Okay, doesn’t sound that appetising, but this went down a treat with a bottle of the excellent ginger-spiced Blandford Fly beer. I didn’t even grumble about the brown rice - it was totally like being back in a cafe in Bristol in the 1980s… Recipe adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery, BBC, 1982, serves 4.

• 200g red split lentils
• 1 litre water
• half teaspoon ground turmeric
• vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 250g finely chopped cabbage
• dried flaked chillies
• tomato puree
• half teaspoon dried ginger

Boil the lentils in the water, removing scum and add the turmeric. Cover and simmer gently until tender. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a pan and sizzle the cumin seeds. Add the garlic and onion, cabbage & chillies. Fry until cabbage starts to crisp. Add salt if you want. When the lentils are cooked, add the tomato puree and ginger and the cabbage mix. Simmer for 2-3 minutes and serve with brown basmati rice.

Henry & Tilly went pumpkin carving the other day, and they brought home a couple of extra pumpkins they hadn’t finished - which was a bonus as I could make soup…

• Large pumpkin
• 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
• large knob of butter
• 4 large carrots
• 2 large onions
• cumin seeds
• ground cinnamon
• ground ginger
• nutmeg

Scoop the inside of the pumpkin with an ice-cream scoop. Keep the seeds to one side and chop the pumpkin flesh. Save the empty pumpkin either for use as a soup tureen or to make a lantern.

Fry the onions gently in the butter for 5 minutes with a few cumin seeds, taking care not to brown the onions. Add the chopped carrots, pumpkin and stock. Add salt, pepper, ground ginger and cinnamon to taste - I used about a quarter of a teaspoon of ginger & cinnamon - a bit more would probably have been even nicer. Simmer on a low heat, lid on for about half an hour. Whizz up with a hand blender or food processor and serve with crusty bread, grating nutmeg on top. Perfect after an autumn walk in the park!

For the seeds… put the oven on a low heat - no more than 125 centigrade. Wash the seeds removing any flesh or stringy bits, pat dry with kitchen roll. Place on a baking tray in the oven until quite dry - took about half an hour. You can then put them in salads, or do what I did - toss them in a little sunflower oil and lots of sea-salt - deeeelishous!

Okay, dill pickles are not exactly a staple food but these are great with Buzz Burgers (today I simplified the burgers by just using organic minced beef, and small amounts of finely chopped onions, garlic, dried herbs, Worcester and Tabasco sauce. They went down a treat.)

I love pickles. I spend so much time with Mrs Elswood I’m surprised my wife isn’t jealous. And as we had a HUGE glut of cucumbers on our allotment this year, I decided to try to make my own.

The web is awash with grandmothers’ pickle recipes, but none seemed quite right. One even demanded that the cucumbers be placed in a bath tub of ice prior to picking to ensure they remain crisp. Well, sod that, life’s too short. So I adapted a recipe from Delia Smith’s Summer Collection, adding dill and using some white malt vinegar.

Ingredients:

• Glut of large cucumbers from your allotment
• large onions
• lots of salt, kosher salt if you can find it (it has no anti-caking agents and stops the juice going cloudy)
• a pint (570ml) or two of vinegar - I used a 50/50 mix of white wine vinegar and clear distilled malt vinegar
• a pound (450g) or two of soft brown sugar
• few tablespoons of mustard seeds
• few teaspoons of crushed cloves & turmeric
• sprigs of fresh dill
• lots of large jars with lids, steralised in the oven

Slice the cucumbers thinly; chuck out any really bitter cukes. You can cut them in circles or make large spears, but I found it hard getting hot cucumbers neatly packed in jars so my long neatly-cut spears ended up in a mess; Mrs Elswood would have been ashamed of me. Make layers of cucumber and onion on a plate, salting each layer and press the top down with something heavy. Leave for a couple of hours and pour off as much of the juice as you can.

Put the vinegar, sugar and mustard seeds in a big pan, bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Put the cucumbers in and boil for 1 minute only (I failed here and boiled mine longer with no ill-effects). Put the cucumbers in jars, add a sprig or two of dill and cover with the liquor. Seal the jars, go and sit on a beach in Cornwall for a month, and when you get back they will be ready. And sweet. And delicious.

