I’ve travelled just enough to know that here in the UK we don’t get sent the best fruit. I’m not blaming anyone – if you have the sun it’s reasonble that you also get the pick of the fruit. But I’ve seen enough Mediterranean markets to know that we get sent second pickings.   I wouldn’t bother – our homegrown brit-fruit is delicious – but in the  hungry gap at this time of year I crave a bit of variety and start to look around at what’s organic and hasn’t travelled across too many borders to get here. Hence these slightly too hard figs.

A little warmth brought them out of their skin a little and softened them up quite enough to make a decent breakfast, squidged onto ricotta-spread toast.  It’s as streamlined a breakfast to prepare as you could wish for; a portion each of fruit, dairy and decent quality low GI carbohydrate in the time it takes to make toast and jam. It’s super quick because the toast and fruit both go under the grill (broiler) together, which saves washing up too.

I’ve had good results with gently warming under-ripe pears, plums, nectarines and peaches in this way too.  It won’t save terrible fruit, but works for those that are just a little bit jet lagged or unyielding.  Thin slivers of apple could also work without the grilling, and in the summer mushed up raspberries on ricotta and toast eaten in the garden is a fine way to start the day.  If you really want to bring a taste of Italy to your breakfast you’ll not regret investing in a tiny pot of Honey Miele di Tartufo which in our house adds truffle-scented enchantment to anything it touches.

Our damson tree has never been so laden with powdery blue fruits and this year they’ve clumped together like bunches of giant, velvety grapes. Clusters and clusters of them all over the tree. I’m planning to make spiced damson chutney and damson gin but these are barely enough to make dent and so this year there has been jam too – a caramelised boozy jam of damsons and port.

Fingers crossed, this is our last year in our current house (probably, you know how these house moves go – nothing is certain until you get the keys). This also means that it is our last year in our current garden and so I’m especially determined to make good use of our plum, damson and apple trees. I’m a big fan of using freezer compotes as a low sugar way to preserve fruit, but with three fruit trees and one small freezer I’ve had to branch out.

Jam needs its high sugar content to make sure that the jam sets properly and doesn’t spoil and go mouldy in the jar.  Theoretically you can use a little less sugar in damson jam compared with other fruit jams because of the damson’s high pectin content (it should set at a lower concentration), but we’re not talking about eating half the jar as one of your ‘five a day’ here so to my mind what’s more important is a successful afternoon in the kitchen.  Damsons (and plums) are a great place to start out in jam making by the way because of the aforementioned high pectin content – they’re more than likely to set unlike some fussier preserves like strawberry.

My jam is a chunky full fruit preserve which contains the fruit skin but I have also made a batch of a smoother, jelly-esque damson jam.  If you’d like to try the smooth variety you can remove the fruit skin and the stones together in one clever step, bypassing the need to stone the damsons by hand. Boil the fruit and water as per my recipe but before you add the sugar press the fruit through a metal colander, thus retaining the stones and any big bits of fruit.  This bit of kitchen genius comes strangely from unruly haired Mayor of London, Boris Johnson who is also quite right in his promotion of jam making as a unisex activity. “If women can go to work and suffer the curse of ambition, then we men are entitled to the restful consolations of jam-making”.

The damsons go through a riot of colours before settling at a deep, rich burgundy that is nothing like the yellow of the fruit’s flesh or the blue outer.  Having made the jam the boy and I were impatient to try it out the next morning but the end slices of our supermarket granary just didn’t seem proper and so we whisked up a batch of Heidi Swanson’s Easy Little Bread Recipe from 101 Cookbooks. Its short, dense slices would be hopeless for making a sandwich but this slightly sweet, oaten bread was probably designed with homemade jam and a smudge of butter in mind.  And as the title suggests the recipe is really very easy.

I hated fruit salad when I was a kid. Hated it. And then I grew up and started to enjoy eating fruit, but strangely the dislike of fruit salad persisted. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve realised the the secret to making fruit salad enjoyable. Only use fruit that you enjoy!  D’uh. I know this sounds obvious but it’s taken me so many years to realise that feel that I should pass the message on in case somebody else hasn’t realised.

