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.

Massive mushrooms stuffed with sundried tomato, pine nuts, basil and cheese

As the climate becomes more Mediterranean so should our diets! I don't mean to trivialise climate change, it's just that in the UK a slight climate change isn't such a terrible thing. Weather has never bean our strong point. So far this year it's been a lovely Spring  and today felt positively hot. Days like these I like to eat light food that makes me think of holidays in Italy or the South of France. These mushrooms are perfect for  sitting in your garden with a glass of wine and envisioning the glistening Mediterranean Sea, even if you're just staring into your murky pond.

Ingredients 

2 Portobello mushrooms or similar 

200g ricotta or another soft, white cheese

Handful fresh basil

5 sundried tomatoes

Handful pine nuts, toasted 

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 slices halloumi

Garlic clove

Salt and pepper to taste

Place the mushrooms upside down in a baking tray and put the oven on 150 degrees C. Fry the halloumi cheese for 3min each side or until golden. 

Blend the ricotta with the basil, sundried tomatoes, pine nuts and olive oil, reserving a few pine nuts and sundried tomato for topping. Season. Stuff the mushrooms with your ricotta mixture and top with the remaining bits: halloumi, sundried tomato and pine nuts. Bake for 25min. Serve on a bed of rocket and eat outside in the sunshine if at all possible.

Chickpea and sweet potato curry with an egg poached inside it

Habits are funny things. They aren't easy to form, but they aren't as difficult as they first appear either. Sometimes they are painstakingly hard to break and other times painstakingly easy, yet they are one of the most important things in life. A bad habit can be detrimental to our happiness just as a good habit can shape our life in the most wonderful way. I now can't seem to get into the habit of blogging twice weekly, something that used to come very easily to me. Giving up eating processed sugar every day after the indulgences of Christmas is another habit I am trying hard to break and seems almost impossible to fully achieve. Although I am still eating sugar on most days, it's getting less and less. As a result of breastfeeding my appetite is larger than normal (and it's usually pretty big already), so I am replacing processed sugar with more of other foods. I am focussing on foods that can be more beneficial to Delfi, such as vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts, eating often and filling up so that I don't have room left for evil sugar. As tends to be with new habits - each day is easier than the last and before you know it, what seemed impossible a few weeks ago becomes second nature. I learnt this from practising Kundalini yoga, which is all about habits, and just knowing this is enough to change your life. Nothing seems insurmountable anymore once you know. This curry is packed with all the good stuff.  Some people say the spicy food can give the baby colic, other people say chickpeas and spinach are culprits, but I ate this for 2 days and Delfi was fine. Sweet potatoes are a super effective and healthy way to thicken curry, just make sure that they cook until they become mushy.

Ingredients

200g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
200g spinach
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1inch of ginger, peeled and chopped finely
1 inch of turmeric, peeled and chopped finely
1 green chilli
1 tablespoon garam masala
3 tablespoons rapeseed oil
1 egg per person
Salt
Rice to serve

Using a pestle and mortar or a blender make a blend out of the onion, garlic, fresh ginger, turmeric, chilli, garam masala and the oil. Fry this in a large pan for about 5min, adding a tiny bit of oil after a couple of minutes so that the spices don't burn. Add the chickpeas and cover with about an inch of water. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 20min, then add the sweet potatoes. Simmer for a further 30min before adding the spinach and the chopped tomatoes. Cook for another 10min then season with plenty of salt. Crack the eggs into the middle of the curry and cover the pan. Cook on a very low heat for about 3minutes. Serve with rice.

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...

Nettles fried in chickpea beer batter

My garden mystifies me. Everything is in bloom and I don't know when it happened. Now the weeds are taking over and I'm not sure if I mind. I wish I knew what to do with dandelion, because I've heard it's very beneficial, but I don't feel confident with it. I get flashbacks to my childhood and being told not to lick my hands of that milky residue the dandelion flowers leave behind. They said it was poisonous. So for now the dandelion gets left alone. Nettles I am confident with however. Despite their aggressive personality, they've always held a fascination for me and I've been brought up to see them as "good". So today, while making a start on my garden, I picked some nettles, braised them in salted water, dipped them in batter, and fried them for a tasty snack.

