Looking back on my life and career so far, it all looks quite rosy, but when I was really in the thick of it, grafting hard for my pennies every single day, it was sometimes difficult to see the joy or pleasure in those moments. As you get older though you realise that those times, whether good or not so good, create memories just like the ones I am writing about now.

The smell of fresh truffles does put a smile on my face as it reminds me of a wonderful time in my career when I was living and working in London. Admittedly, at the time it did not always feel so great, but on reflection now I realise that I was privileged, and through sheer hard work and determination I created many of those privileges for myself.

When buying fresh truffles the choice is yours and you can spend anything between £10 and £300 on a fresh truffle (white truffles are the best and rarest; black truffles are a little less expensive; summer truffles are the least expensive). Alternatively, you can simply just buy truffle oil, and if you do, choose a good quality one (you will pay a bit more, but if used sparingly it will go a long way).

Fresh truffle (or truffle oil) works particularly well with these baked parsnips and creates a lovely side dish, so I hope you enjoy it too!

I like serving this carrot and swede mash as an accompaniment to roast turkey, goose, beef or chicken.

This season I have enjoyed many delicious and superb-tasting peaches, and a few peach recipes have made their appearance because I am passionate about making the most of when they are in season.

The key to success for this recipe is to use the ripest peaches possible, as these will deliver the best flavour. This recipe is easy to make and can be prepared in advance. It is delicious served warm or chilled as a starter for a special dinner, or as a light lunch with buttered sourdough bread, or as a side dish alongside grilled pork chops. Alternatively, you can toss the whole lot into a bowl and serve it family-style on the table for everyone to tuck in and help themselves.

I prefer the simplicity of the salad as it is, but if you wanted to make it a bit more substantial, then thin slivers of air-dried ham would work a treat.

We get organic butternut squashes delivered to our back door from Foskets Farm located in our village. It’s a great sight for tired chef’s eyes so early in the morning, opening the back door and tripping over crates of butternut squashes. It’s the beauty of living in the country and perhaps ‘living the dream’. I make my life here in Suffolk sound all fantastic and cosy don’t I?! Don’t get me wrong, it is wonderful being here and I love it, but it’s also a lot of hard work, long hours, some blood, sweat and tears, no days off and no holidays. But then James the farmer appears on the doorstep with a smile on his face and a delivery of some wonderful produce, and then all the sorrows are forgotten.

One of my highlights for 2013 is joining the chef’s alliance of Slow Food UK. We joined earlier this year and are participating in a forgotten foods project. As part of this, we received the most precious gift of Stichelton cheese delivered by Neal’s Yard Dairy. My challenge is to conjure up some amazing recipes and take images using Stichelton cheese. Well, it’s not a challenge in the slightest and it’s one of the most pleasurable tasks I have ever been set. Not only do I love cheese, but the blue variety is one of my favourites. This cheese has just made my life a whole lot happier!

The recipes I created will soon be revealed on the Slow Food UK website, and this one is just one of those fabulous recipes.

Pomegranates are coming into season and butternut squashes are perfect for harvesting and cooking. This dish is perfect at this time of year and can be tossed together simply and quickly. It’s a delicious recipe to pull out of the drawer on a miserable day, and brings a real splash of colour to dull wintry weather.

Autumn and Winter is not only about hearty stews and boiling hot soups but the occasional salad served either warm or cold is a refreshing break. We regularly enjoy meals without meat or fish and this dish is that all in one nutritious meal without the meat. Saying that it’s also perfect to be served as a side dish with whole baked wild sea bass or a joint of roasted shoulder of pork.

This really is an ideal one tray wonder recipe. If you like the “family style” presentation of food then it’s one of those pretty numbers to serve up in the same roasting tray that you used to roast the squash in. It’s a great idea, looks rustic and seriously home-made, and best of all is it saves time. Less washing up is always a preferred option!

I drizzled a wonderful and tasty yoghurt dressing over this salad. I used an interesting ingredient called tahini that is mixed in with the Greek yoghurt and the zest and juice of one lemon. Tahini is sesame paste and one of the main ingredients for making hummus. You can purchase tahini from most high street or middle eastern supermarkets.

At first I thought it would be a quick cook like the wonder couscous, where you add hot water  and it is ready in a flash, but no you must boil it as you do with pasta. I’m not sure if I am disappointed as the preparation is not snappy, however cooking it for 15 – 20 minutes is not that time consuming and it gives me enough time to prepare the rest of the ingredients and make a delicious vinaigrette.

