Advice & Inspiration For Your Garden

Japanese griddled courgettes recipe

This is as simple as it comes, but is so delicious, I could eat it on its own and it's excellent with almost any fish or meat. Use a mix of colours – yellow, dark green, light green courgett

summer garden tempura recipe

If you boil purple French beans, they turn a dark grey-green. By dipping them raw and whole into tempura batter and then shallow-frying them, they stay looking fantastic and taste even better.

stuffed courgette flowers with honey recipe

You don't often see courgette flowers for sale in the UK, but if you do, buy them. If you grow courgettes, pumpkins or squash, you'll have plenty of these in your garden, though you might be

split pea and mint croquettes recipe

Healthy, sustaining and absolutely delicious. I love this sort of imprecise recipe (from Crete) where you can suit yourself, adding mint one time and cumin the next. The sauce is equally delicio

spinach and ricotta cannelloni recipe

This classic dish is perfect for a big family Saturday lunch, or a vegetarian feast. The fresh lasagne sheets do not need any pre-cooking, but if using dried, follow the cooking instructions. Yo

green pawpaw, carrot and cashew salad

A classic Thai street food salad, based on pawpaw at its unripe, green stage, when it has all its anti-inflammatory and digestion-aiding properties, but none of the big sugar hit. The cashews en

spiced pickled beans

Rather than leaving them on the plant to toughen, pick beans when they're small and bottle them while in preserving jars. Fine French beans are the nicest, but baby runners are also delicious. T

gooseberry tart recipe

A tart of sharp, delicious just-cooked gooseberries in a very light pastry.serves 6 450g gooseberries 3 eggs 100g caster sugar 284ml double cream, plus more to serve 1 teaspoon vanil

watercress soup

This soup is very simple, with the pepperiness of watercress set against the creaminess of coconut milk. It’s also versatile; you can add a bunch of parsley, sorrel, mustard leaves, chard or spi

globe artichokes with angelica's sauce recipe

This recipe reminds me of Angelica, the cook in the house my parents used to rent in the Dolomites. I love the whole palaver of artichokes: pulling the leaves off and dipping them into the r

ithaca pie recipe

This is the local version of spanakopita which we ate in a small taverna in Stavros. It was cooked with spinach mixed with horta – wild greens picked from the hillside. A combination of spinach,

thai prawn, mango and coconut lettuce parcels recipe

I love this when the weather's warm and sunny, piling the different ingredients on to individual lettuce leaves and then folding the leaves into parcels. A good way of smashing the coconut is once

samphire sauce recipe

Marsh samphire (its proper name is glasswort – Salicornia europaea), is at its absolute best around July, so if you live around the British coast, near mud flats or salt marshes rather than clif

runner bean flower salad recipe

Scatter runner bean flowers over any leaf salad or make this bean tabbouleh, where the flowers take centre stage.serves 4-6 2 good handfuls of small tender runner beans Salt and black pepp

pelargonium-scented strawberry jam recipe

Don't make strawberry jam in huge batches; it's harder to get it to set, and with endless boiling you lose the freshness of the flavour. Adding scented pelargonium (geranium) leaves to the jam,

pea soup with mint and dill

This takes less than 10 minutes from start to finish, and it’s fine made with frozen peas instead of fresh. Many pea soups include a little sugar, but the dill here makes the soup sweet enough.