Tom Cooks!

A bit like Lord Reith’s BBC my mission has been both to entertain and to educate. The problem is that you were the ones who were intended to be educated, not me. Mind you, I consider my weekly Italian lesson a failure if my teacher hasn’t learned something new: similarly, the amount of knowledge I’ve…

As I said on Wednesday, you can do anything (well, anything that’s legal, decent, truthful and honest – this column has standards) with jalapeños that you could do with most other chillies. You’ll all have your own favourites, so let’s travel a little. Firstly, snacking in the States. Some years ago my eldest offspring was…

Most of us have a favourite season. Mine is autumn. Ask many of my fellow autumnal devotees what they love, and many will cite the colours. In one sense, I do too, but more from the cook’s perspective. Last week the vivid purple of brambles had centre stage. Round about now, magazine editors are adorning…

What has gone wrong with the world? While some types of foraging may be a little esoteric – mushrooms, for example, potentially deadly if you don’t know what you’re doing – nothing could be simpler than bramble picking. Well, apart from the jaggy bits, and the permanent staining. I have recently returned from a holiday…

We really aim to be seasonal here, and today we hit double top. The partridge season started at the beginning  of September. While it has been a rotten year for grouse, partridge are plentiful. September is also prime time for wild mushrooms. If you forage for your own, you won’t need me to tell you…

This is a recipe for those of you with a sweet tooth. It comes courtesy of sister-in-law Alison, whose company we are currently enjoying, the first time in two years. As most of you know, baking, bread excepted, is not really my thing, so I’m forever grateful to the guest contributors such as Alison who…

Or, if you want to translate literally, jump in the mouth as the Romans do. You can see why, even on British menus, they stick to the original. I mention it in today’s Tom Eats! so I thought I might include the recipe. It’s incredibly easy to make. The fact that my last attempt wasn’t…

Well, I couldn’t tantalise you with a brief history of the stuff (see Wednesday’s On The Side column) and not give you some to eat, could I? You know by now about the cream allergy, so you’re not going to be getting any of the rich stuff, nor one of these unctuous ones where you start…

Yesterday was the so called Glorious Twelfth. Depends on your viewpoint, I suppose. Less than wonderful if you’re a grouse, as it’s the start of the shooting season. I came to grouse late in life, and I can certainly see what the fuss is about, but prices are always inflated immediately after twelfth in the…

At this time of year, many of you may be enjoying (or suffering) a glut of tomatoes. Here are a couple of recipes. The first is for a soup which is good at any time of year, but has a beautiful summery colour. A word of warning: the tomatoes need to be quite sweet, though…

Scotland, we are told, produces the finest soft fruit in the world. We do, do we? Well, not on the basis of the strawberries I’ve had this year. At the beginning of the season the quality  could be forgiven because of the lack of sunshine: no such excuses now, and I still haven’t had any…

An invisible ingredient? I hear you repeat in wonder. How can this be? Now, I concede that, out there, there exist people with palettes so refined, that they can detect everything. Some of you may be among them: but you are rare. Alice Waters of the legendary Chez Panisse in California set a challenge to her…

Stews and Curries If you stop and examine closely the contents of many of our favourites, the ingredients by themselves aren’t all that sinful. There are two things which hike up the calorie count. Firstly, in this comparatively affluent age, we are likely to include a much higher proportion of meat, chicken or whatever than…

Well, the final instalment. At last, I hear you cry. One of the main purposes of this section has been to try to ensure you don’t die of ignorance, in other words to point out the truly horrendous number of calories to be found in processed food. Takeaway See also under Curry and Pizza. This…

Well, the food A – Z is (gently, I hope) suggesting that pasta and pizza shouldn’t feature on your regular menu. Here are a couple of lower calorie options which may fool the brain slightly. Spiralised Courgettes All’ Amatriciana Now when spiralisers hit the market, I was right up there voicing my contempt at this…

This is the penultimate in the A – Z series. Some of this may be no more than stating the obvious, but there may be a few surprises. Meat Lean meat is better for dieters, but if your meat has fat it on it, don’t remove it before cooking. Just don’t eat it. Beef is…

I used my May sabbatical to get a few articles in the can, as it were, to be able to roar back as fresh as, well… a very fresh thing. At the time of writing I was fairly unsure what the rules would be about entertaining, but it surely can’t be too long before we…

The thing, said Kenny, is that everyone who wants to lose weight will tell you that they hate salads. Until I started going to France regularly, I was probably among their number. Remember the Scottish attempt at a “salad”? A piece of cold meat, or worse. Possibly a birstled three day old Scotch egg whose…

After a couple of weeks of depressing you with lots of foodstuffs best avoided, there’s some more positive news this week. A lot of people say they give up on diets because the food is boring. You just have to look at your fridge or store cupboard from a slightly different angle to realise that…

Now please don’t write in to complain about the selection for today’s combo. Yes, I know that everyone can make a stir fry.  But what I’m looking to illustrate is a way you can take a dish you have made many times, and reduce its calorie count by upping the ratio of veg to protein.…

After Part 1 was published, one of my daughters took me to task that it was terribly negative, containing things you really shouldn’t touch. While I’m not sure that was entirely fair – I did after all extol the virtues of bread – it certainly can be applied to today’s warnings. Never mind, there’s some…

Should The Wee Fat Lawyer’s Diet Book ever see the light of day as a complete volume, it will contain this A – Z, a random compendium of some foods and thoughts on where, if at all, they can fit into your dieting programme. Recipe names in Italics will feature in Tom Cooks! Once the…

As I mention in the book, for all calorie counting I refer to the My Fitness Pal app. If I am cooking something substantial, such as a piece of meat or fish, or using an ingredient with a very high calorie count such as butter, then I will weigh it. Otherwise it’s an approximation; however,…

Avgolemono For today’s recipes, my thanks are due to two remarkable ladies. The first comes from from Sarah Wyndham Lewis, who featured in this Wednesday’s Food Producers feature in On The Side. Sarah Wyndham Lewis’s Avgolemono Sarah’s Introduction Avgolemono is the ultimate in simple, nourishing comfort food, quickly made and very sustaining. (The g is pronounced…