Leon Cookbook

 Dave often buys very unexpected, but awesome presents. After declaring that we weren't doing presents this Christmas, he changed his mind and went out shopping, thankfully hours before the pre Christmas Tier 4 lockdown!!

One of the presents he came back with, was a Leon cookbook. I've only eaten at Leon a few times - mainly as I never eat fast food - and am not usually a fan of cook books. I tend to find a recipe I like, only to discover that it contains 7 million ingredients, I've never heard of most of them and only have 3 in the cupboard. 

So I was swayed with this one, when the first recipe I opened the book on was Sweet Potato Falafel. It sounded so good and I had every ingredient (of which there weren't too many) already in the cupboard, aside from gram flour. Thankfully, after the great flour shortage of March/April 2020, I knew that the shop across the road sells gram flour, so that was incredibly easy to locate, and I was set to go!

I also then decided to make Leon Gobi to go with it, as I already had everything for that too (aside from turmeric, which I've since bought!)

These were both incredible! They tasted expensive, so many flavours, and also conveniently Vegan. Perfect timing for making an effort towards Veganuary. 

The next recipe, which Dave was drawn to immediately, was the ketchup. As we're not allowed  out, what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon, than make ketchup. We get through a lot of it, and as I insist on buying it in glass, not plastic, it doesn't come in big enough bottles for him!!

It was well worth the effort!! It's less sweet and more spiced than regular ketchup and so good!!

We next tried the Rogan Josh and I decided to attempt naan bread with it too. The curry was quite long winded to cook, but more in a 'do this then leave for 30 mins' way, so not too time consuming!

Naan bread, it turns out, is way easier to make then I expected. Why have I never made it before!!

It looks beautiful as well as containing lush recipes!!

Cardamom rice pudding. Our milkman has started selling cream in glass jars so perfect timing!! 

I've also tried the falafel with butternut squash instead of sweet potato, and although it was a bit softer (I added more flour) it was equally as tasty!!

There are still so many more recipes to try! I'm also a big fan of the Brazilian beans, Pilaff Rice, and the Cauliflower, Almond & Turmeric Soup. The problem is to choose what to try next!!

Plastic Free Living

It’s been almost a year since I started my pledge to live without single use plastics - and mostly it’s gone very well.

The opening of the fabulous StoreSource Bulk Foods in Chiswick obviously helped make things a lot easier, as well as the great One Step and Four State stalls that pop up at lots of my Duck Pond Market.

The main advice I can give is be prepared. I always have some beeswax wraps, or Tupperware with me, and definitely never leave home without a metal water bottle and my bamboo tea cup!

Milk - is delivered (mostly - sometime they don’t bother!) by my lovely Milk and More milkman.

Vegetables  - come from my fabulous local fruit and veg stalls on Chiswick High Road, or Morrison’s has a brilliant British selection - especially when they do naked cucumbers in the summer.

Meat & cheese
 - comes from the counters in Morrison’s or Sainsbury’s, or sometimes in my local butchers or deli (when I’m feeling richer!) and I take along a good stash of Tupperware for these. All my Tupperware now have fairly sticky lids, from where the price labels get stuck on - but those are the only waste involved in these purchases!

I’ve stopped eating yoghurt, except for when I occasionally treat myself to a glass jar of delicious Riverford yoghurt.

Crisps/crackers/biscuits/cakes - I mostly bake myself. I’ve discovered I’m a whizz at making tortillas, and actually prefer them to the shop bought ones! The only exception to this is our local Lidl sells the most amazing pastries, so again, I take my tubs along to put them in.

Cleaning products - the Source has a great refill selection, so I take along my empty bottles and fill up with toilet cleaner, laundry liquid, white vinegar.

Toiletries - I’ve had a mooncup for about 10 years, so that was already sorted, and have had bamboo toothbrushes for a few years too. I buy soap, shampoo and conditioner bars from lovely people at the markets I do, but also refilled a bottle with shampoo at the Source, for my boyfriend, who refused to use a shampoo bar as he says ‘it doesn’t make sense!’

I am now so repulsed by the thought of buying anything plastic, that if I am out and about and hungry, I usually end up with a banana and a can of something to drink!

We have a few gadgets that help with the cause - a bread maker, and a Soda Stream machine! But I don’t want too many unnecessary gadgets cluttering up the kitchen.

Carrot & Oat Cookies - UK recipe

I had an urge last week, to make carrot & oat cookies. I quite often get an urge to bake, but will usually be in my pyjamas and very unwilling to leave the house (even though we have a few supermarkets within a minute walk of the house!!) and so will do a sweep of the cupboards and fridge to see what I have, and then try to find and tailor a recipe to what I have in the house.

Last week, I had a huge bag of carrots in the fridge, and an unopened bag of oats in the cupboard, and not much else in the way of interesting baking ingredients, and so I thought that carrot oat cookies would be a tasty, healthy (?) baking treat!

Unfortunately, all the recipes that I could find were American, and I just don't get all this 'cup' measuring.

In the end, I gave up with trying to search for an English recipe, picked an American on, and got busy translating.

So here is my recipe (also slightly adapted to what I had in the cupboards!!)

170g of butter or baking spread (I used Stork)
50g of dark brown muscavado sugar
125g of castor sugar
*note that the recipe called for 175g of brown sugar, but I used what I had in the cupboard, and though they were fabulous!
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
300g porridge oats
150g grated carrot
milk, to add until it makes a slightly sticky dough


1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees (180 for a fan oven, and lightly grease a couple of baking trays.

2. Beat the butter and sugars together until smooth and creamy. Add the beaten egg, and vanilla extract and beat well.

3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda, and nutmeg. Stir into the butter and sugar mixture until well mixed.

4. Fold in the oats and carrots and add the milk until it forms a sticky dough.

5. Drop mounds of dough, around 8cm in diameter onto the baking tray, and flatten with the back of a spoon, until they are about 2cm high.

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.

7. Eat!!! Mmmmmm!