Red amaranth, enoki mushrooms, cashewnuts and black quinoa on a hot hotday

London is sizzling. No, I don't mean 23 degrees C going down to 10 at night, I mean a proper heatwave. Though they do say we'll be going back down to our usual, civilized 23-with-showers in the coming week. Thank god. That's not an ironic "thank god" either - the pregnancy means I'm really sensitive to everything and massively overheating. It took three tries to get into my lido. I'd trundle up there like a man in a desert only to find my cool oasis swarming with hipsters, forming an unmanageable queue. I finally managed to get in yesterday after getting up early, but it was still much busier than usual, even at 9.15am, a lot of idiots, a lot of road rage. Not your usual, calming "isn't this nice?" atmosphere at all. Luckily, in this weather I am not craving sausage sandwiches but things like this...

This was a particularly attractive and successful version of the kind of dish I usually throw together; a combination of whatever I have lying about my kitchen cupboards and whatever I pick on my way home. I stopped off at my favourite Vietnamese supermarket on this occasion and bought fresh red amaranth and enoki mushrooms. I cooked the black quinoa separately and used a wok to toast the cashewnuts slightly before adding the amaranth, enoki mushrooms, light soya sauce, a little bit of oyster sauce and Ghanian shito paste (basically a chilli oil).

After all my moaning about the heat, I leave you with what I love about London in the summertime. The luscious, wild nature all around. Now, if I could just get wild flowers to grow in my garden...

Pearl barley, wild mushrooms, blue cheese, gherkins

There is nothing more thrilling than the feeling of cultural progress. This was my elated thought as I picked up a packet of fresh wild mushrooms in my local Tesco's. Yes, the UK is now officially eating wild mushrooms, like the rest of our European neighbours. This is progress indeed. If we are moving towards a more advanced state in the tastebud department then I believe other areas will follow. We will surely soon be more understanding, compassionate and tolerant in all areas of our lives, n'est pas?

I fried these mushrooms up on some butter with a fresh shallot and dried oregano. I cooked the pearl barley in vegetable stock, adding the chilli sauce and crème fraîche near the end of the cooking time. I seasoned both. When serving, I piled the browned mushrooms on to the creamy pearl barley, topped off with blue cheese cubes and decorated with gherkin slices. Easy and delicious.

Ingredients

Pearl barley
Stock cube
Crème fraîche
West Indian chilli sauce
Wild mushrooms
Shallot
Dried oregano
Blue cheese, cubes
Gherkins, sliced
Knob of butter
Salt and pepper

Roasted buckwheat with wild mushrooms and feta for busy days

As you may or may not have noticed my routine has gone out of the window recently. Flown away to another time and place, one where I didn't have a full time (if freelance) job and wasn't working nights and weekends on another creative project (which I am very excited about). I am still cooking and eating of course, and when the light is right, I still may take a picture or two, it's just that I haven't found the time to calmly sit down and write about it. It's not easy maintaining good habits when life suddenly switches gear from one to five. And it's even harder to find the motivation to start again, when you know that your failure to do so has already lost you half your readership. It's a catch 22. As are so many things in life I find... Yet here I am again. And here's the kind of food that helps me keep my energy levels up and constant at times like these...

It's tempting to stuff your face with the biscuits and cakes that are always readily available is offices. Especially when you're rushed, tired and the weather changes... All I can say is: don't. I've been there and it's another one of those pointless loops. We all need treats, but I suggest we should think carefully about what we believe is a genuine treat and what's going to end up harming us in some way. Buckwheat is delicious and wholesome in its simplicity. The roasted stuff you will find in a polish shop or the East European food section of your supermarket. We cook it like rice, only steam it for longer at the end of the cooking time. I used dried wild mushroom, rehydrating them before and using the water to cook the buckwheat too. You can use fresh mushrooms. Fry them with some onion and thyme, using a mild olive oil, while cooking buckwheat separately. Combine the two on the frying pan, and add feta chunks. Eat hot or cold as a salad for lunch, like you see up there, with a million radishes to stave off any colds and other infectious diseases that may be going round. 

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Barley Pilaf

Sometimes I feel like I am on a one-woman mission to popularize pearl barley. I go on and on about how cheap it is, how tasty and how good for you. But I won't bore you with that lecture today, because I'm a bit bored of it myself now. But you know what I'm definitely not bored of? Uh-huh - pearl barley. This is another lovely recipe from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall for The Observer. The recipe down there makes four servings

Ingredients:

30g dried porcini
40g butter
1 tsp olive oil
2 onions, finely diced
4 garlic cloves, finely sliced
200g pearl barley
250g closed cup mushrooms 
About 600ml chicken, lamb or vegetable stock
2-3 tbsp chopped dill
4-6 tbsp crème fraîche
Salt and pepper

You need to soak the porcini mushrooms first in hot water a few times - so pour some boiling hot water on them, then drain them after twenty minutes or so and do it again. The second time round, I poured the mushroomy water into the stock for extra flavour. Fry the onion and garlic until browned, then tip into a bowl and fry all the mushrooms in the same pan. Cook the barley in the stock until soft, but firm, which takes about half an hour. Then add the onions and mushrooms, and cook together for a bit longer, maybe ten minutes. Finally, add the chopped dill and season. Serve with crème fraîche, and - if, like me, you need your food to be just a little bit spicy - West Indian hot pepper sauce. I changed Hugh's recipe minimally, as I didn't add the white wine which he suggested but used lots of the porcini mushroom juice instead. As I don't want to launch into another tirade of pearl barley glorifying, I will stop right here

The font has come out so small on this post for no apparent reason...