This super tasty, easy, quick and nourishing dish is a great antidote to the cold dark months ahead. Ingredients at hand, this can be prepared, cooked and served within an hour. We are gently introducing more pungent spices into Little Boy Green’s meals. He very much enjoyed the Chana Dal so we are crossing our fingers that this also gets his little thumbs up.

creamed spinach is delicious. To top it off, it is the simplest dish that anyone with the ability to turn on a stove could dream of, especially if using frozen spinach. To add to the appeal we cook the spinach from frozen. The creamed spinach will take as long as most pastas to cook, so a dish that can be served in less than 20 min.

OK, for clarity, this recipe is not exactly for fritters, they are not fried and in fact do not contain any oil, at all. I wanted to call them patties, Mrs Green said patties sounded anodyne and chilled, so fritters they are. If you don't know they are not actually fried, it would be pretty difficult to tell as they are crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. 

It is just a few days until the clocks go back and it is the end of British summertime. While we are looking forward to an extra hour of sleep, it can feel like a small amount of comfort compared to the dark mornings and evenings ahead. As we prepare to spend more time indoors with the heating on, there is some wonderful veg taking root outside that will be at its tastiest as morning frosts begin (such as kale, sprouting broccoli, carrots and turnips). 

This recipe is for a delicious and flavourful dip that is a very welcome addition to the autumnal menu, and something of a panacea to the ailments. While we are enjoying soups and stews and the produce of this bountiful season, muhammara is a refreshing reminder that although the temperature is dropping and the days are getting shorter and the cold and the dark are surely on their way, the winter will not last forever. 

This dish is a grown up version of what we would otherwise prepare for Little Boy Green. It requires more time to prepare, but is fairly simple to cook and goes down a treat. The polenta is cooked, cooled and then grilled in the same way that it was prepared in the Grilled Polenta and Fagioli All'Ucelletto recipe. Cooking the polenta this way allows it to become a firm slab of smokey deliciousness. It has a very satisfying and comforting texture and does a great job of soaking up the juices from the stew-like spinach and beans topping.

If there ever was a must-eat bread that did not require any kneading, then this is it. In his soda bread recipe a good friend has presented us with a gift that will keep on giving. I am not new to soda bread, but perhaps I had just not had soda bread of real quality previously, so until now I never truly appreciated the delights it had to offer. Alan, I am a convert. The Bethnal Greens thank you, sir.

Another bean soup recipe here, but this time with a little heat breathing from deep inside this smoky and nourishing soup. We eat a lot of beans, and I have waxed lyrical of all the reasons why. We also eat a lot of soups, and we like soup a lot. But there is more to soup than may be immediately apparent. A bowl of soup can contain all of the vegetables you want the whole family to eat without a discussion of its component parts - partly or wholly blended it can conceal any number of plant-based secrets. A soup is generally a one-pot affair and easy on the washing up, simple to prep and painless to cook - just leaving it to simmer, the longer the better. Leftovers are often fought over and occasionally eaten cold. So, all in all, soup is the source of many a good thing. Have I mentioned that this recipe includes cocoa powder?