If you cook quinoa it’s got a fairly pale and un-appetising look so I add a teaspoon of turmeric to the boiling water to stain the quinoa a bright yellow colour, perfect for summer.

What is Quinoa? It originated from South America and from the goosefoot specie, a grain like crop mainly grown for its seeds. Quinoa is closely related to beetroot and spinach and has great nutritional value and can be eaten either hot or cold in salads or as part of a main meal or in soups. It’s also makes a delicious high power breakfast mixed with honey, almonds and berries.

This salad is one high powered meal suitable for lunch time, packed with the high protein quinoa, chickpeas and haricot beans along with the crisp celery and peppers. Quinoa has a nutty taste and for that reason I added this lemon tahini vinaigrette. The lemon lifts the nutty taste and the tahini gives the salad that roasted sesame flavour.

This salad is one of those that matures well, I like to make a large quantity and take some to work the following day. It  goes a long way and is perfect for large number of people at a BBQ or a picnic.

As most of the regular readers of the British Larder know there is nothing classic or traditional about my cooking. I thrive on twisting and turning recipes to suit my taste and cooking abilities. I suppose one could argue that I feel comfortable as a cook. I believe that cooking is subjective and that there are no rights or wrongs in cookery, well o.k there are certain set rules and formulas that time and time again will deliver the same results. I also believe that one cannot re-invent the wheel and cookery is pretty much like that too, but what we can do is modernize the recipes and good old favourites to prevent them from  becoming …well shall I say extinct”?

I have  Mrs Beeton’s Cook book from 1913 and love it to bits, it’s amazing to read the recipes and some of them have not changed at all, o.k just a few changes to ingredients but that’s about it.

Talking about re-inventions and all that, I have never heard of January King cabbage before. Now I can hear some people screaming at the computer screen asking where have I been all my life?!? Well I only discovered this gorgeous looking cabbage variety at a local farmers market. I love cabbage and its one of those vegetables that has its’ own character when cooked either quickly or slowly braised as per this recipe. I like the buttery flavour and think it adds a unique and  extra deliciousness to my version of a stroganoff.

I have chosen to use beef short ribs,though it was a bit of a struggle to find some at first. Then after chatting to other chefs I found some at Whole Foods Market in London. Cooking meat on the bone keeps the meet moist and adds flavour to the sauce. The short ribs do require an hour and half cooking time but it’s definitely worth the time and effort. The result is a hearty full bodied classic dish.

Last but not least I served my storganoff with a carrot and grain mustard crush, it’s perfect and the slight acidity of the mustard in the carrots sets the stroganoff sauce off beautifully.

This recipe is definitely a treasure and one to consider for a relaxing Saturday afternoon.

This sight is not rare and by no means am I saying that it’s wrong, my theory is that if we mix the “old” with the “new” we end up with spectacular individual and rather wonderful dishes. I loved the way the stall holder marked all his produce, especially where it came from, so I knew exactly that the broccoli was grown locally. Armed with two plump heads of broccoli, round shallots and chillies I wondered off to the next stall.

To be entirely honest it was actually the smell of Colin’s mushrooms, in a good helping of butter,  sizzling in a pan on a tiny camp stove. As it was freezing cold I “snuggled up” to Colin and we started talking about how he grows his mushrooms a few miles up the road. Coldham Wood Mushrooms are grown organically, herbicide and pesticide free. Colin continued to explain how he had grown mushrooms all his life and was still loving it enough to get up at the crack of dawn to stand in front of me to tell me all about it. They grow chestnut, flat cap, oyster and shiitake mushrooms all in his  unique manner. What I liked the most about this conversation was that he is committed to deliver his mushrooms to local businesses, restaurants, pubs, schools and farmers markets. It must be a good thing and certainly I bagged a couple of punnets of Colin’s fresh mushrooms.

As I have sourced local organic mushrooms and broccoli, I need to use as much of it as possible. At home we work really hard to limit the amount of food waste, well there are a few nibbles for the wormery in the garden but we try to minimise  the  contributions to the landfill sites. Hence the use of nearly the whole head of broccoli, florets, stalk and all. It’s interesting to know how delicious the stalk is and it certainly adds an extra  dimension to your final dish.They do not even need to be cooked as it  tastes  just as good raw. The best part is that you end up with nearly a quarter more, in volume, than  if you had only used the florets, a bonus in my eyes.

This dish is versatile and perfect for nearly every occasion; we enjoyed it warm as a side dish to go with slow roasted belly of pork, the left overs were just as delicious for lunch the following day. This recipe will definitely feature at my BBQ table this summer and will be neatly packed into my picnic baskets.