Ingredients

12 Nettle leaves

75g chickpea flour

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

50ml light beer

50ml sparkling water

Runny honey and sea salt to serve

Simply mix the chickpea (gram) flour with the garlic salt the whisk while adding beer and sparkling water. Use tongs to dip the nettle leaves in the batter and fry. They're ready when golden, it should take about 3min each side. Serve drizzled with honey and sprinkled with sea salt.

Egyptian breakfast with eggs, dates and tahini

The first ever post on this blog was about breakfasts, complete with my 29 year old self's inquisitive attitude and some rather gross-looking pictures of food. Breakfast is still an obbession of mine, but that's one of the few things that has remained constant. Over the past 5 years I have met many great breakfasts: these seedy, turmeric oats have been a firm favourite of late; there has also been "placki" with roast cherry tomatoes; quinoa; congee rice soups with butternut squash and radish and spinach and egg, not to forget fruit-oat pots. But the reason that I am blogging about this today is because there is a new breakfast in town! This Egyptian breakfast was introduced to me by my love and has made me fall in love with Tahini once more (for many years I couldn't bear the sight of it, but that's another story).

That's scrambled eggs up there, with dates! Yes, sweet scrambled eggs, with tahini and mini pitta bread on the side (just because they're cute). You melt some butter on a frying pan and fry the chopped (and pitted) dates first for a couple of minutes, before cracking the eggs in. The eggs don't need any milk. Stir the eggs while they're frying on a low heat, season with salt and white pepper, and serve. Simple. Delicious. Reasonably healthy breakfast.

Purple carrot celeriac salad with sprouts and the curse of washing up

Washing up feels like my curse. I cook a lot therefore there always seems to be a pile of dirty dishes waiting for me. One day I will have a dishwasher - this is the dream. Until that day comes I am forced to deal with it, unhappily. A couple of days ago I read this post on Zen Habits and it has inspired me to try to change the way I think about washing up. Perhaps I'm being lazy, perhaps it's too easy to think of washing up as a massive chore and myself as a modern-day Sisyphus doing the same action over and over again. For now, washing up is a necessary part of life for me, so perhaps I can learn something from it? I am more than happy to entertain these notions, yet I've noticed no change so far in how I feel about it. Today, the pile of washing up made me feel positively depressed. Still, I love to cook. In this book I'm reading Desikachar states that yoga teaches us that there is a positive and negative side to everything. Therefore, I must bear my burden with grace. This purple carrot celeriac salad was delicious, yet caused a massive purple mess and my hands looked bruised after peeling it. So much so that it gave me an idea for next year's Halloween costume. You can easily replace it with a normal carrot, I just wanted to see if there was any difference in taste (not much, it was a bit sweeter)

We ate it with roasted yellow courgettes with roast pumpkin oil and pumpkin seeds, black quinoa and frying halloumi cheese. Just grate the carrot and celeriac very finely, combine with the sprouts (I used a mixture of sprouts) and the sauce (soured cream and mayonnaise one-to-one with a little bit of mild olive oil). Season with salt, white pepper and some freshly grated nutmeg and mix really well. This should chill in the fridge for at least a couple of hour, to allow it to "bite together" as we say in Poland.

Ingredients:

Half a celeriac
Large carrot
Mixed sprouts
100ml soured cream
100ml mayonnaise
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and white pepper to taste

A crunchy, citrusy salad with bean sprouts, pears and walnuts

I know - at this time of year you probably all want to eat warm, comfort food and here I am giving you salad. It's strange, yet this is what I'm craving at the moment - all kinds of salads. My friend David has written this brilliant book on salads incidentally, if you love them like yours truly or are in search of last minute Xmas presents for your loved ones...

