what we eat & drink – the recipes

(Neal Street, Covent Garden, and the FOOD FOR THOUGHT vegetarian cafe in the 1980s, where we were first inspired to stop buying meat & fish)

Life, as I have only just begun to realise (why did it take this long?), is all about becoming more and more inquisitive about the natural world, and less needy for all the virtual crap will addict us if we let it. Life is also about acquiring new skills.

I am constantly surprising myself at what I can learn. At the age of 67 for example, I started teaching myself the drums (rumba & flamenco) which has since become a passion. Another favourite pastime has been discovering how to making tasty and healthy meals.

This page is dedicated to the successful ones. From now on, each time I come up with a really good recipe I will photograph the result and post them here.

None of these will contain any fish, meat, dairy, eggs, or ultra-processed ingredients. Please note though, they are generally on the spicy side, so if you don’t like this kind of taste simply reduce the amount of cayenne pepper/ chilli to suit.

There are no specific instructions on how to prepare the vegetables, that’s for you to decide, we all have different ways of doing these things. However I would like to mention that if you are new to the delights of curly kale and cavolo nero, it is best to discard all the hard stuff (stems/ veins more than 1 mm thick). Though with both cauliflower and broccoli you can eat virtually all of it, including the thick stems, just cut those bits into smaller pieces so they cook in the same time.

Unless stated all the cooking is done on a mid-low heat.

Most of the recipes are for six servings (batch cooking), as this is a much more efficient use of time and ingredients. If this is too much, you can freeze what you don’t need or refrigerate in a sealed container for use within 48 hrs. A tip on re-heating, always do it slowly on a low heat, that way it won’t stick to the bottom of the pan. We also buy (all our non-fresh ingredients) in bulk, which is not only a lot cheaper, but if you buy enough are usually delivered free of charge. For example, organic flour we buy in 25 kg sacks, as the shelf-life is at least 6 months.

With regards to kitchen implements, we like to keep it basic here, so really there are only two recommendations. And that’s a cast-iron wok, which does most of our cooking and has the benefit of staying hot longer than stainless steel, plus is large enough for the batch cooking (6 portions or more) we prefer. Ours measures 37 cm in diameter. We also have recently acquired a cast-iron manual meat mincer. Not a fan of electrical kitchen gadgets, this is perfect for making the burgers and hummus with. You can find them second-hand on eBay, we got ours (which was made in the 1950s) from a local charity shop for £8.

Where tinned beans are mentioned in a recipe this is solely as a convenience for those just starting, we actually prefer to use dried beans and cook them in a pressure cooker. This way they have much more flavour/ nutrients and do not contain any harmful preservatives. As a very rough guide (worth checking on the internet), one 400 g tin of beans is the same as 1/2-3/4 cup of dried beans. Always soak them the night before.

Rice is featured a lot. I’ve listed it here as basmati, but actually we prefer brown/ whole grain. Basmati is a lot simpler though. If you wash it thoroughly (to get rid of the starch) first, then soak in a bowl of boiling water for an hour, followed by cooking, the taste is better. Or, as I prefer, wash/ soak for an hour in cold water/ then cook for two minutes in a pressure cooker. 1/3 of a cup to 1/2 a cup per person is a good portion.

Use the best extra virgin olive oil you can afford, it will make all the difference to the taste, and is much healthier than cheaper oils.

If you’ve not come across them before, tamari and miso impart to cooking that unique unami taste. We use the Clearspring brand, and get the cheaper larger sizes (2.5 ltr & 1 kg respectively).

Please feel free to adapt and hone the recipes, and please let me know what you think or how to improve them.

The order they appear in is most recent first.

chilli sin carne

click here to download recipe

smoky butterbean and orzo soup

click here to download recipe

spicy lentil bean stew

click here to download recipe

goan vindaloo

Despite the name this is a very mild curry, though you can simply increase the red chilli flakes to make it hotter.

click here to download recipe

borscht

click here to download recipe

white bean balls in garlic tomato sauce

click here to download recipe

aubergine & bean stew

click here to download recipe

korma

click here to download recipe

kale pesto pasta with mushrooms

click here to download recipe

curried pumpkin & ginger soup

click here to download recipe

cuban black bean soup

Teamed here with spelt & rye sourdough bread (recipe below).

