Welcome to my blog all about the things I love to grow and cook. You'll find a collection of seasonal gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan-friendly recipe posts, as well as a round up of my gardening throughout the year. I wish you good reading, happy cooking and perfect planting!
A very belated happy new year to you. The first month of 2026 has flown by. I hope you had a good festive break and I send you my best wishes for the year ahead.
We’ve had a mixed bag of weather since Christmas. A few cold, dry and bright days alongside some very wet and grey ones. Only a light dusting of snow mid month, although I’m sure there will be more to come.
There are quite a few signs of the garden emerging from hibernation. Lots of bulb foliage poking through the soil as well as some nice surprises like the primrose and periwinkle.
Early January primrose. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
January blues. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
And now the snowdrops are up and just about to bloom, it feels like there is a definite hint of spring in the air – fingers crossed. Until next time, thanks for stopping by 🙂
Hello there. I hope you are feeling festive and looking forward to Christmas. It’s such a busy time of the year, tying up lots of loose ends before the year is out as well as making all the preparations for the days ahead.
I have a simple, fun and very festive recipe for you this month, based around one of my favourite and most successful gluten-free and vegan bakes, shortbread.
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll have already seen a few variations on my shortbread recipe over the months. This recipe uses a plain mix to which you can add your own flavours if you wish. The snow folk figures are easy to make and assemble, and I’ll leave it up to you as to how creative you want to be when it comes to decorating them. The quantities below will be enough to make 2 basic figures.
Ingredients
50g plant-based butter, softened
30g caster sugar
100g gluten-free plain flour plus extra for dusting
1tsp vanilla extract or other flavouring of your choice
150g white ready-to-roll icing
25g icing sugar
1. Beat the butter and caster sugar together until creamy and well blended. Mix in the flour and vanilla until the ingredients start to come together, then bring the mix together with your hands to make a ball of dough.
Mixing the shortbread base. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
2. Lightly dust the work top with a little more flour and gently knead the dough until smooth.
Making and baking. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
3. Roll out the dough to a thickness of 0.5cm and cut out 4 x 6.5cm, 4 x 5cm and 4 x 3.5cm rounds, re-rolling the dough as necessary. Arrange on a baking tray, prick with a fork and chill for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 180°C, 160°C fan oven, gas 4, bake the shortbread rounds for about 15 minutes until lightly golden. Leave to cool on the baking tray.
5. When you are ready to decorate, roll out the white ready-to-roll icing thinly and use the same cutters to cut out 12 assorted rounds. Keep the trimmings for decorating. Mix the icing sugar with a little water to make a smooth, sticky paste.
6. Spread a little icing paste on each biscuit and stick a same size round on top. Smooth the icing round with your fingers to flatten and neaten, then stack the rounds on top of each other starting with the largest rounds at the bottom. To make them more stable, spread a little icing paste in between if liked.
Icing and decorating. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
7. Use the trimmings to make arms and heads and stick in place with a little of the icing paste. Transfer to a serving plate or board.
For the finishing touches, use small amount of different coloured ready-to-roll icing to make scalves, hats, noses and buttons. A black piping icing tube is an easy way to pipe on the facial features, and I used tiny sugar flowers to make the buttons on one of the figures. Stick all the extras in place using a little of the icing paste.
Decorated and ready to serve.
Sprinkle the serving plate with shredded coconut to resemble snow. Note: the shortbread will lose it’s crispness once iced but it tastes just as good 🙂
See you next year! Image: Kathryn Hawkins
That’s me for another year. I hope you have a happy Christmas. With best wishes for the new year, thanks for stopping by.
Zesty and crunchy, microwave flapjacks. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
Hello again. I hope you are keeping well. Winter is upon us here in central Scotland with a sharp decline in the temperature and a light dusting of snow on the hills. This gives me the perfect excuse to do some comfort baking:)
Just 5 basic ingredients. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
I’ve been using my microwave oven a lot more this year in an effort to reduce energy consumption and have been experimenting with some of my traditional baking recipes which I would usually cook in the big electric oven.
Whilst you won’t get the same caramelisation and rich golden colour by cooking flapjacks in a microwave, the texture is chewy and the flavour is pretty much the same. You only need 5 ingredients to make this recipe, plus some icing sugar if you want to add more lemony flavour with a drizzle icing. The timings are for a 900w microwave oven so you may need to adjust them if your machine has a different output. Here’s what to do……
Makes: 12 portions
Ingredients
115g plant based butter
115g golden syrup
175g gluten-free oats (I used “jumbo” oats but porridge oats will work fine)
30-40g poppyseeds
Finely grated rind and juice 1 lemon
45g icing sugar
Yellow cake sprinkles if liked
1. Line a 20cm square (internal measurement) microwave-proof dish with baking parchment. Put the butter and syrup in a microwave-proof bowl, cover and cook on High for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally, until melted.
