Asparagus arrancini and shredded carrot with mint and orange

Every few months I pull out a Koan card. This card is something I keep in mind for the coming months and it's always the perfect advice for me. A few months ago, when I was finishing writing my book ("Polska" is now available for pre-order), the Koans advised me: "I burn the books in my bag, but the verses written in my guts cannot be forgotten". After all the research, this advice really struck a cord - it was time to forget about all the other books and create something new. Then when my baby was born the Koans said: " The seeds of the past are the fruits of the future". A reminder that every moment counts, because the baby is like a sponge. Today, I pulled out a new card. Right now my life is very busy - my baby is nearly 6 months and requires more attention than before, I am building a website for myself (something I haven't done since 1999) and I have a very long to do list, which needs to be completed before my book launch (July in the UK, September in the US). I am also selling my flat and trying to buy a family home with my partner. So the Koans told me: "Water heats slowly and it boils suddenly". They are advising patient perseverance. Perfect. Difficult, but really the perfect advice for me for now. Slow, consistent perseverance in the knowledge that everything will come in the right time and in the right way. In the midst of all these things I need to do, I also need to cook and eat. As I'm breastfeeding, I'm making an extra effort to eat healthy, nutritious, filling, food (because I am starving all the time). I made a risotto recently with local asparagus, which we bought in a farm shop somewhere in Sussex between London and Eastbourne. I also used local cheese instead of Parmesan. Apart from that the risotto recipe was the basic one - onion, arborio rice, vegetable stock added gradually. Then the steamed asparagus and some par-boiled peas. The cheese is added right at the end, once the risotto is cooked. The next day I rolled the leftovers into balls, covered them in breadcrumbs and fried them in rapeseed oil.

I bought beautiful carrots from that very same shop and shredded them. I juiced an orange and used that, along with good quality Virgin olive oil, Moroccan cumin and salt and pepper as a dressing. Finally, I tore some mint leaves from the garden and straight into the salad.

Radiccio and venison risotto with pinenuts

I don't usually blog about risottos and the like because, well, everyone knows how to make a risotto. However, a few days ago I stumbled across such a great flavour combination that I can't not tell you about it. Luckily, the days are getting longer now here in the UK so it was light enough to take a picture. Here it is, at various stages of being eaten.

You make the risotto like you usually would - fry the red onion, add the arborio rice, stir etc. Before adding stock, however, you squeeze the meat out of the venison sausages into the pan and fry it along with the onion and rice, squashing it down with a fork. After about 5min of this, start adding the stock and continue as usual. Add the dried oregano somewhere near the start. Meanwhile pour the balsamic vinegar over the radiccio, along with a little bit of olive oil and roast it in the oven at about 180 degrees C for about 25min. Half-way through add the pinenuts. Finally,  mix the radiccio and pinenuts with the risotto, and stick the cherry tomatoes in the hot oven for 10min. Right at the end we season well, according to our own taste, add the grated parmesan, and serve with the roasted cherry tomatoes on top as you see up there. I've made many risottos in my lifetime, but this one is my current number one, for the sheer depth of flavour. This recipe serves 2.

Ingredients:

200g arborio rice
1 radiccio, chopped
2 venison sausages
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons pinenuts
2 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Vegetable stock
Salt and pepper

Leftover risotto balls aka arancini

It's too easy to live a life filled with anxiety, frustration and stress, especially in a city like London. The more we want to move away from negative emotions, the more they stalk us. I've found that the only way is through: to accept that life is not meant to be easy, it's meant to make us grow. Ironically, once you accept life with all it's issues, the issues often give way and the clouds part. I'm going through one of these sweet moments right now, and it's giving me such an innate trust in the universe that every setback I encounter, every emotion that I face, I know is there for a reason and I accept them all. I am in the process of building the life I want, a very simple one in a way, yet here in London this is a challenge. I now see this as a good thing, because life would be monotonous with no challenges

I am eating simply too. Plenty of grains and vegetables, not much meat. I have a house guest in my living room and we share a lot of our meals. Recently, I made a risotto with some dried wild mushrooms I still had from Poland. The next day I rolled the left over risotto into small balls - it was still sticky from the melted parmesan. I could have rolled the balls around in some breadcrumbs like they do in Sicily, but I forgot and just fried them in about a centimeter of olive oil, turning every few minutes. They were divine! Make sure you don't throw away your left-over risotto, and do this instead. I ate them with a rocket salad on the side for lunch

