Food & recipes
New beginnings (an announcement)
If you’re wondering where I’ve been for the last month, I’ve been working on something very exciting. *Fanfare* *Pauses for dramatic effect* I’ve launched an Auntie Bulgaria newsletter over on Substack. What the hell is Substack? It’s a newsletter platform,...
Soup inspo (you’re welcome)
Tell you the truth, it’s not really soup weather here this week. It’s so sunny and warm we’ve put the hammock back up in the garden! But since the chilly temperatures are returning next week – and since I can eat soup in any weather – this week is devoted to the...
Who’s buying bread flour anyway?
Serious question, do any of you make bread with proper bread flour? When we first moved to Bulgaria, bread flour was hard to find (and more expensive), so we’ve always made do with plain flour. And I assumed – in that way you do, assuming everyone else is exactly...
Glittery snow, annual existential crisis, smoothie tip
Greetings from a very cold Bulgaria. We’ve not got much snow, but what we have got is sparkly-sparkly, like a dusting of glitter on a 1990s movie star’s chestal region. Well, what a mashup this week’s post is. To start, let’s discuss my usual post-Christmas...
What to do with all those Jerusalem artichokes
Yes, it’s the latest in my long-running series of ‘What to do with all those [insert veg that I’ve grown too much of]'. We’ve dug up barely a third of the Jerusalem artichokes and I’m already at a loss. What on earth do I do with them? I’m wracking my brains trying...
Thoughts of Christmas dinner
I don’t want to hear the ‘it’s too early to think about Christmas’ complaints. When it comes to Christmas dinner, there’s no such thing as too early in our house. We generally start talking about Christmas dinner in September. Yes, September. While the sun beats...
One of those ‘whoa’ moments
You may not expect this of me, sweary, dungaree-devotee that I am, but I’m surprisingly into visualisation and manifestation. No, really. Woo woo me up, baby. I draw the line at crystals and horoscopes (with apologies to crystal- and astrology-lovers – you do you),...
Roasted courgette dip, savoury courgette muffins, and the aggressive giving away of vegetables
I dare not venture into the garden during daylight hours. The second I sneak into the veg patch, our elderly neighbour pops up on his side of the fence and yells (in Bulgarian), ‘Do you want some courgettes?’ Each time, I firmly remind him that we have four...
A really, really good vegan burger recipe
Not going to lie, this recipe has so many things that should make me hate it. I have to wrestle my food processor out from the cupboard. There’s the frying of onions. (As a human smell sponge, I usually nope out of any recipe that starts with caramelising onions.)...
How to love tofu (by an ex-tofu sceptic)
I don’t mind admitting I’ve been on a journey with tofu. A journey that started with me as a staunch tofu sceptic and has arrived here, at the point where I get nervous if I have fewer than four blocks of tofu in the fridge. You, too, can learn to love tofu to this...
Rhubarb wine (because I’m obsessed with fermenting)
Earlier this year I started brewing my own ginger beer, following instructions in the River Cottage Fermentation Handbook, and I’ve been making batches regularly ever since. My ginger bug – the ginger and sugar concoction that’s used to kickstart fermentation –...
Reducing our food bill. A thrifty soup recipe
I never used to pay attention to food prices. We live a frugal life, have old cars, go on cheap holidays, cut our own hair, and wear second-hand clothes. And because of that, I’ve always given myself licence to buy whatever food and drink I want, without...