2. Stir in the oats, poppyseeds to taste and lemon rind along with all but 1½ teaspoons lemon juice and mix well.
Making flapjacks in the microwave. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
3. Press into the prepared dish and flatten the surface with the back of a spoon. Cook in the microwave on Medium for 7 minutes. Mark into 12 pieces and leave to cool in the dish.
4. When completely cold, transfer the flapjack to a board and cut the pieces all the way through.
Cooking, cooling and slicing flapjacks. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
5. Mix the icing sugar and reserved lemon juice together and drizzle over each piece. Scatter with sprinkles if liked.
Finishing the flapjacks with lemon icing. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Lemon and poppyseed flapjack up close. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
Store in an air tight container or freeze – for best results store or freeze uniced.
I hope to have something festive for you next month. In the meantime, enjoy the run up to Christmas. Take care and thanks for stopping by:)
Sweet and spicy homemade chutney. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
Hello again. I hope you are keeping well and enjoying the colours of Autumn. It’s remained quite dry here in central Scotland and the trees are looking very colourful around and about. Everywhere I look, it really has been a bumper year fruit especially plums and apples in my garden. The old apple tree produced yet another bountiful crop of some 70kg! Now that the harvest is in, it’s enjoying a well earned rest I’m sure.
A tree full of apples. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Harvest gathered, this year’s bumper crop of cooking apples. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
We did a lot of the apples away this year as there were far too many to cook up or freeze down. But I still have a box full to work through and one of the first things to make was some apple chutney. I made this batch in the slow cooker. It’s very easy to make and tastes delicious. One slight difference to this slow cooker recipe is that it uses less vinegar and sugar than traditional recipe so the chutney does need to be stored in the fridge.
Curried apple chutney ingredients. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
Makes: approx. 1.2kg
Ingredients
300g prepared red or white onions, chopped
15g peeled root ginger, grated
10g peeled garlic, grated
750g prepared cooking apples, chopped
125ml cider or white wine vinegar
1tbsp medium curry powder
100g sultanas
200g Demerara sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1. Put the onion, ginger, garlic and apples in the slow cooker. Pour over the vinegar, mix well, cover with the lid and cook on High for 4 hours.
Apple chutney preparation. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
2. Stir in the remaining ingredients, cover and cook for 30 minutes longer to dissolve the sugar. After this time, remove the lid and if the mixture looks watery, leave the chutney to cook without the lid on for up to 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until thick and jam-like.
The 4 stages of slow cooker chutney. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
3. Leave to cool completely then pack into clean jars, seal tightly and store in the fridge for up to 3 months. It’s ready to eat immediately and doesn’t need to mature. Great news for the impatient preserve-makers amongst us 🙂
A spoonful of homemade chutney. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
This chutney makes a great alternative to mango chutney with and Indian meal as well as a delicious finishing touch to a sandwich.
That’s me for another month. Enjoy the rest of the season and I’ll see you again next month when winter will be upon us. Until then, take care and thanks for stopping by.
Easy to make, slow cooker tomato sauce. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
Hello again. It’s that time of year when there is so much produce ready at the same time. My fridge is groaning with vegetables and fruit, and I really need to get down to some serious recipe/meal planning and freezing.
For a simple tomato sauce, put 1.5kg washed and chopped fresh tomatoes in the slow cooker with 2 peeled and sliced medium carrots. Add a peeled and chopped large onion and 4 peeled and halved garlic cloves. I seasoned the mix with 2 teaspoons celery salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and 4 teaspoons caster sugar. Add a couple of bay leaves and drizzle over 3 tablespoons olive oil. Mix well, cover with the lid and switch to the High setting. Leave to cook for 4 to 5 hours, until completely soft.
Blitz and freeze. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Discard the bay leaves and blitz with a hand blender then leave to cool before packing into freezer containers. This quantity will make around 1.75kg sauce. It will keep in the fridge for about 5 days, and in the freezer for 6 months or so.
Reduced and thickened slow cooker tomato sauce. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
The sauce is quite thin which is fine for some recipes but if you want it thicker, transfer a few ladles of sauce to a deep frying pan, drizzle with a little olive oil, bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until it is thickened to you liking.
Using homemade tomato sauce. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Thinner sauce is perfect for soups and risotto stocks, whilst thicker sauce clings better to pasta shapes or can be used as a spread for tarts and pizza bases.
That’s all for this post. I hope you are enjoying some good weather and fine homegrown produce. Until next time, thanks for stopping by 🙂
Bean salad flavoured with almond and poppy seed pesto. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
Hello there. I hope you are enjoying some good weather this season. It’s been very hot here in the UK again, and so salads are very much still on my daily menu. To follow on from my post last month which you can read here , I have another recipe which can help towards increasing your calcium levels if you are on a gluten-free, dairy-free and/or vegan diet.