Butternut squash congee with crunchy radish and spring onion

I'm getting into this whole congee thing. Just as there are infinite varieties of porridge, it's the same with congee. This is a vegetarian one I made, by cooking white jasmine rice and butternut squash for about 3 hours in loads of water. I also added some chilli, sea salt, garlic and paprika. When it was ready I added crunchy bits of spring onion and radish,  then soya sauce for flavour

You can keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days, warming up little bit, with some extra water, in the mornings. Which makes it a really practical breakfast too. So yeah, I think I might be becoming a bit of a congee bore. Sorry, I will cook something delicious and un-congee-like this weekend and tell you all about it. I just had to mention this one, because I was so surprised at how well it turned out without any meat, and look how pretty it was too

Spicy sweetcorn congee

I've decided to get my not-so-healthy butt on a massive, Chinese health kick. I've been on many Western health kicks and detoxes but I'm ready to try something different. To say I am unhealthy does not feel completely accurate, I am much healthier than I was a year ago, two years ago, but I have one persistent health problem and I would like to know I tried everything before I need to undergo a rather intrusive and wholly inconvenient procedure. So I am giving myself and Chinese medicine 6 months to sort it out. You know how I like my experiments, especially when they involve plenty of food

It's difficult to understand the intricacies of Chinese food rules from simply reading articles on the internet. The rules are different for each individual and it's a whole new way of thinking to get your head around. But congee is something every expert agrees benefits everyone. Congee reminds me of something that we ate in Poland when I still very young and sick in bed - rice soup with cooked apples. It was called "kleik" - little glue. Sometimes it was all I'd be given to eat for days on end, which eventually ruined it for me, unsurprisingly. But now, after rediscovering congee in Thailand, I am ready to eat this rice soup once more. However, I prefer the spicier, Asiatic versions to the Polish one. You basically cook the corn on the cob and the chicken, ginger, chilli and lemongrass with the rice and water for about 3 hours. Add a little sea salt to get the minerals out of the chicken bone. About half way through, take out the corn and chicken, allow to cool and take the meat off the bone (discard the skin) and the corn off the cob and add back into the rice soup. After another half an hour, take out the lemongrass. After 3 hours I found that my congee was the perfect consistency. Eat it straight away and allow the remainder to cool before putting in the fridge. I am now keeping it in there and just warming up a little each day, with some extra water for breakfast. I believe it can keep for about 5 days, but I will try and eat it in 3, just to be on the safe side. What I really love about congee is that the variations are infinite. I will keep you posted on my ones, of course

Ingredients

Cup full of rice and 7 times as much water
Lemongrass - 2 stems
2 inches of fresh ginger - peeled and chopped
Organic chicken thigh on the bone
Fresh chilli
2 corn on the cob

Soya sauce and chopped spring onion to serve

Authentic Spanish Paella

When it's dark and cold as you get up in the morning, dark and cold as you leave work, and grey for most of the time in between, you need to try and bring some sunshine into your life in any way you can. And this winter, sunshine comes in the form of paella for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about eating seasonally and locally, and I try to do that even when making paella, yet there's no need to be obbessive about it, is there now? Just look at my beautiful paella and tell me it doesn't tempt you

A friend of mine, Mariana, who grew up in Spain, has taught me how to make this dish in the proper manner. It's always good to learn how to make something authentically first, as close to the original as possible, before experimenting I find. Like when I learnt to make risotto in the proper manner in Italy. It gives you a good strong foundation to build upon. Incidently, the only thing those to dishes appear to have in common is rice. And not even that really, since Mariana insisted that we used this particular rice, which sadly isn't widely available

Calasparra hails from Murcia, and although paella is traditionally Valencian, I've visited that part of the world and the arroz-type dishes are just as common in both the regions, though the meats, fish and vegetables vary. I had a beautiful rabbit paella in the mountains of Murcia for example. Of course, Valencian rice is just perfect. But do not be tempted to make paella with risotto rice, because it is simply too creamy

Here's Mariana hard at work, when she made it the first time a couple of weeks ago and I decided that when it comes to winter get-togethers with friends, paella is the way forward. Especially, if your friends are willing to help, because two pairs of hands come in really useful here!