click here to download recipe

rogan josh

click here to download recipe

tomato & bean soup with noodles

click here to download recipe

saag aloo

click here to download recipe

pauline’s curry

This is one of our staple meals. Served with Naan bread.

click here to download recipe

curried cauliflower and sweet potato soup

The photo doesn’t do justice to the amazing taste of this soup.

click here to download recipe

irish stew

A very warming recipe for a cold day. It does contain beetroot, so if you are not a fan then just substitute your favourite root vegetable(s). Same goes for the smoked paprika (not to everyone’s taste), simply use the ordinary kind of paprika. For more information about making cashew cream, visit the chapter make your own plant milk & plant cream.

click here to download recipe

spaghetti bolognese

click here to download recipe

rice and beans

I got the idea for this from a wonderful Peas & Rice dish we had in an authentic (ie not for tourists) Bahamian cafe in the back streets of Nassau. The only time on that trip we felt comfortable eating out.

click here to download recipe

fresh herb tea

For at least six months of the year in Shetland it is possible to go out and pick fresh herbs to make tea. Not only does this taste so much better than dried herb tea, every day is a different selection. This one was the fresh new growth of rose petals + catnep + blackberry leaves + nettle + three types of mint + daisy + mugwort + yarrow + valerian + tarragon + common figwort + silverweed. Always pick the newest part of the plant and steep in boiling water for 10 minutes.

mushroom stroganoff

click here to download recipe

pan con tomate

This is one of the many things I really miss not being able to live in Spain any more, tomato on toast. It doesn’t look that special, but paired with an espresso (or cafe as it is properly called) this makes for the perfect breakfast.

To make at home all you need is a good quality sweet tomato, small to medium size. Simply grate it into a bowl and spoon on. That’s all.

hummus

Have you noticed that shop-bought hummus doesn’t taste the same as it used to? This is because the manufacturers have dramatically reduced the amount of chickpeas and tahini in it, replacing them with a lot more water then whipping it into a foam. Luckily, making your own is simplicity itself.

Ingredients (makes 4 tubs)

1 cup of chickpeas

2 garlic cloves

about 1/4 cup of sesame seed oil

1/3 cup tahini

1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp lemon juice

wild onions (if available)

black pepper

splash of tamari

Soak the chickpeas overnight and pressure cook for 20 mins, saving the water (aquafaba). Then you have two options. Either pass the beans through a manual meat grinder (on the finest disc) along with the garlic. This will have to be done at least twice to break down the beans sufficiently.

Then mix in the rest of the ingredients (except for the aguafaba), adding a sufficient amount of sesame oil to achieve a paste-like consistency. Then when that’s done add the minced beans, stirring everything until it is thoroughly combined, and adding aguafaba, a little bit at a time, to achieve the required result.

Alternatively, if you want a truly smooth result, and have a blender, you can use this. Starting with a small amount, adding enough aguafaba to turn it into a paste. Then more small amounts and aguafaba. When they are all incorporated add the rest of the ingredients, along with enough aguafaba to get the desired consistency.

And that’s it. If you are going to freeze any of it do not fill the tubs to the top as they will expand a bit.

Featured here on sourdough toast, recipe further down.

veg makhanwala

click here to download recipe

selma’s basmati rice

This is a very tasty alternative to simply cooking the rice. It’s from Selma, who owns the amazing Seabreeze Guest House on the seafront at Portobello, near Edinburgh. Well worth staying at if you are visiting the area, especially for her breakfasts!

click here to download recipe

brussels sprouts curry

click here to download recipe

spicy bean burger

click here to download recipe

minestrone

click here to download recipe

sourdough recipe (tried & tested)

Regardless of what the books tell you, there are no rules to making bread and the sooner you embrace that the quicker you will become a great (intuitive) baker. Experimenting is the only way to understand and succeed.

I currently make my sourdough as follows:

With two jars (originally they came with pickles, the 900 gm size). A long-handled metal spoon for stirring right down to the bottom of a jar. A 1/4 cup measure. Large mixing bowl. And finally a Pyrex dish with glass lid (or Dutch Oven) to bake it in (internal measurements of mine are 300 mm x 200 mm x 85 mm).