Gorgeous greenhouse green beans. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Summery greenhouse basil. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
It’s been a bumper season for the green (French) beans (Cobra variety) in my greenhouse. The vines have been producing an abundance of beans for several weeks now, and the basil plant loves all the heat and sunshine as well. To my delight, I discovered that both green beans and basil offer useful amounts of calcium, and that’s how my recipe this month began.
Combined with some other calcium-rich ingredients, this tasty salad is delicious on its own or as a side dish. The table below gives you a breakdown of which ingredients contain the most calcium so that you can make up your own combinations.
Rocket
216mg calcium/100g
Baby spinach
119mg calcium/100g
Cooked cannellini beans
93mg calcium/100g
Cooked green beans
61mg calcium/100g
Green olives
61mg calcium/100g
Fresh basil
250mg calcium/100g
Whole almonds
269mg calcium/100g
Poppy seeds
1580mg calcium/100g
Garlic
19mg calcium/100g
Source: McCance and Widdowson’s The Composition of Foods
For the pesto, put 20g fresh basil in a food processor with a peeled garlic clove and add 50g roughly chopped whole almonds, 20g poppy seeds and some salt. Pour over 60ml extra virgin olive oil and blitz until smooth.
Making almond and poppy seed pesto. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
For the salad, I combined 240g canned cannellini beans with 100g chopped cooked green beans and half the pesto sauce above. I lined a salad bowl with 40g wild rocket and 20g baby spinach and piled the bean mixture on top. Serve with 100g pitted green olives and extra basil leaves, with the remaining pesto on the side.
Assembling the salad. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
The salad serves 4, and each portion will provide 238mg calcium and 330 calories.
That’s me for another month. Hope to see you again soon. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
My top 4 natural calcium boosters. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Hello again. I hope you are keeping well and enjoying the Summer season. My post is a little different this month but hopefully helpful to anyone whose diet contains no gluten, dairy or animal products.
I had a bit of a dietary come-uppance a few weeks ago. Having a background in food and nutrition, I know what I should be eating to keep me fit and healthy. It happened when I switched from my regular plant-milk to an organic version. After a few days I Happened to notice that the organic milk was not fortified. This raised my concern as fortified plant milk was one of the main sources of calcium in my diet. Once I had reviewed the other foods I regularly consume, I realised that my daily intake of this vital mineral was coming up short.
As part of my work as a recipe writer, I am used to working out the calories and other nutritional content of my recipes, and I have some comprehensive nutritional books and tables to help me do this. I studied the calcium content for lots of foods and worked out some useful dietary calcium boosters which are easy to include in my meals on a daily basis.
Poppy seeds
1580mg calcium/100g
Sesame seeds
670mg calcium/100g
Chia seeds
631mg calcium/100g
Flax seeds
255mg calcium/100g
Whole almonds
269mg calcium/100g
Brazil nuts
170mg calcium/100g
Source: McCance and Widdowson’s: The Composition of Foods
As you can see from the chart above, poppy seeds are by far the super-hero of the calcium world but like other small seeds, not necessarily the easiest of foods to eat, so I ground them up in my coffee grinder to make a fine “flour”.
Grinding poppy seeds. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Combined with ground sesame seeds, chia seeds and unblanched almonds the resulting “flour” makes a perfect sprinkle over breakfast cereals and salads and as a nutrient-rich addition to smoothies and baking mixes.
A perfect calcium-rich sprinkle. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
The blend is made up with 50g poppy seeds, 25g each sesame and chia seeds plus 75g unblanched almonds to make 11-12 servings. One heaped tablespoon or 15g of this mix will give you a very useful 115mg calcium (81 calories). Don’t be tempted to make up too much in one go, it is better to consume the mix as fresh as possible; keep it in an airtight container, in the fridge for maximum freshness.
Store in an airtight container, in the fridge. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
I have gone back to fortified plant milk (around 120mg calcium/100ml) for the time being, so with the smaller amounts of calcium in my breakfast cereal and some fresh berries (blackberries contain a useful 33mg calcium/100g) my breakfast now gives me over one third of my daily recommended intake (700mg) 🙂
Calcium-rich breakfast. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
I’ll be making up some more calcium-boosting recipes in the future so watch this space if your interested. Thanks for stopping by and see you again next time.
Hello there. What a glorious month to be outside in the garden. All the fine weather we had back in the spring has produced some fine garden blooms this year. Fortunately we have had some rain to revive everything and currently Mother Nature is providing us with a good balance of sunshine and showers which is helping keep everything fresh. The bank of blue geraniums and yellow day lilies is one of my favourite floral combinations at this time of year.
