Spicy springtime buckwheat with crunchy vegetables

Can you miss yourself? Because that's how I've felt recently. Tonight was the first proper,  whole evening I've had just chilling by myself for what feels like forever. In the past few months there's been a lot of work, city-travel, late nights, early mornings of coffee and writing,  evening fun with friends and family... but not much quality me-time. Probably also something to do with the fact that my friend Petey was staying on my couch for over two months. So this was the night. I wanted to cook the sort of meal that I enjoy cooking the most; wholesome, spicy, light. Followed by an evening of doing whatever the hell I felt like

There was hardly anything in the fridge and cupboards to cook with and I didn't want to waste my precious me-time in a supermarket, so it was always going to have to be simple. What came out was a dish I've made various versions of in the past, with various grains, vegetables and sauces... but never quite like this. It became a perfected, polished, cookbook-worthy version of itself. Hence, I share it with you. This is not something you'd cook for a dinner with friends, unless they're close enough friends to just chill with. That down there will make about 4 portions. All the vegetables need to be roughly chopped, the buckwheat needs to be cooked according to packet instructions, and we're off

Ingredients

300g (untoasted) buckwheat, cooked 
Small red onion, finely chopped
1 carrot
1 packet cauliflower/broccoli florets or a bit of each, chopped up (could also replace one or the other with a bit of cabbage)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tin of red kidney beans
3 tablespoons of peri-peri sauce, or another chilli sauce
1 tin of mackerel fillets (in tomato sauce)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon mild curry spices
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Heat the oil on the biggest frying pan you can find and add the red onion. Fry while stirring. After a few minutes, chuck in the carrot, broccoli and cauliflower bits, then cover and allow to fry on a medium heat for about 6-8min, stirring occasionally. Add the mackerel and the spices. Stir together for a couple of minutes, before adding the tin of tomatoes. Now bring it all to the boil, then turn the heat right now. Cover and allow to simmer for 6-8min. Add the salt, pepper, honey, peri-peri sauce and buckwheat. Mix it all in very well, then cover and cook for a further 5min before serving

Quinoa blackberry porridge for the Spring/Summer breakfast in bed

During my long search for the perfect breakfast, I realized that my reasoning was inherently flawed. What is obvious to me now is that the perfect breakfast depends on the time of year, on where you are on the planet, and where you are in your mind. Whereas in the heat of Thailand the perfect breakfast might be a banana, some watermelon and pineapple with yoghurt and honey, in London in the midst of a long, damp Winter, nothing quite hits the spot for me on a day-to-day basis like congee. However, if you add a party night to mix, then my perfect breakfast suddenly turns into a BLT on ciabatta with mayo and a fresh OJ. As it gets warmer and the berries starting popping out, I start to crave red fruit with porridge or oats with yoghurt. In this in-between period that we have now, warm quinoa with berries is just perfect

The quinoa gives this a lightness that you don't get with oats, and the blackberries give it tang and that specific British flavour. You could just as easily replace them with another soft berry though. I cooked the quinoa in water, then when it was ready, added some goat's milk (I can't drink normal milk anymore), a pinch of salt, lots of honey and the blackberries. I cooked it all until the blackberries fell apart and the milk turned pink and frothy

The controversial picnic salad

Back when it was Spring, last Monday, we held our annual picnic under the cherry blossoms. The tradition started a couple of years ago with the Japanese Sakura as a model. In Japan they get a day off to relax, eat and drink under the cherry blossoms and this year it worked out that way here, for us, with the perfect day being Bank Holiday Monday. I made a cauliflower and courgette spicy salad with raisins, having no idea how many people object to either cauliflower or raisins in savoury food. Luckily, so many people came that my salad found it's takers (and lovers), but be warned that though delicious, this is the controversial picnic salad. If you have issues with needing approval and wanting everything you do to be liked, then perhaps this salad is not for you

Break the cauliflower into small cubes and use a potato peeler to slice the courgette very finely. Pour some olive oil over both, sprinkle some sea salt and grill, turning occasionally, until nicely browned for about 6-8min (depending on your grill). You want the vegetables to be ever so slightly charred. Remove from the grill and immediately add a tablespoon of mild curry powder (I used the Jamaican stuff), some raisins and squeeze a lemon over the top. Eat in the sun, washed down with sangria. Hula hoop optional

Living on £1 a day: 5 tasty and nutritious recipe ideas

One of the first questions I was asked on my return from Poland was whether I was living on £1 a day. I thought it was a reference to my new freelance status until the concept was explained to me. Even though I have no plan to do that right now, I'm used to coming up with cheap recipe ideas due to my life-money balance, or lack of it. Basically, when I have money I spend it until I don't have anything left to live on. On those sad days I take some kind of masochistic pride in the fact that I can survive on next to nothing. So I would like to share some cheap recipe love with those of you who are on this noble mission. Here are my top 5 recipes under £1:

1. Pearl barley and kale risotto: Fry an onion in some oil until translucent, add some pearl barley and cover in vegetable stock. Add a crushed garlic clove. Allow to simmer on a low heat for about 30min. Add the kale. Season. Once it wilts a bit, stir it into the risotto. Serve with chilli sauce on the side. Price per serving: aprox. 50p