Adapted, if not pinched, from the Able & Cole recipe, adding Noilly Prat vermouth and using mint instead of thyme, as we have mint growing by our kitchen door but no thyme. That’s the trouble with modern life; never enough thyme.

• 450g broad beans, shelled. Peel the skins off the bigger beans.
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 glass Noilly Prat vermouth
• 2 or 3 big fat cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 500g risotto rice
• 1.7 litres of hot chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you prefer but I’m afraid this really does taste a squillion times better with chicken stock). Best if you make your own chicken stock, it’s really easy and makes you feel good. I’ll post my highly scientific method soon.
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint
• Sea salt and pepper
• Fresh parmesan shavings

Gently heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan. Cook the onion until it has softened but do not let it brown. Add broad beans and the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes. Stir in the rice and continue to cook until the grains have become translucent and glossy. Throw in the glass of Noilly Prat and inhale deeply. Life doesn’t get better than this.

Turn the heat down and add the stock, one ladle at a time. All the liquid must be absorbed before adding more. Stir all of the time. This will take no less than 20–25 minutes. Add half the mint with the last ladle of liquid. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Take the pan off the heat, cover and leave of stand. Serve hot on warmed plates and sprinkle with the last of the mint and shavings of Parmesan.

This is adapted from “Super Soups” - a tiny National Trust recipe book I picked up years ago in Northumberland.

- 1 head of celery.
- 1 large carrot.
- 1 large onion.
- 1 and a half pints (900ml) vegetable stock
- 75g grated cheddar cheese
- 100g grated stilton cheese

Trim the celery (optionally leave one or two stalks aside for later). Peel and chop the carrot and onion and place in a saucepan with the stock (I just use a veggie Oxo cube) and season.

Let it come to the boil and then simmer for about an hour.

Give the soup a whirr with a blender. Reheat in the pan and add the grated cheese.

If you decided to save some celery stalks now is the time to chop them into slices. Add them to the bowls when you serve to give the soup a bit of crunch.

This recipe comes from my Mum.

Lancashire Hotpot is traditionally made with lamb, but this hotpot variation calls for beef.

- Some diced stewing steak. About 500g.
- Potatoes - loads.
- One onion.
- Half a pint of red wine.
- Veggie stock cube (optional).

Preheat the oven to 170c.

Peel the spuds and cut them into chunks about the same size as the pieces of your meat.

Coarsely chop the onion.

Throw the meat, potatoes and onion into a large pot.

Pour in the wine and top up with boiling water. Add the stock cube if you want.

Put the lid on the pot and leave in the oven for three hours. I usually take it out and give it a stir once an hour, but there’s really no need to!

Serve while piping hot. You can garnish with beetroot, and it’s also really good with some biscuits of shortcrust pastry to help mop up the juice.

I think it’s a great dish for this time of year. It’s lovely to put on before going to see a fireworks display. When you come back home the delicious smell will meet you at the front door, and the meal will warm you all up again. If there are any left-overs it’s just as good reheated in a saucepan the next day!

This has evolved from a recipe on the side of a packet of Marmite stock cubes. I don’t think you can get Marmite stock cubes any more - it probably dawned on people that you could just use ordinary Marmite in cooking instead. It’s a basic vegetable stew, made with whatever we have to hand.

• Lots of root vegetables - potatoes, parsnips, turnips, carrots etc
• celery
• garlic
• olive oil
• large onion
• tin of tomatoes
• tin of mixed beans - kidney beans, borlotti beans etc
• mushrooms, if you have them
• tomato puree
• slug of red wine
• teaspoon of Marmite
• dried mixed herbs
• bay leaf
• 2 handfulls of small pasta (such as ditali lisci no. 58)
• teaspoon of vegetable stock powder such as Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon.

Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil. When well-cooked add the roughly chopped celery and root vegetables. Fry for a few minutes and add all the other ingredients, topping up with water as needed to cover the veg. Simmer on the stove or in the oven for an hour or so.