Ingredients (serves 3)

2 cups rice

3 tablespoons olive oil

Red pepper, chopped into tiny cubes

Small onion, chopped into tiny cubes

1 tsp saffron

3 tsp paprika

Mussels - 3 handfuls

3 tiger prawns

2 squid, in rings

Fish stock cube

Lemon

2 garlic cloves

Sea salt

Black pepper

Ok, bear with me here because I will need to go into quite a bit of detail. It's not my usual style, but as we've established, you need to do this properly the first time round. Firstly, the red pepper and onion need to be chopped very, very small, but not minced. Crush the garlic cloves and heat the olive oil in a large pan. Fry the garlic to flavour the oil then discard. Fry the onion until golden, then add the red pepper and continue to fry, not stirring too much as it needs to caramelize. Add salt to taste and some paprika. Meanwhile put the seafood in cold water, with the saffron and salt, and bring to the boil. Make sure it's all covered. Cover and cook for about 3min, then remove from the water. Add half a fish stock cube to the hot water, and allow to simmer. Now add the rice to the first pan and stir in for a little while, maybe 3-4min, before adding some stock. You do not stir again. Ever. You shake the dish a bit instead, to spread everything out evenly

It should look like this. Now leave it until the water evaporates, when you can add some more. Keep doing this, shaking the pan a little from time to time. Finally, arrange the seafood on top of the paella in an attractive manner. Cover the pan and allow to cook a while longer, until the rice is perfect. Basically after about 10min, try a bit and see what it tastes like. Sprinkle with more paprika and serve with lemon wedges. When you serve it, you'll see how it's all caramelized at the bottom in a slightly crunchy and incredibly tasty way. That's exactly how it should be - enjoy

Indonesian fried rice

My friend, Dan, cooked a lovely dinner for me on Sunday night. It was an Indonesian dish, which he said is called something like "Cow Pat" - nice. I said that if it was good, it would feature on my blog, so being the competitive boy that he is, he did an amazing job, and so here we are...

Ingredients

350g long grain rice, soaked in water for 30min and drained

2 tsp salt

650ml water

50ml vegetable oil

2 medium onions chopped very finely

2 red chillies

1 tsp blachan (dried shrimp paste)

1 garlic clove, crushed

2 tsp ground coriander

175g cooked prawns, shelled

175g cooked lamb or beef, sliced

2 tsp soft brown sugar mixed with 1 tbsp treacle and 2 tbsp soya sauce

Cook the rice in the water with some salt. Cook the onions in some oil until they are golden. Dan said that the main thing about this dish was slicing the onions very finely, and to keep stirring them when they are frying, everything apart from that is pretty straight forward. Add the chillies, garlic, coriander and blachan. Blachan might sound like it's hard to find, but you can find various versions of it in asian food stores - just ask for dried shrimp paste. Stir in the prawns and meat and fry for a further couple of minutes. Stir in the rice, soya mixture, more salt. Turn the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. It can be eaten like this or with a fried egg or omelette on top. This recipe makes a massive pan, about 6-7 servings at a guess, so great for having mates round for a chilled night in

Spicy mung beans and rice

When will I ever learn not to get drunk on Sundays? Really, I'm old enough to know better

The thing is that, recently, my weekends have actually been quite sensible, it's just those bloody Sundays I can't get under control. Of course, it's always fun at the time otherwise I wouldn't do it. But what I was really looking forward to the whole of last week was having the whole of Saturday to myself, in my flat. I spent it pottering round, cleaning, doing laundry, reading cookery books and generally sorting stuff out. And in the evening, rather than going to a party, I chose to watch series 2 of The Mighty Boosh. Heaven. I also made this mung bean dish. This is a first for me as I've never cooked mung beans before. Previously, I've used this recipe for lentils and thought it could work. It did. Even better than with the lentils, which tend to fall apart. The measurements down there make about 4 portions

Ingredients

250g brown rice

250g mung beans

2 red chillies

Small onion

2-3 inches ginger

Garlic clove

2 tblsp garam masala

Olive oil

Butter

Salt

Soak the mung beans according to packet instructions. Fry the chopped chillies, garlic, ginger and onion for a couple of minutes in a mixture of olive oil and butter, then add the garam masala powder. Add a tiny bit of water so that the spices don't burn. After a few minutes add the mung beans and rice, and cover with a couple of inches of water. Bring this to the boil, then cover and allow to simmer for about half an hour. Add salt. Keep making sure that it is still liquidy and add more water if it dries up. After half an hour, try a tiny bit and see if it is soft, if not cook for a further 10min. Finally, add some more butter and fluff it all up gently. It's really nice served warm with a fried egg and some tabasco (if, like me, you're a heat addict), or cold as a bean-rice salady type thing