Perhaps it's my childhood in Poland that has rendered my vision of Christmas as full of fish, vegetables, pierogi, Russian salad... so while I appreciate the English festivities and watch with pleasure as our favourite TV chefs show us what they'll be eating this Christmas (for Jamie Oliver it will be Massaman curry on Boxing Day in case you were wondering), there is, sadly perhaps, no nostalgia in Christmas jumpers, turkeys and crackers, pour moi. I'm just not in that club, even if sometimes I like to pretend I am.

This salad was in no small way inspired by the classic Waldorf salad, though with the use of bean sprouts we have massively upped the nutrition here. I have also gone very easy on mayo, making the dressing lighter, more citrus-zingy and adding an Asian feel to it with the sesame flavours. The blue cheese has been replaced with fresh, tangy sheeps' milk cheese and the apple with a sweet, crunchy pear.

Ingredients

Mixed bean sprouts
Celery sticks, chopped finely
Fresh sheeps' milk cheese (or goat's milk cheese)
Crushed walnuts
Pear, chopped into small cubes
Sesame seeds

Dressing

2 tablespoons olive oil
Dash of toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon mayo
1 teaspoon English mustard
1/2 teaspoon honey
Salt and pepper to taste

Crunchy sweet potato patties aka leftover cuisine

Patties are probably my favourite thing to make from leftover mash. Especially sweet potato mash, as that adds an exotic element to my patty, making me feel like I'm snacking in a tropical country. If I close my eyes I can almost smell coconuts in the warm breeze... To be perfectly honest, I can always smell coconuts in the breeze because I religiously slather myself in coconut oil, as well as cooking with it and even putting it in my green tea. So these patties...

I used sweet potato mash from the day before (just sweet potato, cooked with skins on, then mashed with butter and sea salt), added an egg, a tin of (drained) lentils, pumpkin seeds, chilli flakes, garlic granules, paprika and black pepper. I went for spice and crunch. I mixed it all together with my hands, as you would with meatballs and then coated each patty in breadcrumbs before frying on a combination of vegetable and coconut oils. It takes about 4min each side. Serve with pickled green chillies and lime

Parsnip fries with turmeric mayo

The frothy sunsets and mild evenings of early Autumn disappeared overnight. The nip is taking over and we'll need to start wearing gloves soon. My hands are already permanently cold and turning a tinge of violent. But the multi-coloured leaves and some sunny skies make up for the slight discomfort of these days, and I still like it that I live in Europe, where we have such drastic changes in season. Come February and I'm sure that I'll have moments where I very strongly wish that I lived somewhere else,  somewhere more temperate. That's why the dream of two homes I guess, one in London, of course, and one somewhere not too far away, somewhere sunny where people smile more during Winter months. Just a daydream for now. For now I'm still enjoying the changes and wondering why I haven't cooked a pumpkin-something yet this Autumn, while eating these parsnip chips with turmeric mayo and planning next week's visits to my dear friends, Karina in Athens and Maja in Rome

Don't peel the parsnips, there's really no point, just chop them up into the size of fries, bearing in mind the thinner you get them, the crispier they shall be. Heat a mixture of sunflower and roasted sesame oil on a large pan (about half a centimeter to a centimeter of oil in total) and meanwhile, on another pan, toast your sesame seeds if using them. While the oil is heating you have the chance to make your turmeric mayo. You could make your own mayo like this (in which case you may want to start earlier than this), then add the turmeric paste or just use shop bought mayo like I did on this occasion. I am using the same turmeric paste that you use to make Golden Milk - good quality turmeric, water and black pepper (which increases the health benefits of turmeric). Use 1 tablespoon of mayo to 1/4 teaspoon of the paste. Heat the oil before frying the parsnips, and once cooked (should take 6-8min depending on the amount), place them on some newspaper for a couple of minutes to remove excess oil. Season with plenty of sea salt and add a sprinkling of sesame seeds

Green bean salad with a sesame-yoghurt dressing

It's been birthday season in my world. My attempt to make a cake for my boyfriend and his mum last week went disastrously wrong. The cake tasted fine (maybe more than fine), but I was in too much of a hurry making it, not present enough in that particular moment (been so busy recently) and the middle of it just fell out to leave a massive, gaping hole. I cut cupcakes out of it in order to save the day, then used the rest as a base for trifle. This dish ended up looking like something from the inside of a human body. Red jelly, rasberries and custard all melting together is never a good look. Though admittedly it also tasted very good. Birthday brunch for my brother, on the other hand, was a dream, which I will tell you about it next time. This green bean salad with a yoghurt, sesame dressing I made as part of my boy's birthday celebrations also turned out very well. Thank God. I was starting to worry that I'd lost my touch.