The term sourdough, I think, refers to using live yeast instead of an instant or dried one. You make this yourself (or if you live in a bakery the yeast is in the air, so no need to add) and it’s also known as a starter or mother. To get one of these going is really easy. You simply put a 1/4 cup of flour (organic wholemeal spelt is the best, as it is already full of natural yeasts) in one of the glass jars, along with enough water to make it into a porridge-like consistency (which is around 1/8 cup). Repeat this every day, for seven days, by which time the jar will be about half-full and you are ready to start baking.

Water. Using the mains supply, stuff straight from the tap can kill the yeast (if it has a really strong bleachy smell), so I draw off what I need a couple of hours beforehand to allow the chemicals to evaporate.

Now to the bread making part. Again, this is really simple, but you will need to allow a lot more time than with ordinary bread making.

On the last morning making your starter (day seven), at the same time set aside 400 ml of water. Allow enough time for the contaminants of the latter to vent off (a couple of hours), then stir the starter and decant enough of it into the clean jar to cover the bottom. This will be Day One for the starter of your next loaf, and you repeat the making a starter process for another seven days. Or you can refrigerate it (with a lid on) until you want to start again.

Next you add the 400 ml of water to the rest of the starter (the majority), stir thoroughly then pour into a large mixing bowl. Then gradually add spelt flour (or any other type of flour at this stage) until the consistency is becomes like extremely thick sticky porridge. Then leave it in a warm place until the following morning. This period is known as the first stage of rising.

Next day the consistency will be a lot looser. Add more flour, mixing it in first with the long-handled spoon, then one hand. When the dough begins to form into a cohesive ball, but is still very elastic and moist, tilt the bowl and keep it in that position, making sure flour covers the dough sufficiently to lift it out without it sticking to your hand. Then leave it in the bowl for a couple of hours. This is the second stage of rising, and now you should begin to see some (it might not be a lot) increase in volume.

Please note that salt is not required in this recipe. Sourdough spelt has enough flavour of its own, and will keep fresh for ten days, without it.

Around mid-morning, using the long-handled spoon, lever out the ball (which will have become sticky again, but do not add any more flour) into the pyrex dish (which does not need to be greased). Level it flat and smooth using the back of the spoon. Put the lid on and place back in the warm again, for at least a couple more hours, at least until it has risen almost to the top. This is the third stage of rising, and will ensure a perfect chewy crust and light texture.

Next comes the baking. I think this is the only difficult part, getting the temperature & timing exactly right. Because all ovens are different, and some are not as accurate as they should be. Ours for example is 20 C degrees hotter than it says on the dial, it’s also fan assisted so bakes quicker. I find that 140 C (on the dial) is what works best for me, which works out at 160 C in real temperature, and for a non-fan-assisted oven add another 20 C, 180C. Don’t worry if the first time it doesn’t work, eventually you’ll discover what works. Just don’t try adjusting both the temperature and the time, stick with one or the other.

Preheat the oven for five minutes, then place the dish on the middle shelf with the lid still on (this is to get the benefit of steaming the bread, using the moisture in the dough) and bake for 45 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue baking for another 15 minutes. Then switch off the oven, but leave the loaf inside with the door closed for another 15 minutes. Take out and allow to cool in a cold room for an hour, after which you should be able to slide a knife around the edge and loosen it enough to turn the loaf out (upside-down) onto something like a sieve, to allow the air to dry the outside, which will still be damp. The drying process can take a couple of hours. This is very important. If you forget to dry it properly the loaf will stay damp and go mouldy. When it feels totally dry, store in a cotton drawstring bag. It should keep fresh/ soft/ and chewy now for at least seven days, and still edible for several days after that.

This recipe makes a loaf that weighs around 1.45 kg, which incidentally is 650 g heavier than a similar sized artisan loaf bought from a shop. Because the lighter one will be full of holes. If you want to make a smaller loaf simply use less water. Nothing else needs to be altered.

Then, when you feel confident with all that, you can start improvising. Having recently tasted a Spelt & Rye loaf I am now using organic rye flour for my starter. It doesn’t seem to make a massive difference to the taste but the rye is certainly a very active starter. You can also substitute beer or stout for water, the possibilities are endless.

pizza dough recipe

I love proper Italian soft, thick crusts on a pizza, so if you do too this is the recipe. Makes enough for four proper servings.

