Highland Home Cook

28/08/2026

More mid-week teas for taste, simplicity and convenience. Med veg lasagna with salads.

20/08/2026

Midweek tea. My uninstagramable plate filled with homemade and homegrown goodies. A tofu and mushroom burger(I used a packet of oatcakes that were out of date but tasted fine - so sue me!) new tatties, cuke, gherkins, beets, 5-veg slaw (cabbage, carrot, onion, fennel, kohlrabi). This is how we eat. Filling, not fancy.

15/08/2026

Discussing food on the blog this week

https://drnaturegirl.substack.com/p/food-glorious-food?r=5hyfu

I’m attempting to tackle another biggie topic this week and one of my favourite subjects, though, incase you want to know, I detest jelly and cold custard. Hot custard, however, is an entirely different proposition.

07/08/2026

Gotta a love a quick bean salad. Tinned butter beans - or beans of your choice - add what you like and hey presto! In this particular one is cubes, red onion, toms, peas, capers, celery. I’ve dressed it with a classic homemade French style dressing (Dijon mustard, garlic, lemon, oil) but again do what you fancy!

18/07/2026

So the cake making and baking was OK, but removing the hot loaf from the pan proved impossible one-handed. Disasters averted by the hubby’s return!

17/07/2026

It is entirely possible to make cake with only one functioning hand, if you have a stand mixer, however, what is not as easy is getting said cake mix into the tin to bake.Success eventually.

07/07/2026

Lentils are one of the very best things. Versatile, simple, nutritious. Woefully underrated, many people relegate them to dhals or soups. Not that there’s anything wrong with either. Tarka dhal and dhal mhakani are two of my favourite dishes, which I will happily scoff greedily at any time of day (or night).

I spent years trying to perfect the best dhal recipe when all along I was over complicating things. The best dhal recipes are simply cooked. it’s the tadka - the tempering of spices and aromatics in oil - that bring the flavour and richness and texture in Indian cooking.

I’m finalising the recipes for my soup book currently, although I can’t do anything in the test kitchen at the moment as I’ve recently had surgery on my hand which has rendered me, for now, off active kitchen duties. I think perhaps I could have written an entire soup book using lentils - so far there are 4 recipes from different parts of the world. I’m pretty sure I could include a lot more!

Lentils are cheap and healthy and quick to cook, so if you don’t already eat them, you could do worse than add them regularly to your diet. Sure, they have a reputation for causing wind - from the fibre and oligosaccharides - but soaking overnight, changing the water before cooking and adding herbs and spices reduces the effect. Anyway, everyone farts, let’s not be too precious about bodily functions!

30/06/2026

This pot of gorgeousness is my last batch-bake of the week for the freezer (surgery is tomorrow) - a vibrant ratatouille-esque lasagna. Dairy free and rather garlicky, it was tea last night with foccacia and will be tea one day next week too (and a few after that!) I don’t usually faff about with this, but I did fry off the veg separately and then combined them with lots of herbs and tinned toms and pressured cooked for 5 minutes (NR) based on aubergine braise in her fabulous Modern Day Pressure Cooking. My pressure cooker is a life saver and Catherine’s excellent books are unbeatable.

29/06/2026

Cauliflower wings are always a tasty tea. Simple and quick to make you can have them with dips or incorporate them into a full meal. I coat mine with flour/cornflour and yoghurt (use dairy free) then when they’re nice and crispy add a coating which is usually a mixture of oil, tomato paste, tamari, hot pepper sauce, maple syrup and lime juice. I just mix it up until I like the balance of salt,sweet,sour savoury. If you don’t want to be bothered re-coating and re-cooking the florets,just use it as dipping sauce.


# cauliflower

29/06/2026

I actually think this is one of the worse photos I’ve ever taken of food and that takes some doing! I’m batch cooking for the freezer as I’ll be out of action for a few weeks. This is my shepherdess pie - another recipe I’ve been making for decades. It’s a simple savoury lentil mix - with plenty of herbs, onions and carrots -topped with mash tattie. Easy, tasty, nutritious, but clearly not photogenic!




# recipe