Blanche the green beans, runner beans and broccoli in salted water for about 5mins, then drain and cool under cold, running water. Slice the courgette very finely and toast the sesame seeds on a large frying pan. For the vinaigrette, I  used a small cup of greek bio yoghurt, some sesame oil, the juice of one lemon, with plenty of sea salt and black pepper. With it we ate roast sweet potatoes with garlic, rosemary and cherry tomatoes and some (organic) salmon fried in goats' butter with the skin fried first on a high heat to make it all crispy, and more lemon squeezed on top. Faith in self restored.

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. 

Sweet potato quinoa salad

One of things I love about cooking is that paradox of nostalgia and newness. For example, I write this blog whilst munching on a warm, slightly crispy tortilla with Marmite. The reason I eat Marmite on tortillas rather than on toast like normal people, is because when I was in the Himalays aged 17, we ate ate marmite and chapattis every morning of our trek over Pin Parvati Pass. By the end of the 14 days I couldn't stand the sight of them, but now... It's the nostagia, clearly. At the other end of the scale we have this salad I made last week, which I've never made before but, from experience, knew was going to work

It's a blend of 3 different types of quinoa - red, black and pearl. You can get a ready mix in (some) Waitrose, with home grown cherry tomatoes and chillies (luckily I have a man who grows these, because I still haven't quite got my head round that part), toasted almond flakes, coriander and cinnamon sweet potato (roast the chunks of unpeeled sweet potato in the oven with olive oil, honey and cinnamon). The dressing consists of lime juice, mild olive oil and fish sauce. We ate it with southern fried chicken a bit like this one, but with more spices in the marinade. Yas says the trick is to add a little a bit of cornflour to the flour and breadcrumbs and the oil you fry them in should be hot but "not too hot". Having made this chicken about 5 times in a row now, he's the expert

Grandma's sorrel and yoghurt soup

Whenever I eat sorrel now it reminds me of this lovely day, a couple of years ago, when my grans were still alive. It was just ordinary summer's day then, mooching about, cooking, sunbathing... yet it will always live on in my memory as something extraordinary and special, a reminder that all things pass and to cherish the moments we have with our loved ones. This sorrel soup is different to the cold one I made that day

Once you've got hold of the sorrel, either by foraging or by buying some in an online shop like this one, the soup is very simple to make. It tastes just like the one my Babcia Ziuta used to make, yet the recipe comes not from her but from this lady's grandma

That's the lady who sold us the sorrel at the market. We always wash the sorrel thoroughly first. Fry it in a large knob of butter until it wilts. Allow it to cool for about 20min, then blend. The old method is to push it through a sieve with a wooden spoon, but blending is much easier, so I suggest to do that. Put it in the biggest pan you can find and fill half-way with cold water. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for half an hour. Near the end of the cooking time, we season the soup with salt and pepper and thicken with plain flour, stirring all the time. Bring it back to the boil for 5min, allowing the flour to do it's job.

