White Bean and Roasted Garlic Soup

This is such an easy soup that truly is more than the sum of its parts. It has the sort of flavour I had only experienced before in Paris. Read for yourself how simple it is and then taste how richly caramel and deeply complex the flavours are. No one will guess how effortless your preparation was!

White Bean and Roasted Garlic Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, lightly crushed
1 litre of your best stock
2 cans of cooked cannellini beans (about 800g in total)
1 teaspoon dried sage
2 large heads of garlic

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
2. Remove any excess papery skin from the garlic and place on a baking tray to roast for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile sauté the onions in the olive oil for five minutes.
4. Add the salt and fennel seeds and sauté for a further minute.
5. Add the stock, beans, and sage and simmer for five minutes.
6. When the garlic is cool enough to touch, gently squeeze out the soft white contents into your soup. Discard the skins.
7. Blend as smoothly as you wish or leave it as it is. I prefer silky smooth.

We are now half-way through packing boxes in our rented house and our new home is a gutted and empty shell. And we need to get through the exam season before we can finally move to our new home. It is time for some healthy but homely cooking to relax and sustain us, I haven't yet packed the baking sheets. I tried these healthy home-baked cookies for the first time. No sugar, no raising agents yet really yummy, a small miracle I'm sure you agree!


1 1/2 cups of porridge oats
1 cup of desiccated coconut
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
3/4 of a cup of ground almonds
1 cup of raisins

3 ripe mashed bananas
4 tablespoons of healthy oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 175°C
2. Line baking sheet with baking parchment.
3. Combine the dry ingredients then mix in the wet ingredients thoroughly.
4. Press the mixture into biscuit cutters. I used a large love heart.

5. Bake for 20 minutes until the edges are golden. Leave to cool on the tray and then transfer onto a plate.

Now hoping for the larger miracle of a home with electricity and plumbing in time.

Good Friday

We have set a date for our move for June from this rented house to our new home and things are starting to become a lot more urgent and real. I have already started packing boxes of books, twenty so far; more wool than one girl needs and more chemistry sets than any family should safely own. We are retreating from the chaos to the stillness of the garden and filling the gaps left by our belongings with tissue paper flowers.

Hot Cross Buns

600g of strong white flour

2 teaspoons of mixed spice

400ml of hand-temperature warm milk

10g of yeast (the dried sort you add to water)

2 tablespoon brown sugar

a knob of butter

a handful of sultanas

1 lemon's zest

brown sugar (for glaze)

1. Whisk the milk, yeast and sugar together in a bowl and leave until it begins to bubble.

2. Rub the butter into the flour and spices.

3. Gradually stir the wet ingredients into the flour mixture until you have a sticky dough.

4. Knead the dough for about ten minutes or until soft and elastic. 

5. Knead in the sultanas and lemon zest.

6. Leave to rise until doubled (about an hour).

7. Form into small buns and leave again until doubled.

8. Meanwhile preheat your oven to 200°c.

9. Cut crosses deeply into the buns, being careful not to drag the knife and cause the buns to deflate too much.

10. Bake straight away.

11. Whilst your buns are baking, mix four tablespoons of brown sugar with a little water, just enough to make a thick sugary paint.

12. When your buns are nicely browned take them out the oven and brush them with the sugary paint.

13. Put the buns back in the oven for just less than a minute.

14. Take out and brush with the sugar again. 

15. Leave to cool or serve straight away with butter and jam.

You can also leave the buns to cool and ice the tops with icing sugar (confectioner's/ powder sugar) mixed with lemon juice.

Even the fuchsias are made of tissue paper; we fooled a couple of bees and a brother.

Carrot and Coriander Sunshine Bread

As soon as I bake a loaf of bread in a new place I instantly feel at home. I can't imagine that there is any type of bread that hasn't been tried already in some corner of the World, but the other morning I had the original-to-me idea of adding some grated carrot to my loaf and well, why not, coriander seeds. I often add them to my rye bread anyway. The result was this gloriously fragrant golden loaf.

Carrot and Coriander Bread Recipe

2 carrots

175g strong wholemeal flour

400g strong white flour

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

2 tablespoons coriander seeds

400ml warm water

15g honey

10g yeast (dried or fresh but the kind you add to warm water)

3 tablespoons olive oil

1. Grate your carrot into a food processor.

2. Change your blade to a dough blade and add your flour, salt and coriander seeds to the grated carrots.

3. Whisk your yeast and honey into your warm water. Leave into it begins to bubble.

4. Now switch on your processor and slowly add the olive oil.

5. Follow by slowly adding your yeast mixture until a ball forms. You may need to add more flour at this point until your dough starts to come together in a ball.

6. Run the processor for five minutes or so.

7. To lift the dough out, wet your hands. This will stop it sticking.

8. Leave to rise in a covered mixing bowl for at least an hour.

9. Form into two loaves. Leave for another hour or until doubled in size.

10. Bake for 20 minutes at 220°C , then another 20 minutes at 180°C. Check it is done by tapping it on the base. If it sounds hollow then it is done.

11. Leave to cool at least 15 minutes until slicing (if you like a softer crust then wrap it in a tea towel at this stage).

I hope this brings an early Spring into your home!