The Botanical Kitchen
Recipes, travel and the occasional rant
I have been observing the wellness dialogue from afar. It’s really interesting to see how many instagram streams there are in this area. Vibrant, plant based food. Mainly vegan or vegetarian. It all looks delicious. It’s always pretty but it’s never enough is it? This is my biggest annoyance about ‘wellness’ foods. The portion sizes in all these […]
It’s nearly time for the London Marathon. My training has gone well in the main. I had a bit of a lapse this week as I’ve not been feeling well. Truth be told I’m struggling a little on the food side. I hit my fundraising target within a few months of signing up, my training […]
Firstly Happy New Year to you all. Did you have a good one? We celebrated in the Florida Keys. Islamorada to be precise. Ringing New Year in on a hammock at midnight GMT. The Americans thought we were rather mad shouting Happy New Year and singing Auld Lang Syne at 7pm EST. But quite frankly […]
I think the sun is staying out now. It’s been a bit hit and miss in London. It always is as the school holidays start but I’m watching it go down over the rooftops as we speak knowing it’s going to be another glorious day tomorrow. This is a good thing for my diet. A […]
I’m not normally a gadget person in the kitchen. Sure I like to save time like everyone else but rather than some whizzy gizmo for peeling garlic for example, I prefer to get stuck in and peel it with my fingers. Having said that I do use a few machines to help get big jobs […]
Pancakes. They have become a Sunday ritual. It’s a weekend so porridge or cereal aren’t special enough. Somehow the Sunday breakfast deserves more attention. Deserves more time. But the warm bed, Sunday papers and my stack of new cookery books are calling and they deserve equal amounts of attention too after a long week. So the […]
January is a time to be virtuous after the excesses of Christmas. I’m drawn to vibrant, ‘green’ food to cheer myself up from the dreary drizzle outside. Thankfully my baby spinach has survived the weather in my garden. The leaves may be a little smaller and the bugs may have nibbled here and there but […]
I was reading a post on sunflowers for every occasion over at The Garden Deli which inspired me to go and seek out the different kinds of sunflowers around our allotments. I didn’t have to look far. These stunners have given us a little bit of sunshine every time I go to the water butt. […]
Patra is one of my all time favourite Gujarati dishes. My Baa (maternal grandmother) used to make them for breakfast when I was little using fresh colocasia leaves and her own spice mix. I was too little to really appreciate her or her patra which makes me so incredibly sad. However, I wasn’t so little that […]
Is there something you add to your shopping basket every week? For me it’s avocados. I chose a few ripe ones and a few to leave on the windowsill to ripen over the course of the coming week. I know they are ready when the little stalk at the base pops off easily. They are […]
It’s getting decidedly chilly in North London. Oh yes it starts off all sunny and warm through the window but as soon as I open that kitchen door in the morning it’s a little bit nippy. Porridge is what that signals. Porridge. There are a myriad of different types of grains or cereals you can use […]
I always have a clear out of shelves and cupboards on New Year’s Day. It’s a therapeutic ritual before I go back to work to see what I can use up, batch cook and freeze for the busy weeks ahead. Packets of dried fruits and nuts are always hanging around and I usually bake them […]