This recipe is my contribution in raising awareness of the fantastic culture and culinary contributions that India has brought to the world. Makhani Dal means butter lentil dal, cooked slowly laced with full bodied spices,not necessarily highlighting the heat of the spices but the fragrance and aroma that they bring to a dish.

To finish my two lentil Makhani Dal dish off, I made freshly baked Peswahir naan breads, this is my own fusion of Indian cuisine.

I like lentils and I am using them more and more in my cooking. They are packed with protein and I do not necessarily have to use meat to make a nutritious and filling meal. There are so many different variety of lentils available on the market, I have used green and black lentils for this dish as I wanted  to retain their shape once cooked. I also use green lentils in a variation of rice dishes,whilst red lentils, which normally cook to a soft texture, are perfect for soups and as a thickener for curries and stews.

This dish has become a favourite on our weekend dinner table,  as it  takes time to prepare and cook but for me it’s a labour of love. It’s satisfying due to the buttery richness and more so  if Mr.P makes pleasing noises when he enjoys this dish. He normally goes back for seconds which is his seal of approval.

The Peswari naans are delicious, salty sweet, packed with golden sultanas, coconut and almonds. I have produced two methods, one for making this delicious naan breads in the Themromix if you are lucky enough to have one and an alternative for  the conventional way. Either way is great and there is no difference in the end results. I brushed the warm naan breads with melted ghee or butter and honey once they are cooked. You might find it strange that I cook these naan breads under the grill, but  as they are thin they do not need to go into the oven.The grill is perfect for baking these naans.

I used ghee instead of butter as I wanted to try and remain fairly traditional in the making and more importantly the flavour that it would provide. If you cannot find ghee in your local stores then unsalted butter will be a perfect substitute. Ghee is clarified butter made from unsalted butter by slowly boiling it over very low heat until all the water has evaporated and then the liquid – clarified butter is carefully separated from the proteins that have settled at the bottom of the pan. The result is a clarified butter with a higher burning point and also it could be stored for much longer  before it deteriorates. It all makes sense why ghee is popular in Indian and Sout East Asian cuisine as most of those individuals do not have refrigerators to keep their foods chilled hence the convenience of ghee. The taste does differ as it  depends on the quality and type of butter used to make the ghee, my theory is that the more expensive the ghee, the better the quality.

This raw salad of fennel, Seville orange and kohlrabi is the perfect dish for a more considerate new year. It’s highly fragrant, superbly fresh and crunchy. I enjoy this delicious side dish with poached salmon or lightly smoked haddock. It also goes very well with char-grilled chicken as the Seville orange vinaigrette brings a delicious freshness to the whole dish.

I’m sure I could hear a few moans when you read the title and saw that I have used chicory. Chicory is another one of those love or loathe ingredients but I must be honest, I have never found chicory to be delicious and had to fight really hard with my taste buds to learn to love the taste. I find chicory incredibly bitter, but I have one really fond memory of cooking with chicory. This was when I worked in the restaurants and we used to braise chicory in Grand Marnier and orange juice to go with an incredibly rich but super delicious duck dish. I could easily eat a whole chicory cooked like this on it’s own.Well the complete truth is that we cut the chicory in half,  dipped them in icing sugar before cooking them in butter until golden brown. We then deglazed the pan with Grand Marnier and orange juice, added a little chicken stock and braised them slowly until tender, now you may understand the deliciousness?

It was a complete coincidence that I bought the chicory from the shop but I then made this recipe which was delicious. Then after eating this raw salad as part of my supper, I watched a programme about how they grow chicory commercially. I was absolutely stunned as I wasn’t  aware that chicory is also known as endive or witloof and grows just like rhubarb, in the dark, indoors. Well some of you might have already known that but I found it amazing and I am quite proud that I have learned something new. In the UK Jack Buck Farms in Spalding grows chicory with a lot of care and they grow both the white and red varieties. I did not realise that one should always store chicory in the dark to retain their natural sweetness and they should be kept wrapped up in newspaper.

The Seville Orange vinaigrette is absolutely delicious. The Seville Orange season is short and lasts just from December to February. You can also use ordinary oranges to make this vinaigrette. This vinaigrette is another one of those easy British Larder recipes, I place all the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a clean glass jar, secure the lid and shake it vigorously to emulsify all the ingredients. Keep the leftover Seville Orange vinaigrette refrigerated in the glass jar.