A family favourite, best nut roast I’ve every eaten. Go on, give meat a rest and go nuts!

What you will need for your Nut Roast

1 medium onion
25g (1oz) butter
225grams (8 ozs) Mixed raw nuts eg: peanuts, walnuts, almonds, cashews etc.
100g (4oz) wholemeal bread
300ml (1/4 pint) vegetable stock
2 tsp Marmite
Dried mixed herbs
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Optional cheesy savoury layer to go in the middle ( I love this:))…

Sliced tomatoes, fresh basil and grated cheese ( mozzarella and cheddar taste good together).

How to make your Nut Roast

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C / 350’F / Gas mark 4

2. Chop the onions and saute in the butter until transparent.

3. Grind the nuts and bread together in a liquidiser or coffee grinder until quite fine.

4. Heat the stock and yeast extract to boiling point, then combine all the ingredients together and mix well – the mixture should be fairly slack. Use slightly less liquid if you are going to put the cheesy savoury mixture in the middle.

5. Turn into a greased loaf tin. If you would like to put the cheese and tomato savoury layer in the middle, just fill tin with half the mixture and then place a layers of tomato, cheese and basil and top with the rest of the nut mixture.

6.Level the mixture off and sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs (not essential) and bake for 30 mins until golden brown.

Serve hot with a tomato and basil sauce or slice up cold with a salad. Delicious.

To make this extra special for Christmas, place half the mixture into the tin and then place slices of Brie and dried cranberries over and then add the rest of the nut roast mixture, absolutely delicious.

Originally from Cranks whole food recipe book.

This has been described as a beefed up version of a spicy potato tapas recipe. For me it’s a one pot wonder, quick, tasty and perfect for the autumn months ahead.

Serves 2

What you will need

2 chicken breasts ( next time I will use thigh meat as I prefer the taste)
New potatoes
8″ piece of chorizo ( the long thinnish one)
2 small or one large red onion
2 large tomatoes
Red pepper
2 cloves of garlic
Handful of flat leaf parsley
chilli sauce ( I used sweet chilli sauce tonight) to taste
Lemon juice 1/4 to a half
Olive oil

How to make it

1. Cut chicken breasts into large pieces.

2.Cut the onions, potatoes, red pepper and tomatoes into big chunks.

3.. Cut the chorizo into smaller chunks.

4. Place the chicken, potatoes, chorizo, peppers and onion into a large cookpot. Drizzle a little olive oil on them.

5. Roast in a preheated oven at 200°C/gas mark 6 for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and then to coat the ingredients with the paprika flavoured oils released from the chorizo.

6. Add tomatoes, sliced garlic, a big handful of chopped parsley, a big squeeze of lemon juice, a shake of chilli sauce and some ground or crushed black pepper.

7. Stir together well and return to the oven for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are tender.

8. Serve straight from the pot with steamed green beans.

This recipe was given to me by my lovely new friend and work colleague, Suzanne.