I often get left with carrots at the bottom of the fridge. They play an overlooked, but important, base in so many meals: part of a mirepoix, in casseroles and in pies to name a few. Rarely, in my kitchen anyway, do the carrots get to be the star of the dish. So when some beautiful rainbow carrots arrived in the veg box it would have been rude to simply chuck them into various dinners. This time, I wanted to celebrate this lovely root in a rainbow Rainbow Carrot Tart with Summer Herbs and Goat’s Cheese
I often get left with carrots at the bottom of the fridge. They play an overlooked, but important, base in so many meals: part of a mirepoix, in casseroles and in pies to name a few. Rarely, in my kitchen anyway, do the carrots get to be the star of the dish. So when some beautiful rainbow carrots arrived in the veg box it would have been rude to simply chuck them into various dinners. This time, I wanted to celebrate this lovely root in a rainbow 
I always like seeing sweetcorn growing in the fields near where I live; it's one of my absolute favourite vegetables. The only thing that is a little irritating is the inevitable corn-stuck-in-the-teeth situation which ensues after consuming corn from the cob. Particularly irksome if surrounded by unfamiliar company. Worth it though; especially if you're lucky enough to have a 50:50 butter to corn ratio. If you're looking for something different to 
I like pastry. I also like cheese and I would happily barge anyone out of the way to get my hands on a cheese, onion and potato pasty. The perfect combination of cheese, potato, onion and pastry can be hard to find and I like chunks of potato and onion not a mush; so I thought I'd best go about making my own version so I can make it just right. It's also British Pie Week next week so the timing of my pie baking is ideal.
When I was younger I didn’t much care for vegetables. The one exception to this was my regular request for ‘Mummy’s Vegetable Soup’. I had tried soup in tins, in restaurants or at other people’s houses but nothing else came close. I think the thing that fascinated me about it was that no matter what amount or combination of vegetables went in (never potato) it would always come out somewhere between green and orange and it would be just 
Who doesn’t like a bit of cheese? Over the last couple of years I think Cheddar has been getting a bit of a bad name. Indeed ‘cheddar’ can be used to describe any cheese where the cheddaring process had been used to make it; hence, a piece of chewy, nasty, plastic cheese can be called Cheddar along with lovely, crumbly, exemplary artisan Cheddars.
I don’t like to be rude but sometimes a cucumber can be a pain in the backside. What do you DO with it? Yes it’s very nice quartered and added to a salad; occasionally I go somewhat exotic and fork the edges of the cucumber before adding it, it's terribly exciting. I have wanted to try a chilled cucumber soup and also thin slices with a little salt, sugar and sherry vinegar but every so often I find myself simply wanting to use the cucumber for 
The second part of my cookery demo is all about griddled asparagus. This is a great way of cooking asparagus as you can do it on a griddle inside or outside on the BBQ if the weather is on your side! Whichever way you choose you will get a wonderfully smoky, almost nutty flavour to the asparagus. It’s fantastic on its own or on the side with some poached fish, especially with the chive and crème fraîche dip!
A good sausage roll is like a hug from an old friend. There's something about its warmth, flaking pastry and well seasoned squidgy middle. I thought that interfering with something so simple would be a travesty but it was in fact a revelation. I like to think of them as spruced up sausage rolls or sausage rolls with attitude.
Spring greens offer so much in their name. They suggest that either spring is here or is just around the corner, they have disguised their cabbage relations with their seasonal pseudonym. I happen to think that spring greens also deliver a lot. They look shrivelled and unwelcoming with their leaves closed to the outside world but once you start to snap them off and slice them up they are wonderfully versatile. As a relation to the cabbage, spring 
As one of those people who would rather sit down and pick at fifteen different dishes instead of a complete meal a BBQ is perfect for me. I wish I had the energy to create authentic Tapas on a regular basis but until then I am finding all sorts of little things to throw into the standard BBQ line up. 
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