The Healing Power of Soup

I’m feeling under the weather with flushed cheeks and a burning throat, so this evening I wanted a bowlful of nutritious soup made with fresh vegetables to perk me up and sooth.

I heated a good glug of olive oil in a large pan and threw in half a fairly large onion, finely chopped; a crushed garlic clove; 2 carrots and a courgette, diced; and a sliced leek. I softened and lightly coloured these in the oil and then topped-up the pan with fresh chicken stock. A little chopped flat leafed parsley, sea salt and a good grinding of fresh black pepper provided final flavouring before the soup was left to simmer.

The smell alone was comforting enough and the soup itself eased my throat as it went down, making me feel just that little bit better. Home made soup should be bottled and sold alongside the paracetamol and cough mixture at the chemist.

Proper Burgers

I think there’s something really rather exciting about making your own burgers. Certainly the first few times you make them you get a real sense of achievement – ‘wow, I made those; they weren’t shop-bought’ – and the great thing is that they’re so easy to make.

Use the best quality lean mince you can find for your burgers and you’ll be rewarded with succulence and fantastic flavour. Once you’ve got that good starting point anything you add is just going to enhance the flavour that’s already there. For these burgers I added to 500 grams of beef mince a big handful of flat leafed parsley which I snipped with scissors, a finely chopped red onion and a generous sprinkling of sea salt and black pepper.



Once you’ve mixed everything together you just need to firmly squeeze and mould the mixture into round patties. Some people add breadcrumbs or an egg to bind the mixture but I find I don’t need to so long as I firmly squeeze the mixture together when moulding it.

If your burgers end up quite fat like my ones cook them on a low to medium heat, quite slowly, so that they cook right the way through, although a little pink in the middle is fine if you like them rarer, providing your meat is fresh of course.



Once you make your own burgers you won’t want to buy ready made ones again. You can make them exactly how you want them and add into the mix whatever takes your fancy, minced garlic; chilli; cheese; mustard. And why not get the kids involved; they’ll love making, and of course eating, their own burgers and you’ll know exactly what’s gone into them - the burgers, and the kids, that is.

Wake up and Smell the Coffee

The British cuppa this tea-loving nation has always been famed for has grown out of favour in recent years with the rise and rise of the American-originated coffee shop. Coffee is now the number one fix of the bleary-eyed London worker - count the number clutching lidded cups of it during the morning rush and the percentage of those with is highly likely to be higher than those without. Skinny; wet; triple-shot; tall, there’s something to suit all tastes. And now we’re even buying our very own espresso makers so that we can get the real thing at home. You can see the attraction; it hits the spot, it wakes you up, and it tastes good too. But what exactly is all this coffee doing to our bodies?

The affects of caffeine on our health is often brought into question and many hours of research has gone into scientific studies to establish just how bad, or good, it is for us. But Jasmine Willis, 17, carried out her own unintentional study with horrifying results. The teenager drank seven double espressos, thinking they were single shots, in just four hours, resulting in her overdosing on caffeine and being rushed to hospital. Her symptoms included crying and laughing uncontrollably, palpitations and hyperventilation. Thankfully she is fully recovered but the experience has left a bad taste in her mouth, if you’ll excuse the pun. So remember, dear reader - everything in moderation, everything in moderation.

Peas in a Pod

One of my earliest, and fondest, food memories is of sitting at the kitchen table with my sister in the summer as we shelled fresh garden peas while Mum prepared the meal. I remember the delight in prising open the pods and teasing the peas out into the big bowl, I remember their sweet taste and Mum gently telling us not to eat them all.

Summer peas fresh from their pods are delicately and sweetly flavoured, and the process of podding them can be immensely pleasurable and therapeutic. All the family can join in the fun, creating life-long memories like the one I’ve just described. I look forward to creating such memories with my own children when the time comes.

Sadly the rain and devastating floods the UK has seen this summer have destroyed vast amounts of the pea crops so there are fewer to go around. I was fortunate to pick some up at my local farm shop at the weekend and I value them all the more.

The peas were a lovely accompaniment to the fantastic pork, apple and cider sausages we bought at the weekend, which I cooked slowly until sticky. To finish the meal I boiled some halved new potatoes for a potato salad, made by smothering the potatoes with mayonnaise and mixing through flat leafed parsley. It was a very homely and very satisfying dinner.