Mooli and carrot salad with a citrus dressing

If you're ever looked at a vegetable and thought of those weird little creatures in Harry Potter, then you have probably seen a Mooli. It's a Japanese radish I was told in the shop, but I think I've tried it in Chinese cuisine, and I believe that this is what they use to make one of my favourite dishes of all time - the dim-sum turnip cake

Yet I decided to make it into a Polish-style "surowka" - that's specific kind of salad characterized by the shredded vegetables and the fact that it needs time to "bite-together" and soak in the dressing. So, I grated the mooli and carrots, added finely chopped spring onion and made an citrus dressing by combing orange and lemon juice with olive oil, salt and pepper. To finish I added some feta cubes, as we were eating this with baked sweet potatoes and I wanted some cheese that would melt inside them. This is a perfect alternative to coleslaw and cheddar, by the way. When we'd eaten the potatoes, me and LT polished off the rest of the salad too, it was so more-ish

Ingredients

1 mooli (daikon)
3-4 carrots
Juice of half an orange
Juice of half a lemon
4 spring onions
200-250g feta cheese
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Roasted Autumn squash with pasta

The clouds are lifting! And all it took in this case was a little bit of self-nurture. I think it's too easy to forget to really, fully look after yourself when living in a busy city. Also, as women we are often conditioned to believe that we should put others first, when in fact that is completely wrong in my opinion. Your life and health are the single most important thing you have. By health I don't mean just the physical aspects of your body, I mean your whole being - your physical, mental and spiritual health. I have made a promise to myself that at least until I have a baby I will prioritize my own well being at all times. Then come the people I love (including my cat of course, who even though many may not see this, is also a person), my career, my flat and everything else. Even though it may seem selfish, living this way allows you to give more of yourself, simply because when you are whole, you have more of yourself to give.  It's a positive kind of selfishness, and it's a beautiful place to be, as long as you manage to not ever feel guilty, as that negates it completely 

So if you are feeling out of sorts right now, for whatever reason, this is what you're going to do: stop. Make yourself do nothing. Every time you feel guilty for doing nothing, the penalty is to do something nice for yourself. Meditate or lie in bed. Have a bath. Dream about what you want in life without pressurizing yourself to go out and get it. Cook and eat your favourite food. Have at least a day with no alcohol and go to bed before 10, even if you don't feel like it. The next morning wake up and ask yourself what you'd love to do the most. Now go and do that, whatever it takes. By the third day, I promise you that you will feel better. Unless what you really wanted to do was to go out and get wasted, of course. In which case though your spirit may feel better, your body probably won't. You don't have to heed my advice of course, but the only other option is to pretend it's not there, that's everything is fine and wait until it all catches up with you. And that is never much fun

Today, I wanted to eat squash. It tastes like this time of year to me, like the orange sunshine of early Autumn or a sunset. I roasted it with dried oregano, olive oil and garlic salt for about an hour in a medium-hot oven. I then peeled the skin off (which I actually gobbled up with some salt) chopped it into chunks and added it to the simple pasta sauce I'd just prepared with creme fraiche, toasted pine nuts, oregano, a little lemon juice, chilli and black pepper. Then some fresh pasta from The Deli Downstairs tossed in and we're ready to go - Autumn on a plate

British game roasted with Polish buckwheat honey and Greek oregano

The grouse season is short this year. I'm not using code, I mean that sentence completely literally. I'm trying to explain (to myself as much as anyone) how on earth I paid £12.50 for one of those birds down there (the dark one). It's pretty bloody expensive. The partridge is only marginally smaller at £5.50, and arguably tastier

Lots of niggling, small things that I normally don't care about have been bothering me lately, so I'll just stick the grouse on that tedious list. Sometimes life is just like that. Or perhaps sometimes  we just perceive it that way as we experience some kind of inner turmoil or conflict we can't quite put our finger on. I'm just riding it out and waiting for clouds to clear, and from time to time, catching a little ray breaking through - like a delicious meal, or LT bringing me lego (did I mention that I have the sunniest boyfriend on the whole planet?). So here we are - a gamey Sunday feast of grouse and partridge. The birds were tenderized with a marinade of Polish buckwheat honey, lemon juice, garlic salt and pepper 

And flavoured with Greek oregano which my friend Karina brought straight from the source (that's the countryside near Athens). Miod Gryczany is this really dark, strong-tasting honey. You could easily substitute it for Eucalyptus honey or even Manuka honey as they're  quite similar in flavour, and would also stand up to game

I left them like this for about 45min before roasting for an hour at 150 degrees C, along with some carrots and sweet potatoes, basting the birds regularly to make sure that they didn't dry out. The vegetables were flavoured with fresh chilli, olive oil, garlic salt and pepper. I was going to make gravy, but I forgot, and actually, it wasn't needed - everything was moist and tender. Once we finished, I cooked the bones to make a delicious game stock, for a Middle-Eastern style soup, with bulgur wheat, chickpeas, lemon juice and eggs. At that price, I had to squeeze another meal of the grouse somehow

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