For me a fruit salad should never be tainted by the smell of a banana, nor the grind of kiwi seeds. And it should definitely have some of the sweet softness of berries to complement the crisp and fresh. But that’s the beauty of making your own, you can cater to all of your own little iodiosyncracies regarding texture and taste, not to mention saving the planet by buying local and seasonal fruit.

A big batch of fruit salad is an indispensable tool for fitting in your five-a-day. Twenty minutes prep at the weekend and you have instant delectable, flexible fruit to hand for the next four or five days.  A fruit salad will live happily in the fridge for the best part of the week ready to be eaten at a moments notice:

• with yogurt
• on porridge or quinoa
• as an impromptu dessert, eton mess style
• naked
• on pancakes or sweet incarnation of this baked cottage cheese French toast

This combination of nectarines, berries and orange zest is how I like my fruit salad in the summer – you can design your own or copy mine.

Our house is the neighbourhood home for unwanted rhubarb. I love the stuff, while some of our friends who have rhubarb growing in their gardens just aren’t as keen (or possibly just have way too much).  It’s not uncommon for us to come home to find a bag of rhubarb hanging on our front door handle, sometimes with a cabbage for the chickens thrown in.

There’s just one difficulty with the free rhubarb  – it just doesn’t fit into the fridge easily. It’s too big for the salad drawer and ideally wants a shelf all to itself. I’ve tried leaving it out of the fridge and it just goes limp. Chop it into smaller pieces and it just dries out.  This spring though, I think I’ve finally got rhubarb sorted.  I can get a big bunch of fresh rhubarb from the doorstep and into a manageable, fridge-friendly, ready-to-eat tub of compote in under 10 minutes.

Here’s how to do it. Give the rhubarb a quick wash and cut off any leaves, plus an inch or so of stem from either end.  Chop the rhubarb into inch long segments and place in a ceramic bowl.  Add a splash of water or a squeeze of orange juice and a scant tablespoon of honey. Microwave on full power for two minutes. Stir and return to the microwave for a further two minutes or until the rhubarb is soft and disintegrating. Taste and add more honey if needed.

There’s nothing wrong with cooking rhubarb on the hob by the way, it’s just that cooking it on the hob requires a bit more time and attention. Which means that I’m more likely to want to cook it later when I can give it my full attention, rather than right away. Which means I’m going to try and wedge it into the fridge somehow, around the yogurt pots and over the relish jars…

The compote is great in a smoothie, with creamy natural yogurt, on oatmeal/porridge or with leftover quinoa for a quick breakfast.

Related posts

• Rhubarb and ginger thickie
• Is rhubarb good for you?
• Tofu with hot and sour rhubarb sauce

This salad recipe uses my new crush, gorgeous Tarocco oranges from Sicily, accompanied with peppery watercress and baked tofu.  When I first started trying to eat more sustainably choosing fruit in Winter was a big shopping headache. After all, there is pretty much no fruit that grows in the UK between November and the first forced rhubarb in February.  My attitude to this has relaxed rather over the last year, after all, part of sustainable eating needs to be about sustaining ourselves too don’t you think?  I buy fruit from Europe with two caveats; first, if it grows easily in the UK I’ll wait and buy it locally and seasonally instead and second, forgetting to use this fruit and letting it go to waste is not an option.  This feels like a good compromise given the massive environmental impact caused by food waste. There are so many stunning varieties of citrus are in season across Europe right now and none of them are ever available “homegrown” (whereas buying apples from New Zealand just doesn’t feel like such a good compromise).

Grab a bagful of these Tarocco Sicilian oranges if you see them for they are both beautiful and delicious. Sweet, refreshing and less acerbic than most varieties, they also have a delicate red speckle through the flesh for which they are known in Sicily as “half-blood” oranges.  The red colour is due to beta-cryptoxanthin, a compound similar to beta carotene and which our bodies can convert into Vitamin A as well as acting as an anti-oxidant in its own right.  The baked tofu is surprisingly savoury because of the garlic and shallots, a good contrast to the sweet orange segments.  Cooking yourself an extra block of tofu is a great idea so that you can put it into sandwiches, salads and wraps later in the week.

Being able to segment an orange is fantastic kitchen skill to have and a doddle once someone has shown you how. If you’ve never done this before check out Tea’s photographic instructions on How to supreme an orange or grapefruit. And while you’re there take a look at her Winter Survival Citrus ideas which I’m sure burrowed its way into my greedy subconscious and winded up where I am now (with a fridge full of oranges, lemons and clementines).