The night before heat 220 ml of water and pour into a large mixing bowl. When it is cool enough (body temperature) add one teaspoon of dried yeast (or sourdough starter – 1.25 cups) and one teaspoon of honey. Stir. Then add Type 00 flour until the consistency is like porridge. Cover with a plate.

In the morning, with a long-handled spoon, add more Type 00 flour until it is no longer sticking to the bowl but is still elastic/ sticky inside. Cover and leave until the afternoon.

An hour before cooking oil a large tray and roll out the dough into it in a round pizza shape. Add your toppings then place in the middle of a pre-warmed oven. Mine is set to 200 C (actual 220 C/ fan-assisted). Bake for 10 minutes.

dundee-ish cake

4 bananas

1 – 1.25 cups of olive oil

2 tablespoons of treacle or molasses

1 lemon, grated to include skin, pith & juice

(25 ml)

1 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate

(or baking powder)

30 gm ground almonds

230 flour (we use spelt)

300 gm sultanas

150 – 230 gm glace cherries, cut into

quarters

140 gm walnuts, broken into small pieces

120 gm dates or prunes, chopped

10 almonds, to decorate (optional)

Squidge the bananas in a bowl until they become completely liquid. Then add the treacle and lemon juice. Mix together. Sieve and fold in the flour. Add bicarbonate of soda and almonds. Add sultanas, cherries and walnuts. Mix well. The consistency should be like treacle, add a little more olive oil if it seems too dry, otherwise it will end up crumbly.

Pour into a greaseproof paper lined cake tin (we use one which has a removable base and side which unclips), 24cm diameter, 6.5cm deep. Decorate with whole almonds if you want

Bake in an oven, on the middle shelf, for 50 minutes at 115C (20C higher if not fan-assisted). You may have to experiment with this as most thermostats are not that accurate and size of ovens differ. Our last oven was gas and we set it to Mark 2.75 for 75 mins.

When the time is up test with a needle, or see if it still wobbles when shaken, if it does then put back for another 5 minutes.

The amount and proportions of nuts, fruit and treacle can be varied to taste.

A dish of water on the bottom of the stove will help to stop drying it out during cooking.

easy sauerkraut

This is really easy and not only much tastier than shop-bought, healthier (shop-bought has been pasteurised, killing off any goodness). Both as a natural probiotic (you need this for good stomach bacteria) and its anti-cancer properties.

I make enough each time to fill two one litre jars.

What you need:

a two-litre sauerkraut crock or two-litre Kilner jar. A large mixing bowl. A long wooden spoon. A pestle or something similar. Two one-litre jars with lids (optional for storing the sauerkraut).

2 kg of vegetables (cabbage, carrot, turnips, parsnips, garlic, spring onions, radishes, chillies, whatever you want). 40 gm of sea salt (or 2% of the weight of the vegetables).

Allow up to an hour to do the first stage. Start by weighing out the vegetables to calculate how much salt you need. Then prepare the vegetables. Grate the carrot. Remove and discard the outer leaves of the cabbage. Then set aside a whole clean leaf, in one piece if possible. Slice and dice the rest of the cabbage as finely as possible.

All the cut/ grated vegetables go in the mixing bowl (I used two as I don’t have one big enough). As you do this, sprinkle salt evenly throughout.

When this is done let it rest for half an hour. Then the hardest part begins. You need to break down the vegetables so the water trapped inside them is released. Start by using the pestle, then go onto squeezing the mixture with your hands, until the level of liquid is higher than the vegetables.

Now decant everything into the two-litre crock/ jar. Using the long wooden spoon to pack the mixture down as tightly as possible, there shouldn’t be any pockets of air.

When you are finished the water level should be above the vegetables. If not top it up with some water from the tap that has been allowed to stand for a couple of hours.

Place the whole cabbage leaf (or pieces) on top to form a seal.

Then using a glass or cup, weight it down (in my case with stones from the beach).

Finish off by sealing any gap with muslin or similar to keep the dust out.

Now all you have to do is wait, anything between 9-28 days (the longer you can wait the better the taste), keeping the jar at room temperature. When you are ready, decant into smaller jars and store in the fridge. Should last 6 months.

even easier kimchi

I thought the sauerkraut was amazing but then went on to discover Kimchi, which is even better. Really sweet & spicy, plus even simpler to make.