2. Homemade hummus and carrots: Blend a tin of chickpeas with the juice of half a lemon, some cumin, a garlic clove, salt and pepper and olive oil. Add the oil as it blends. Serve with carrot pieces. Price per serving: aprox. 50p

3. Brown rice with vegetables: Cook some brown rice. Fry a grated carrot, crushed garlic clove and thinly sliced courgette in olive oil for about 10-15min. Add the cooked rice, a tin of chopped tomatoes and any herbs or spices you fancy. Price per serving: aprox. 85p

4. Congee: This is an Asian breakfast soup, but it's great for any meal. You can find loads of congee recipes on this blog - here is my favourite one with spinach and egg. Price per serving: aprox. 65p

5. Pasta with beans: Super cheap and super delicious, you can see the recipe on my YouTube channel. Price per serving: aprox. 60p. Incidentally, all the recipes on there are pretty cheap. Liver with onion and mashed potato would also easily fit the bill.

I hope skimping on food doesn't mean buying eggs from caged hens and bad quality meat. Here are some more healthy ideas from the BBC. Good luck!

A delicious detox: Two well-turned-out salads

When you start craving salads instead of sweets or steak, you know it's time for a detox. Unfortuntely, being on a detox in Poland is really hard work. I've been trying to avoid butter and sugar - really not a huge ask - and yet these two rules have been broken again and again during this ten day stay in my homeland. However, I have been being running, doing my kundalini kriya and eating fish religiously, every day, so that's something. And since we've been in our house in Warsaw instead of a hotel in Sopot, I've been making salads. Massive, satiating, killer salads. I must have been inspired by Paris

For this one, you need to prep by: firstly, frying an onion in some olive oil for about 7-8min, adding the beans, salt,pepper and cinnamon and frying until warm; and secondly, grilling the red pepper with olive oil, salt and chilli flakes for about 6-7min. The salad bed is torn lettuce and basil leaves, chopped tomatoes (we call these rasberry tomatoes here in Poland, not sure what they're called in the UK, but the have a rasberry-coloured hue), and chopped feta. On top, we have a light vinaigrette of olive oil, apple vinegar and lemon juice mixed together, buckwheat honey (this is a dark, strong-tasting variety), salt and white pepper

And for the second one, cook the fresh asparagus for about 5min in boiling water, so that they are still firm and a little bit crunchy. If they are the fat ones like those up there, you should either cut a couple of inches of the end off, or peel the ends. The bed is a curly, crunchy type of lettuce, blue cheese, walnuts and hard-boiled quails eggs, and the vinaigrette is a sweet one with a mxture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, salt and freshly ground black pepper. With both the vinaigrettes the ratio of oil to vinegar is 3-1, and I use a jar to shake all the ingredients together

Sunny Springtime bento plane lunch

As I've been on the road recently I haven't been cooking much, but I would like to show off this bento I made for my mum (and myself) for our plane journey to Gdańsk. When I was a child I used to love plane food. Probably the fact that I came from a communist country where shops often only had vinegar helped. But also aesthetically - I liked all the small compartments full of different kinds of food - and the spirit of adventure that accompanied it. You don't get these on shorthaul flights anymore, so rather than buying some soggy, half-arsed sandwich, it's more fun to eat a meal that brings back that sense of something special about to happen

So please meet my Sunny Springtime bento! For the main dish I sautèd some kale with garlic in a mixture of olive and pumpkin seed oil, grated some nutmeg over the top and added the cooked pasta.The salad on the side is a mixture of chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, chilli, coriander, lime juice and olive oil. So it's all really simple, healthy stuff and super easy to make. It's only about the fifth bento that I've made in my entire life, but I can really see myself getting into this

Probably the best salads in Paris

Paris holds a special place in my heart. I have been here countless times, but our special relationship began when I was 19. I came here with my best friend for Valentine's Day and we met some Israeli guys. They were in Paris to meet a man prominent in the Church of Universal Energy. We spent the rest of our holiday learning about meditation and chakras. Even though I don't belong to any church or religion, as I see it this was the start of my journey towards a greater sense of awareness. Even though I have also been here with men in my life, I prefer Paris with girls. It's not a place of romance for me, but somewhere I come to reflect. And eat. And drink wine

Just off the trendy Rue Oberkampf, in Paris' Bastille district, there's a little Jazz bar and restaurant - this is what it's called but I can't find it online, the only other clue I can give you is that it has an aquarium- that has the best salads in Paris, perhaps even the world, I don't know. It depends of course on what your idea of a great salad is. If it's something that does not contain meat, then these salads may be a huge  disappointment

However, if you like to eat salad as a complete meal, and are not vegetarian, then you would probably feel the same way that I do. My one was full of goose gizzards and fois gras (I like to think it was the ethical variety, but since I eat it maybe once a year, I'm willing to forgive myself for feigning ignorance on this occasion), Magda's had goat's cheese stuffed pancake dumplings (it's the only way I can describe it) and parma ham. When we ordered our salads, the waitress actually told us that we ordered "les mieux". How lucky. They set the tone for the rest of our sun drenched, carefree weekend