Nutrition highlights: superstar green leafy veg, vitamin C infused Citrus fruit and calcium rich tofu.

Alongside the lush new greens growing in  my garden are some productive older residents including  damson, apple, fig and plum trees. Most of the fruit bounty from the trees is taken care of between eating, passing on to friends and freezing (with just enough sugar). It’s the damsons that need a bit more thought; they are delicious in their own way, but not really all that good eaten au naturel.  

The first batch of purple blue damsons were made into a tub of decadent full fat, cream and sugar ice-cream, courtesy of Nigel Slater. The second batch were destined for Madalene’s Bullace and Conference Pear Breakfast Muffins. And so it turned out were the third batch.  Now before I get on to talking about the muffins, if you haven’t seen it already you should take a look at Madalene’s blog, The British Larder. Her photography is mouth-watering and her recipes are always inspiring me to try out more traditional British produce such as cobnuts, bullace and greengages.

This recipe produces wholesome, unpretentious muffins – the sort you’d have for breakfast or to tide you over until a late dinner.  And there are hidden treasures within the muffins; the damson pieces form little crimson, caramelised nuggets and the cereal flakes become chewy and malty.

My version has a few differences to Madalene’s including vegetable oil (also known as rapeseed or canola oil) for more monounsaturated fats, yogurt with a splash of milk in place of buttermilk (which I can never find to buy), and a touch of allspice (for that autumnal feel).  We don’t tend to have bran flakes in stock so my muffins use an unsweetened cereal flake made from a combination of buckwheat and rice.  Don’t think you can’t try the recipe without access to a supply of damsons either – I’m confident plums would work in their place.

If you’re in the mood for more baking ideas check out this earlier post on How to Make a Healthier Muffin.

We’ve just spent a few days in the glorious highlands of Scotland.  Me with my camera and the triathlete with his bike, taking part in the Caledonian Etape.  Or trying to anyway; the whole weekend turned out to be rather more eventful than planned when somebody sabotaged the event by scattering carpet tacks across the route, possibly in protest at the road closures put in place for the event (scheduled to last an incredibly inconvenient three whole hours).

The Scots as it turns out have a whole vocabulary to describe rain.  After a dreich day, the rain upgraded its status to stotting down. The weather in England hasn’t been much better since we got back from our break (grey and distinctly chilly) so this seems an opportune time to share a crumble recipe.

I’ve dallied with ‘healthier fats’ in crumbles, but haven’t yet come up with a satisfactory recipe (oils seem to produce a dish more rubble than crumble).  A compromise is to accompany the butter with a high fruit to topping ratio, not too much sugar and plenty of good stuff in the topping.  Wholemeal spelt flour, whole oats plus roughly chopped hazelnuts for texture.  Spelt flour has a toasty, nutty flavour and is my current favourite standby flour for all but the most serious of baking recipes.  (Shopping note: as with the unmilled spelt grains, spelt flour comes in wholegrain and white varieties. Check the label to see which sort you are getting).

Our crumble accompaniment tends to start from luxurious, fresh vanilla custard on the first day to a more austere, sour note like natural yogurt or half-fat creme fraiche for the leftovers.

Other recipes featuring oats, plums and spelt
Baked plums with cinnamon and honey
Fig and plum porridge
Butternut squash, oat and ginger cake bites
Summery herb, salmon and spelt salad
Rhubarb and Ginger Thickie

The photo at the top of this post is from Queen’s View, reputably the most photographed view in Perthshire and a favourite of Queen Victoria.

This pavlova is a serious pudding, not a health food.  The meringue is fudgy with brown sugar.  The fruit topping is vanilla and honey scented and textured with fig seeds.  The cream layer is a blend of whipped cream and greek yogurt. It’s really good though, so I thought you wouldn’t mind the brief deviation from all that nutritiousness.

