Cooking & Lifestyle Blog

In case you'd forgotten, I thought I would use this blog to remind you all that this Sunday is Father's Day. Whilst it's great that there is a day entirely dedicated to those excellent men who spend so much of their lives giving their children lifts, fixing things, teaching them how to ride bikes and generally being an invaluable source of both practical and emotional reassurance, I personally find Father's Day a bit of a challenge.

As this week is National Vegetarian Week I had veggie delights in mind as I scoured simple recipes to share with you. In the end I settled for a hearty and flavoursome Pumpkin & Chickpea Curry, which is a great meat-free alternative to a chicken curry, with a tangy Caribbean kick.

For this week's simple recipe, I thought we would jet off to the sunny climes of South-East Asia. Reputed for its use of fresh ingredients and wealth of incredible flavour combinations, cuisine from this part of the word is both distinctive and delicious. What's more, the use of fresh ingredients helps ensure that recipes are often rich in varied nutrients, boosting their health credentials.

Easter certainly came around quickly. Everywhere I look, I seem to see indulgent and incredibly elaborate looking Easter eggs, which I'm pretty sure never existed when I was a child and actually received Easter eggs. I have had to ban myself from going anywhere near a Hotel Chocolat for fear that I will fall prey to their unbeatably chunky eggs.

This week's recipe is the last in the series of Simple Recipes for Healthy Eating, so I thought I'd go veg crazy! Not only is this a delicious and filling recipe, but with reports publicised just yesterday that suggest that eating seven portions of fruit and veg a day can significantly increase life expectancy, it couldn't be more appropriate!

With Mother's Day fast approaching, what better choice for this week's recipe than something delicious, indulgent and perfect as a homemade gift? With their crumbly shortbread, decadent chocolate layer and crunchy almond topping, these Chocolate & Almond Biscuits tick all the boxes.

This week's recipe is the penultimate one in the Simple Recipes for Healthy Eating series, so I thought it best to have something with a bit of oomph. With its oriental vegetables and chilli kick, this recipe for Teriyaki Turkey with Veg is both wholesome and delicious, and will leave you feeling satisfied and pepped up to make the most of the bright Spring weather we've been experiencing lately.

This week's recipe takes the form of a light, low-fat dessert – because we all need a treat every now and then! This recipe features low-fat alternatives to unhealthy ingredients, as well as making the most of the natural sweetness of fruit, meaning that there is no reason to fight against satisfying that sweet craving at the end of a meal. With strawberries beginning to crop up more and more in the shops, it's a good time to start thinking of tasty new recipes beyond the traditional (and excessively calorific) strawberries and cream combination. I highly recommend this roulade, it's one of those great simple recipes that looks a lot harder to make than it actually is, perfect if you've got friends coming for dinner.

Even though we have not yet officially reached the first day of Spring, I think the fact that it is finally sunny outside and it is now still light when I leave work is sufficient for me to say that as far as I'm concerned Spring has practically sprung! To celebrate this occasion and to make a change from Winter soups, I thought that this week's instalment in the simple recipes for healthy eating series would be an only slightly premature Spring Vegetable & Herb Risotto. This is a great recipe which combines tasty seasonal vegetables with deliciously filling creamy risotto rice. What's more, in the coming weeks seasonal vegetables such as asparagus and French beans will be on special offer at supermarkets and looking their best on market stalls, so what better time to start including them in your healthy recipe repertoire?!