This is what you need to fill 2 x 500 gm jars.

2 kg of vegetables (peeled & chopped weight) Of which approximately 600 gm is any kind of cabbage including curly kale, 500 gm is beetroot, plus a selection from the following: carrot, leek, sweet potato, red pepper, swede, parsnip, pumpkin, turnip, celery, green beans, plus anything else you think might be tasty….

40 gm salt (2% of the total weight of the vegetables)

For the paste

1 dessertspoon of honey
1 tsp of coriander
1 tsp of cumin
1 tbsp of korean chilli flakes
1 tbsp of tamari
1 dessertspoon of sesame oil or tahini
1 tbsp of miso
4 garlic cloves
1 thumb of ginger
1 small sweet apple (Fiji are good)
4 spring onions (chopped)
virgin olive oil

Wash & peel the vegetables, then weigh them to make sure you have the 2 kg in total (remember this is just for the vegetables, not the paste ingredients) and adjust the salt quantity accordingly.

Cut everything into french fries sized strips (approx 5 cm long by 5 mm thick), discarding the tough root and stalk bits.

Now put them all into a large stockpot and add the honey & salt. Then using a mortar, pummel everything until it starts to soften. This can take 10-15 mins, so be patient. When they begin to soften you can use your hands to squeeze them instead. You will know when to stop, when liquid appears at the bottom.

Next, transfer to a saucepan, put a lid on and place in a fridge for 24 hours.

The following day start by preparing the paste. Grate the ginger, apple and garlic into a bowl. Add the coriander + cumin + chilli flakes + tamari + miso + sesame oil + spring onions, mixing well and adding olive oil if necessary to create a paste-like consistency.

Cut the spring onions, the white bits finely and the green bits into strips. Then take the vegetables from the fridge and using a colander gently squeeze out any liquid into another bowl. Return the vegetables to the saucepan and add the paste, mixing everything together thoroughly using your hands.

Then decant everything into the 500g jars, using a pestle to pack it down so there are no air pockets. When a jar is full there should be a layer of the liquid on top covering the vegetables (if not use what you saved).

(photo above from a different batch, with beetroot)

Screw on the lid and store in a fridge for two weeks, after which it is ready to use. Keep stored in the fridge.

espresso off-grid

If you love coffee like I do then you probably would like to know how to make it off-grid, ie without electricity.

I grew up around coffee. My parents had an electric percolator and Cona Coffee maker back in the 1950s and 60s, and I remember clearly then there were coffee bars, my mum worked in one. My favourite as a teenager was Bar Italia in Soho, which opened in 1949 and is still there and still looks relatively unchanged. All these establishments had proper Italian espresso machines. It was also commonplace to buy your coffee freshly roasted/ ground from a local coffee & tea retailer. Most areas of London had one.

Then instant coffee arrived, and that killed it off immediately, save for a couple of Italian coffee bars in places like Soho.

After that it wasn’t until the 1980s that real coffee begun to make a comeback again. Spearheaded, like everything else at the time, by corporate chains opening their new-style cafes on every high street. Though it wasn’t good coffee, and still isn’t, but the younger generation didn’t know that. So the rest of us still had to wait, until this century and the emergence of micro-roasters, offering something a lot better. Today, 50 years later, it is finally possible to buy decent coffee beans wherever you live, and drink decent coffee in a few cafes. The only problem remaining has been how to make it taste as good at home as it does on a proper Italian espresso machine in a cafe. Who not only know how to grind it precisely, weigh the dose exactly, and the espresso machine is able to generate a massive head of steam at a specific temperature. To be able to copy this at home would require spending over £1000 on the equipment and acquiring the know-how that most people would find too daunting.

Luckily I spent 19 years of those dark days in Portugal and Spain, where instant coffee never caught on and the bars served consistently good coffee, as they had been doing for the previous 400 years, all at a much more reasonable price too. A fraction of what is being charged in the UK now. Sadly BREXIT ended that. So since then I have been trying to find a way to make a decent coffee at home.

It is possible. Not as good as from a bar with a proper Italian coffee machine, but definitely acceptable and certainly affordable.