The pavlova was supposed to be the caramel apple pavlova from the Riverford Farm cookbook.  We had friends coming to dinner and I promised myself that I’d stick to the recipe, just this once.  And then when I made the meringue the night before the dinner I figured swapping in a little bit of muscovado sugar couldn’t hurt, but that I’d stick to the plan with the caramel apple topping. And then our friends had to cancel because of the heavy snow we’ve had…

Inspired among other recipes by Stonesoup’s version of Maggie Beer’s fig pavlova I made a winter fruit compote with plums and dried figs, spiced with vanilla, cinnamon, star anise and honey.  A compote based on dried and (gasp!) canned fruit neatly skirts round the problem of the lacklustre fruit available in the UK at this time of year and gives the whole dish a decidedly seasonal feel.  You can use fresh fruit by all means but just think about it; nutritionally you’re not really missing out, it is environmentally sound at this time of year and you won’t be infuriated by fruit that doesn’t ripen in time for your guests.  Mixing whipped cream with a helping of lower-in-fat greek yogurt is a worthwhile twist that gives a contrasting sour note in the middle of all that sweetness.

This combination of juicy fresh fruit, sweet dried fruit and a hint of spice was my food flask breakfast for a very early train journey a few weeks back, inspired by a leftover bowl of quinoa.  Porridge (possibly more commonly known as oatmeal?) is my regular nutritious winter breakfast in many, many different guises, but quinoa makes a very pleasant change from oats.  Quinoa, it turns out, is also a much more forgiving grain to prepare in the morning rush.  Povided that you cook a little extra earlier in the week, this essentially just entails reheating; there’s no need to wait for that magic moment when those “oats floating in milk” magically elasticise into real, gooey porridge. Plus like porridge, this breakfast is really, really filling stuff, most likely because of the low glycaemic index of the grain which means that it keeps your blood glucose levels on an even keel well into the morning.

The mix of fresh and dried fruit covers water-soluble vitamins (particularly vitamin C), minerals and fibre all in one.  Porridge and quinoa are nutritionally similar in many ways; both are wholegrains and both low GI provided that you choose the right sort of oats.  Quinoa has a GI of 51 (classified as low), old-fashioned rolled oats 42 (also low) while instant porridge is 82 (high GI). Other nutritional aspects are more of a trade-off; porridge has its cholesterol-busting soluble fibre, while quinoa is higher in protein.

The quinoa can be soaked in the milk overnight but don’t worry about that too much – this dish still works fine made just before eating.  If you’re wondering why I’m suggesting adding honey to something that already contains naturally sweet dried fruit and clementines, the reality is that quinoa often has a very distinctive earthy note to it (the kind of flavour a wine buff would describe as a tad vegetal).  A little drizzle of honey among all of these other healthy ingredients is not going to cause any lasting damage but if you use a sweetened milk like certain soy milks then you might not need it.

Credit for this post goes to fabulous and thoughful dietitian Elaine of Greens and Berries for prompting me to blog about it after she caught me rambling from the train about my breakfast habits on Twitter.  She was right to get me to write the combination down.  This way I will remember it when the clementine season comes around next year.  There’s something about this one that is more than the sum of it’s parts (I suspect it’s the way that the milk soaks into the clementines making them super juicy).

Good things to add to smoothies that provide nutritious calories

• Adding spoonful of nut butter provides flavour, texture and beneficial fats (I like homemade almond butter best).
• A palmful of oats such as in this rhubarb and ginger thickie provide all of the health benefits of wholegrains and a particularly good helping of soluble fibre. Theoretically any wholegrains that are suitable for eating raw will work in a smoothie (I’d love to hear what you guys have tried out!).  A very easily available choice is wheat bran, a great source of fibre for many people (a little too irritating to the gut for some).
• Avocado blends beautifully and works just fine in a fruity smoothie, providing monounsaturated fats and vitamin E.
• As we talked about last week, milk and yogurt (cows, goats, soy, rice etc) are a great way to add calcium, plus the fat in the milk will help to slow the absorption of the natural sugars in the fruit, reducing the overall GI of the recipe. For a change of texture freeze the yogurt beforehand.
• Hemp oil or ground hemp seeds are one of the best ways to boost any dish with a vegetarian source of omega 3 fatty acids, as well as providing the powerful anti-oxidant, Vitamin E.
• Dried fruit, soaked to soften, provide texture, sweetness, fibre, energy and minerals.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but hopefully you will have found one or two new ideas in there to get you blending again!  I’d love to hear about it via the comments if you have your own favourite smoothie additions.