Before adding the yoghurt, we allow the soup to cool down a little bit again, for about 20-30min. The lady's grandma would have used thick cream rather than yoghurt I expect but the lady uses yoghurt and it works very well. Not to mention being healthier. So you do it like this: put the yoghurt you intend to use in a large cup and add a tablespoon of soup, stir it in. Add another tablespoon and stir it in. Repeat about 5 times. Finally, pour the whole thing into the soup and stir vigorously. Heat the soup a little before serving. Hard boiled eggs inside each bowl are a necessary addition, the potatoes with dill are optional but highly desirable

Ingredients

1 large bag of sorrel
50g butter
3 tablespoons flour
150ml greek yoghurt
Salt and white pepper
Hard boiled eggs

A big, fat Polish salad with wild girolle mushrooms

Intense weather. August in Poland is hot, close and stormy.  I kind of like it. Intensity is a bit underrated in the UK I feel. The UK is all about cool, while Poland is a land of extremes. Perhaps the weather is more important in the formation of national attitudes than we realize. In this intense heat it's difficult to eat warm food, so I made a big, fat salad for dinner yesterday, making use of the local "girolle" mushrooms and adding crunchy goat's cheese croutons. I should have poached an egg and put that on top, but I didn't think of it at the time. It was delicious none the less and an unusual way to eat these wild mushrooms that start popping up around now

The base is a mixture of salad leaves with fresh dill - Warsaw style. The croutons are simply Polish bread, grilled on both sides with a hard goat's cheese grated over one of them. The girolles are fried with plenty of garlic, salt and white pepper. The vinaigrette is flaxeed oil/olive oil mixed with some lemon juice, cider apple vinegar, salt and white pepper again. White pepper gives a salad a distinct East European flavour

Three grain mango salad and swimming against the tide

There's no denying that I'm swimming against the tide here. London is a city where most people work hard and party hard, then when they've had enough they settle down and start a family. Which is fantastic if that's what you actually want. After 8 years on the treadmill of London life I realized that I didn't know what I wanted anymore: I was tired, my diary was filled with plans I had no energy for and my choices were coming from a strange place. I was rushing from one commitment to another, going along with the current, but not being fully present anywhere. I was disconnected from my body and my spirit, while my mind was working overtime. I felt like a machine. I decided that I needed to re-establish my sense of personal freedom and individuality. Slowly, like a child working out who they are and what they like, I started. On the outside nothing changed at first, it was a simple inner choice to commit to myself. It turned out that what I was looking for was this: That feeling of anything being possible, of life as an adventure... Long, meandering walks through the quiet city streets when everyone is at work... Waking up each day at a time that is right for my body and deciding what my goals and priorities are according to how I feel... Being able to stop work and go for a run when the sun comes out... Working solely on projects I believe in... So far so wonderful. Here's the catch: it's not bloody easy. You need to somehow make money in order to survive, your sense of self is constantly tested, you feel judged often, at times you doubt everything, you make mistakes, you loose your balance... There is no safety net. You know all those uncomfortable feelings you'd rather distract yourself from? They're all here, waiting for you. You have to be strong if you want to go this way. One day you wake up and take stock:  I'm still here, surviving; I've learnt that I have the capacity to love myself unconditionally; I feel physically and mentally better than I did 5 years ago (no more chronic back ache for a start); I'm more present, more myself; I drink less alcohol (most of the time) and my diet is healthier, not because I'm trying to be healthy but because it feels natural to me. So I've gone all the way back to the simplest and most important thing of all: health. With that in mind, here's a lovely three grain mango salad for you

Cook all the grains together, as that makes things super easy - they all take about 25min. Then just leave them, covered, in the pan to steam for a bit, before cooling. All the vegetables and herbs need to be chopped quite finely for this. Enjoy, preferably in the sunshine.

Ingredients

Quinoa

Pearl Barley

Bulgur wheat

Mango

Cherry tomatoes

Cucumber

Coriander

Celery

Chia seeds for topping

Lemon juice

Olive oil

Celery salt and pepper 

Bulghur, broccoli and blue cheese salad, with a dream of sustainability

There is nothing quite like the feeling of eating something that you have grown yourself. Unfortunately, the only things I can say that about at the moment are my mint and rosemary, yet I milk this glorious feeling for all it's worth with Moroccan mint teas, mochitos and today, with this fresh tasting bulghur wheat salad

