Dark Rye Crackers

You know when you go into a supermarket to buy a really nice packet of crackers and you find that you grit your teeth in silent fury as the ones you like the most cost £3.50 for a pack of 16? …Yeah? Anyone else get that..? [*pant, pant*] 

These are the kind of crackers I always opt for. It annoys me greatly that I buy them at all, that I’m playing into the hands of the man by buying them... I love crackers. I eat them a lot. But honestly, crackers are just flour and water. These take all of five minutes to weigh and roll out, then only need a quick spell in a hot oven. Hey presto, artisan crackers. Hipster crackers. Have them with a piece of cheese you bought in London which cost a mere four hundred pounds. Actually, I will. Dark rye gives a great nutty flavour and the addition of poppy seeds, caraway or sesame seeds adds to that- give them a go if you want to stick it to Waitrose.

Aloo Tikki Chaat

Despite having moved to London in August, I feel like I’ve hardly seen the city. This is down to a combination of factors; I’ve been working on my PhD (an alarming truth), I’ve been tired (thanks a lot, underactive thyroid) and like most PhD students I’ve been paranoid that going out and doing something for an afternoon makes me a bad person who is doomed to fail. But one Sunday morning, rather than sitting slumped in front of my laptop madly planning my research schedule in different coloured pens (and not actually achieving anything, of course), I went outside, crossed the river, hit up the Tate Modern, then walked to Borough Market.

Gluten-Free Mince Pies

With Christmas just a few days away, I’m off home back to Yorkshire. But I couldn’t arrive empty-handed. My dad can’t eat wheat- he’s one of those genuine coeliacs, rather than the hipster type you see nowadays. That said, hipster trends have opened up the gluten-free market no end. You can actually go in a shop any buy something gluten-free by mistake because it actually resembles real food.

Oxtail Soup

Everyone’s depressed and winter’s coming in. I’m not suggesting soup can solve much, but when I go back to Yorkshire I need it in my system to function. A big pan of something on the stove also warms the house up nicely. Coming back home makes me realise how blooming freezing I’ve been all my life; surely everyone ‘wears’ a duvet watching TV at night? Wait, you mean you don’t sleep in a hat?? I’m typing this while wearing a shawl for crying out loud.

Roasted Vegetable Salsa

There comes a point when you have to admit that autumn is coming. I’m not ready to think of winter yet, give me time for that... But when summer days start ending on a chilly note and you find yourself reaching for your stash of vests (everyone has one, right?), it’s time to adapt your food to fit. This is often helped on by supermarkets, who begin to stock basic ingredients that just don’t work as well as they did in summer months. Take tomatoes. They’re ripe and juicy in the summer, albeit for a price. By autumn, the packets that grace the shelves are full of fruit as hard as stones and just as tasteless. Luckily, salt, pepper, olive oil and a spell in a hot oven at everyone’s favourite gas mark (6, duh!) is enough to get the tastebuds excited again.

Spicy Fried Okra

About a year ago, I read about a little bar not too far from Leeds train station, called Bundobust, which served small Indian nibbly dishes. As part of our ongoing, but interrupted, culinary-veggie tour of Yorkshire eateries, I went to check out the place with my friend Caroline. Though we did that awkward thing of one of us waiting inside the restaurant, the other one waiting outside, when we finally found each other, we found that Bundobust served up some pretty good stuff, from pots of creamy black lentil dhal and rice, to the more interesting bundo chaat, a combination of samosa pastry, chickpeas, potato and relish. But the star was their okra fries, thin and crispy, in a chickpea batter, dusted with salt and mango powder.

Highs and lows of the Slow Cooker: Shin of Beef Chile con Carne

Working mainly from home means that from 4.30 pm each afternoon, I spend a lot of effort trying to resist the magnetic pull of the kitchen. In days of yore, I’d launch myself in there with gusto from about 3 pm to start crafting a feast for the family. However, that was when I didn’t have any responsibilities. None at all. But now I have an ever-growing reading list, and an upcoming PhD upgrade which isn’t keeping me awake at night, but still makes me a little nervous. In short, even my to-do lists are breeding, so I’ve been barring myself from the kitchen in order to get some work done.