The bees love them too. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Golden lilies. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
It’s been a great year for Campanulas. The wall variety is crammed with flowerheads and the taller varieties are popping up all over the garden.
Scottish blue Campanulas. Images: Kathryn Hawkins.
The old rambling rose in the back garden has been a victim of its own success this year. It has grown so tall and produced so many flower heads it is too heavy on top for its stems underneath and has to be tied back. The scent is as wonderful as ever.
Rambling rose bush. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
More delicious scents in another part of the garden, from the peonies, also popular with our little winged friends.
Perfect, petaly and perfumed. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Amidst all the rainbow colours in the garden, these bright white Delphiniums are putting on a lovely show this year.
Ice white Delphiniums. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
One of the more unusual plants in flower at the moment is the Phlomis with it’s tufty flower heads that remind me of tiny pineapples.
Fabulous Phlomis. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
My sunny Sunday garden. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
That’s all from me for now. I hope you have a great few days and are able to get out and about in the sunshine. Until next time, thanks as ever for stopping by 🙂
Tomato risotto and roast vegetables. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
Hello again. I hope the sun has been shining on you this month. It’s certainly been a warm, dry and bright month here in central Scotland. Subsequently I haven’t felt much like cooking and when I have, it’s been simple suppers like this no-fuss, no-pfaff risotto recipe.
Risotto topped with roast veg and rosemary. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
I love a good risotto but it’s not something to be hurried so I rarely make one when I’m busy. But now I have discovered this “cheats” version, it’s back on the menu. Once you’ve got the basic rice recipe, you can make whatever variations you like to the flavour or by adding extras. This version uses homemade tomato sauce and a little wine as the liquid but you can use all stock or half and half with wine if you prefer something plainer. A while ago I published a recipe for homemade tomato sauce. If you fancy having a go here’s the link to the post Home-grown tomatoes – recipe for fresh tomato sauce, a salsa, plus other serving suggestions (gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan) If you use a readymade sauce, make sure it’s not too concentrated otherwise the rice may taste quite tart rather than creamy.
My microwave oven has an output of 900 watts and has a turntable. You may need to adjust the cooking times if your oven has a different output.
Serves: 2
Ingredients
1tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
150g arborio rice
100ml dry white wine or vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
600ml homemade tomato sauce
1tsp dried rosemary
1tsp caster sugar
Roast vegetables and fresh rosemary to serve
1. Put the oil and garlic in a large microwave-proof bowl. Cover and cook for 1 minute on High power.
2. Mix in the rice, wine or stock and seasoning and then stir in the tomato sauce, rosemary and sugar.
3. Cover and cook on High for 16 minutes. Stir after 6 minutes and then again after 10 minutes of the cooking time. If the rice is still a bit gritty at the end of the cooking time, add a small amount of water and cook for a further minute.
9 steps to making microwave tomato risotto. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Taste and season before serving. Try topping with fresh rocket for a quick accompaniment or one of my favourite ways to serve this risotto is with a pile of roasted onion, courgette, peppers, tomatoes and fresh rosemary on top.
The rainbow colours of roast veggies. Image: Kathryn Hawkins
Happy May everyone! What a glorious start to the new month here in the UK with the continuation of fine weather and subsequent earlier blooming of many of my favourite garden flowers. I couldn’t resist sharing a few images of the garden as it springs into life in a riot of colours. Apple blossom is one of the prettiest of the fruit blossoms, and it looks like the old Lord Derby apple tree is going to put in another good show this year.
It’s the time in the gardening calendar when everything seems to take off at once, and everywhere has something colourful to show. The later flowering rhododendrons and the wonderfully bold and brash Azaleas, jammed packed with petals as usual, are putting on a great display at the moment.
May soft pink Rhododendron. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
May is all about bluebells and they have been popping up all over the garden since Easter, alongside other cooler coloured flowers like the forget-me-nots, mountain cornflower and the first of the lavenders.
May blues. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
Tufted lavender and mountain cornflower. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
There are still a few reminders of the first spring flowers dotted around like this magnificent white daffodil and the very fragrant Narcissi. The Welsh poppies have put in an early appearance. Usually just one or two would be in flower by now, but this year, they are flowering all round the garden already.
White daffodil and Narcissi. Images: Kathryn Hawkins.
May poppies. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
To round off my post, I have captured the two varieties of Aquilegia that opened up as I started putting this post together. Such delicate and intricate layers of petals, like frilly dresses, the flowers last for a fair length of time and make me feel that Summer isn’t too far away.
Pretty in pink: the first of the Aqualigeas. Images: Kathryn Hawkins
I hope you have enjoyed my flowery photos. I’ll be back in the kitchen for my next post. Until then, happy gardening and enjoy the late Spring colours 🙂
My Virtually Free-from Kitchen 