I have just returned from a camping trip in Cornwall with a new found vision of sustainability. Places like Henry's campsite and The Eden Project are my inspiration. And probably also my boyfriend, who is one of those green-fingered people. I have never been part of the green fingered club myself, but I'm (slowly) learning, and trust me, if I can become more green-fingered, then so can anyone. I'm starting to realize that it's more of a skill than a talent. The way I think of it is, you need to treat your plants like you do your pet: make sure they have food and water, talk to them, love them etc. This slightly mad method is working well for me, even though one of my favourite plants has just been ravaged by a snail in the few days I've been away (the said plant is recovering in a sunny spot inside the house now and I am confident it will survive)

To make this salad, cook the bulghur wheat, fluff and cool. Crush the walnuts by banging them with a rolling pin, inside a plastic bag and add to the wheat. Cover the broccoli with some boiling water and add sea salt. Leave for 3-4mi,n then drain and immediately place under cold running water, until cool. Chop into centimeter pieces and add to bowl. Chop the mint very finely and add. For the blue cheese I used a delicious, blue goat's cheese from L'eau a la Bouche. Place all the vinaigrette ingredients in a jam jar and shake vigorously for a few minutes before pouring over the salad. I used half a lemon, about 3 tablespoons of olive oil and a heaped teaspoon each of the wholegrain mustard and mayo, but do just play it how you feel it

Ingredients

Bulghur wheat
Tender-stem broccoli
Walnuts
Fresh mint
Blue cheese

Vinaigrette

Olive oil
Lemon juice
Celery salt
Black pepper
Wholegrain mustard
Mayonnaise

Nettle soup with chickpeas and feta

If your garden is anything like mine then you'll have plenty of stinging nettles in it at this time of year

This is in fact the ideal time of year to cook with them, as they are still young. Once they have flowered, they are too old

Pick them with gloves on, obviously, then pour some boiling water over them, and they're ready to use! I added mine to this refreshing, zingy soup, but you can use them in any recipes that require spinach or greens

For the soup, you will need to soak the chickpeas and peas over night (you can also use lentils instead of the peas), then simmer in a large pan of boiling water with some fresh ginger and the chopped red chilli for about an hour, taking any scum off the top when it starts bubbling up. At the same time, cook the rice. After about an hour, add the halved cherry tomatoes and the chopped nettles to the soup and squeeze in one of the limes. Season with fish sauce, black pepper and paprika and allow to simmer for another half an hour or until the tomatoes have completely disintegrated. To finish, squeeze in the remaining lime and serve on top of the rice, crumbling feta cheese on top. The amounts below are all approximate, use whatever you feel is appropriate to your tastes

Ingredients

200g dried chickpeas

50g dried peas or lentils

Large handful of nettles

100g cherry tomatoes

2 limes

Red chilli pepper, chopped finely

Tablespoon fish sauce

Inch of fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon paprika

Black pepper to taste

200g feta

50-100g cooked rice per person

A rowdy springtime salad

The sun is shining and London is in a good mood. This is the positive side of living somewhere where the weather in unpredictable - when the sun does come out, the whole city is on a natural high. My friend, Ash, tells me that in Australia, where she comes from, good weather is expected and because of this it makes no difference at all to peoples' mood... here, everyone is just so damn grateful for any bit of sunshine they can snatch, that when it does come out, and especially on a day when it is needed, during a picnic or barbeque, London acquires a festive atmosphere. Luckily, our sun dances worked last weekend and our star came to the annual cherry blossom picnic. This is the fourth year we congregate under the cherry blossoms in Victoria Park and do our version of Hanami

This year I made a spicy and colourful salad, which was dubbed "rowdy salad" by Ashley. It's the most fitting name for it considering the pink radish, purple carrots and fresh chillies. Did you know that all carrots used to be purple? This is something new that I learnt last weekend. I thought the carrots I bought were a hip novelty, in fact, they were a return to the old ways. The world works in spirals, everything is a continuation or a development, nothing is really lost - I like that

Ingredients

Quinoa, cooked

Alfafa and broccoli sprouts

Radishes, chopped finely

Fresh red chilli, chopped finely

Purple carrots (or normal carrots), grated

Avocado

Virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon of mayonnaise

Garlic salt

Black 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