Smoky spring greens with butter beans (lima beans)

A lovely, vibrant, recipe adapted from a BBC good foods recipe; this is a relatively quick and simple dish to make. I've eaten it with both rice and mash potato, and both worked well. If you don't have access to spring greens, you can substitute with any spring/summer cabbage, kale, or even spinach.

Courgette (Zucchini), Asparagus and Feta Cheese Galette

Spring is here at last and so my cooking habits shift from soups and stews to quiches, tarts, and summer pies. I have had a bit of a gallete obsession recently (though unfortunately haven't blogged some of my wonderful creations) and wanted to make one that felt very in season. So I opted for courgettes and asparagus, and added in some feta cheese. Yum!

Caramelised Garlic and Goats Cheese Tart

This tart is adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's vegetarian cookbook plenty. I bought this a while ago but have been put off by the need for specialist ingredients for many of the recipes. This tart is one of the few exceptions in the book and requires very few ingredients. My only complaint about this recipe is that it uses all the cloves from 3 bulbs of garlic which takes quite a while to peel! In fact, I have recommended 3 - 4 heads of garlic as I found 3 wasn't enough for my tastes. It can be served warm or cold, but as usual with this sort of tart, it tastes better (in my opinion) cold.

Potato and Stilton Soup

This soup is pure comfort food; we ate it in our house with home made cheese scones and it was delightful. You could also substitute the onions in this for leeks if you want to make a jazzed up potato and leek soup.

Sun-dried Tomato and Basil Houmous

I have been a bit faily on the blogging front recently, due to a combination of work spilling over to the evenings and weekends (lunchbreaks are now a thing of the past), lack of sleep due to a 15 month old child who likes to wake up pre-dawn, and winter nights leading to poor lighting for food photography. Hopefully though in the next couple of months things will ease up and I'll be able to return to the heady days of 4 blog posts a month! In the meantime, here is an awesome houmous recipe for you...

Depending on how good your blender is, you might want to pre chop the sun-dried tomatoes. Other than that this is a pretty basic houmous recipe in which you throw all of your ingredients in the blender and press go.

Cheese and Sweetcorn Scones

Adapted from this BBC recipe, these scones have become a staple in our house and I always have a stash in my freezer for my daughter. You can omit the sweetcorn if you are a purist and just want straightforward cheese scones. 

These scones are so good and are incredibly addictive; so much so that I usually double up the quantity when making these to ensure I don't run out immediately. This would probably make around 8 large scones, though I usually make mini scones so that they are toddler sized, in which case it makes around 16.

Roast Butternut Squash, Brussel Sprouts, and Goats Cheese Gallete

This was the first free-form pie I ever made and I have to say I am totally sold. They are easy to make, very tasty, and best of all, adaptable i.e. a good use of whatever  veg and cheese you have leftover. This can take a while to make, but you can always cut down time by making the pastry beforehand and storing in the fridge until needed, or using ready made pastry.