu packed with this fragrant herb, with a little bit of tomato paste and ginger to accompany.

The end result, which quite clearly included a very stained piece of muslin (it washed out), was pretty impressive. I left the tofu for a couple of days so the flavour of the herbs would fully infuse, and then cut it into pieces and served it immediately after a quick fry. This would be a really cool hors d’oeuvre (think toothpicks and pretty serving trays, baby)!

There really isn’t a proper recipe for this bean curd, I’m sorry to say, but we’re looking at a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, and inch or so of grated ginger, and at least 1/4 cup of fresh chopped dill. This is for a firmly-pressed block of tofu made with 1 litre of fresh soy milk.

I popped into my favourite Asian shop in town bought approximately 15,000 tonnes of fresh herbs last weekend and with some mint still to use up, I decided a pasta and pea combination was in order. I did not, however, wish to have the mint completely overpower the dish, hence an addition of basil and rocket (arugula). The lemon juice and red wine vinegar add a nice tartness to the overall flavour, also mellowing the mint a tad bit.

It’s hard to fail with pasta

“It’s good, but pasta and peas…?” my husband mused as we both excitedly tried to stuff our tortiglioni pasta with as many peas as would fit. Thus two things dawned on me, the first being that outside of Italy I think everything assumes a pasta dish should always involved tomatoes. The second realisation to hit me was that yes, this is dish just begs for both adults and children to play with their food.

I can think of worse things than kids fighting over who can fit the most peas in a piece of pasta and eat it before the other.

This refreshing and healthy vegan pasta dish serves two as a hot main, but I would seriously consider it as a side salad-y type thing for a picnic basket!

Recipe Notes

Saag Paneer is one of my all-time favourite Indian dishes, and it’s one which is easily adapted to a vegan diet by simply substituting a good quality tofu for the paneer. The tofu was made using a SoyQuick soy milk maker. The recipe for the garam masala blend is similar to this tofu recipe (but halved); Make the tofu as usual, but add 1/2 teaspoon of garam masala and 1/8 teaspoon salt to the curd instead of the other ingredients before pressing. If you don’t make your own tofu, don’t worry; feel free to use something store bought (just add some garam masala to the curry toward the end of cooking).

This is a very easy vegan recipe that I’d recommend to anyone. You can use your favourite spinach curry recipe (goodness knows there are billions, if not trillions). If you would like a little added richness then add a few tablespoons of vegan cream and some rich vegan butter (e.g. Vitalite).

So my mom bought me a pressure cooker while I was in the states. It’s not a kitchen appliance I’d ever used, nor is it one I’d ever given much thought to owning. But then, when my mother handed me this monstrous thing to go into my already crammed suitcase, I remembered some dish my parents used to make when I was little. This was of course when I still ate meat, but it was at the time of my favourite meals. All I remembered was that it involved pork, potatoes, and carrots. When I mentioned this to my mother, she said that it was something she had in fact done in the pressure cooker. Awesome, because I loved those potatoes and carrots! I graciously and greedily packed my new toy away in my evil basement den (i.e. my mom’s work room in downstairs).

And now I’m experimenting with it. I tried a recipe a few months ago (I can’t remember exactly where from, sadly) that involved covering a saucepan with damp wax paper and a lid so to better steam the soup ingredients inside. Well what better way to keep the steam in the cooking container than with a pressure cooker?

Had I more time, I’d have used my own pre-made vegetable stock. I just used up the last frozen batch last night, so that’s on this week’s to-do list!

Sage is one of my favourite herbs. It’s beautiful to look at on my windowsill (and believe me, it’s plentiful; my awesome mother-in-law buys me loads!) and it’s fantastic to eat. One of the best ways to enjoy it, in my opinion, is simply fried in a little margarine or oil until it’s just nice and crispy. Here I’ve just made a simply gnocchi recipe (you can use your own if you’d like) with a simple crispy sage vegan butter sauce. I served it with roasted baby plum tomatoes (I actually meant to include them in the salad before the main, but completely forgot… luckily they went well with the gnocchi) which are of course optional.

I’ll be honest with you; Gnocchi is not yet a mastered skill of mine. That’s why I say you can of course use your own recipe. This tastes good, but to any gnocchi snobs out there I’m sure it’s not considered gnocchi-tastic! I’d be happy at any rate to toss out the whole lot and just munch on the crispy sage… mmm…