My set-up was as follows:

A stainless steel Bialetti New Venus – 2 cup Moka pot. Which we bought when we were living in British Columbia, back in 2007/8, but is still as good as new today. It’s called a 2 cup, but this is confusing as it really only makes the equivalent of one (double) espresso. To buy one of these today will cost about £30.

An Elma coffee grinder. Which cost me 13 euros new in Spain.

And a Duraflex LE PICARDIE 130ml insulated glass tumbler (about £1.65 new).

And this is how I made the espresso:

When we moved back to the UK in 2019, I hadn’t heard of micro-roasters, so foolishly bought my beans from the local supermarket, which stocked what I thought then were the big brand names. But after working my way through all of them, none tasted anywhere as good as the Delta coffee used in the bars of Portugal & Spain. Which at the time I put down to not having a decent coffee machine at home. Then we made a quick trip to Edinburgh and there I discovered not only some excellent cafes selling unbelievably good coffee, but had the sense to ask what the beans where they used and where they bought them from.

They also told me about the shelf-life of roasted beans. Up ’til then I thought buying in bulk was the most economic option. Wrong. As soon as beans are roasted their unique taste starts to dissipate, so you have to use them up very quickly, preferably within one or at the most two weeks of roasting. The beans you buy in the supermarket, regardless of price/ brand, will always be past this and so of poor quality.

The answer then is to buy direct from micro-roasters, in the smallest amount possible (250 g, which will make about 16 espressos). It took me a while to adjust to this idea, as it was so much more expensive, but when priced out, per cup, this way is still a lot cheaper than buying it in a bar, even back in Spain & Portugal, where it is typically about 90p compared to £3.30 in the UK.

How to make those beans taste as good at home took me a bit longer, but I’m getting there. It wasn’t easy, a very steep learning curve actually (for me anyway), so I’ll describe it two ways: the simple explanation first, then the more complex one.

As I have already said, buy your beans in the smallest quantity (200 g or 250 g), from a small independent roaster.

Then if the sheer choice offered seems too overwhelming, not to mention the different roasts (there are three basically – light/ medium/ and dark), then opt for the house espresso blend (it’s what most cafes offer anyway, so reliable), which is usually medium roasted.

You can either buy single (200/ 250 g) packets to try out various different roasters or opt for a subscription. I would suggest the latter, but make sure it gives you the option to change the frequency of delivery, which is very handy if you run out of beans or don’t use them fast enough.

Store in an airtight/ opaque container, or even better a vacuum cannister.

making a coffee

To keep it simple, this is the combination of COFFEE BEANS, GRIND SETTING and amount of WATER.

Beans. To get the right amount of coffee you will need between 9-10 g of beans for a single espresso and 14-18 g for a double. The exact amount is dependent on how much ground coffee it takes to fill your particular filter, which in turn is affected by the grind setting and roast of the beans.

In order to measure precisely, the same amount each time, I suggest eventually investing in good quality coffee scales, ones that read in tenths of a gram.

So, let’s start off with the grind setting. For absolute beginners, with just a basic grinder, there’s not a lot of choice, just try and set it to give you a texture somewhere between granulated sugar and wholemeal flour.

For the more advanced, it helps to know how the three types of roast affect the grind setting. Light roast is a very subtle tasting coffee, full of flavour, and because the beans are very dry needs a fine grind setting. Medium roast comes next, with less complexity but more bite, needing a coarser grind. Finally, dark roasted is the most bitter taste of the three, packs a punch, and the beans are soft and porous, so they need the coarsest grind setting.

A good quality hand grinder (£150+) will give you a range of grind settings for whichever way you are making the coffee. For instance, for a Moka pot, my grinder gives me a range between 1.3 – 1.9 for all three roast types. So, between 1.3 – 1.5 is for light roasted beans, 1.5 – 1.7 medium roasted and 1.7 – 1.9 dark roasted. When starting out I suggest setting the grind size first in the middle of the range your beans are roasted for. Now you just have to work out, by trial and error, how much coffee to grind to fill the filter. Just to complicate matters, the light roasted settings grind very fine, but fill the filter with less beans than the much coarser dark roasted grind range. To give you a very vague ballpark figure, medium roast beans ground on the mid-range grind setting, 1.6, require 16.5 gms of beans.

All of which is probably far too overwhelming, so let’s proceed with getting the water right.

If you are using tap water, it is probably best to have some poured earlier, to allow the nasty chemical taste to dissipate. How much you will need depends on how much coffee you want to get out.

My Moka pot holds up to 120 ml of water, and a single espresso is only 30 ml (60 ml for a double. However, you may also need to add some more to those as (in the case of my Moka pot) some gets lost in the process (20 ml more). And if you prefer a longer coffee (a lungo) you need to add that too. For me, 100 ml is a perfect cafe solo largo/ lungo.

Being able to measure this out exactly is crucial, so I have found a very handy 150 ml glass beaker, which is marked in 10 ml graduations.

Finally, with the filter funnel balanced on a hard surface (as shown in the photo above), slowly spoon in the ground coffee. With each spoonful tap the filter down on the worktop to make sure all the grinds are evenly distributed. Do not tamp and do not completely fill the filter if using a very fine grind as the boiling water will not have enough pressure to percolate through.

Then insert the filter funnel into the base and screw on the top part firmly.

If you are using a small 2-cup Moka pot on a gas cooker, you also will need a trivet or better still a stainless steel heat diffuser plate, to place over the burner, or the pot will either fall over or the flame burn the outside. These are readily available online. Place over the smallest burner.

With the Moka pot in place, light the gas and adjust the flame. Full will usually result in a very hot, but burnt-tasting coffee. The lowest will give the best taste, but perhaps not really hot enough, so aim for somewhere just above lowest. Then wait. Eventually you’ll hear the coffee bubbling up through the central post, but wait until that reaches a crescendo before turning off the gas. Your espresso is now ready.

If everything goes to plan you will have the full amount. If not, then a bit more experimenting is required. Either it needs more/ less water, or you may have lifted the pot off the heat too early. If it tastes bitter (and is extremely black) then the grind probably needs to be coarser. Too watery and tasteless, finer.

Cool the pot immediately under a tap, then when it is cool enough to handle, thoroughly wash all the parts. On the top part you can use a stiff brush for the underside filter and silicon gasket, to remove any grounds. On the funnel blow through it to ensure this is clear too. Then allow all the parts to dry separately, do not reassemble before using again.

Eventually the silicon (for stainless steel or rubber for aluminium) gasket will need replacing. They last me about a year and I always keep a stock of several just in case they get hard to find. When you replace one make sure you also use this opportunity to clean the holes in the two metal filters using a sharp pin.

Epilogue.

This is very much still a new adventure for me, so this particular chapter will be updated as and when I discover more. As of now I am still using the same Moka pot, as I feel there is so much to learn it would be foolish to add yet another aspect into the mix. I did however find a Bialetti diffuser plate at 50% off, which has made a difference, and succumbed both to a better quality hand-grinder, along with a tenth of a gram scales. My beans though still come from the same independent roaster, on subscription, Artisan Roast. Their website isn’t very user-friendly for the novice (none of them are) so after a few bad choices I plumped for their Year-round blends and Janzoon blend. Next time I am in Edinburgh I will try some out other roasters in the many coffee shops they have there.

make your own plant milk & plant cream

If you have ever bought plant food substitutes and ever bothered to find out what is in them, you will know that there is very little which is wholesome and a lot that is downright harmful (ultra processed and additives). Plus there’s all that packaging. Thankfully, making your own is a lot cheaper, healthier and easier.

Simply choose which nut or grain you want to use and soak 1 cup of that overnight. The next day drain and spoon one tablespoon of the nuts/ grains into the liquidiser, adding just the tinniest amount of water. If the liquidiser won’t spin freely then add a tiny bit more. When that is smooth add another spoonful of nuts/ grains. This time see if it will spin without any more water. If not, add only enough to do that. Repeat this until everything is liquidised. The is what I like to call the cream stage and the secret to achieving perfect smoothness is adding the least amount of water throughout. If you then want to go on to make milk, just add more water until you are happy with the taste/ consistency. That’s all. No straining or measuring required.

If you want to make your own coconut (milk) cream, you can use desiccated coconut. But first you to need to pour almost boiling water over it and no more than the quantity of coconut. Soak for 1 hour, then drain (saving the liquid) and liquidise in a blender.

Please note that soya milk and any food containing soya beans, which has not been fermented, can significantly increase the chances of cancer in women who have had the menopause.