Recipes, produce finds and honest taste notes
A cold November afternoon, six supermarket mince pies and a blind scoring sheet that got more honest with every cup of tea. Here is what separated the pastry from the packaging, plus a low-mess way to warm them without coating the kitchen in sugar and fruit mincemeat.
A November kitchen test of parsnips three ways — honey-roasted, cider-vinegar glazed and plainly salted — and why the sweet root often needs acid more than sugar. Includes buying notes on woody cores, an easy acid-led glaze, and honest taste notes on when a little honey helps and when it flattens the flavour.
A practical small-batch chutney for the hard green tomatoes left on the windowsill at the end of the 2026 season, with Bramley apple, mustard seed and a restrained hand on the sugar. The honest notes at two days and two weeks make the case for letting it sit before you judge it.
Fresh chestnuts promise smoke, sweetness and a warm paper bag, then charge you in scoring and peeling. Vacuum-packed ones are quieter, softer and almost suspiciously easy. This is an honest look at when the winter ritual earns its keep, and when the shortcut is simply the better cook.
Six weeks before the big shop, the bottom drawer of my freezer is a museum of good intentions. Here is the hour-long audit I do every November, the honest taste notes on the usual suspects, and three dinners that make the survivors worth keeping.
Hot chocolate is not really a stirring job in this kitchen; it is a small, quiet cooking job with a knife, a pan and a bit of patience. I put chopped dark chocolate, cocoa and one supermarket tin through a November test, then kept the method that actually survives a cold Tuesday.
A Christmas pudding the size of a teacup, made on Stir-Up Sunday 2026 for a household of two. Here is the small-batch method, the case for a proper steam rather than a blast in the microwave, and an honest verdict on whether homemade actually beats a decent shop-bought one.
A practical pre-Christmas tasting of six dried supermarket stuffing mixes, judged against a quick homemade sausagemeat version. Sage, onion, salt and texture all got a fair hearing — here is what deserves cupboard space and what needs a little help.
Brown sauce is not a universal condiment; it is a sharp, sweet corrective. I put six widely available bottles through a bacon sandwich and a fried egg to see which ones earn fridge-door status in 2026.
Late-autumn leeks are easy to overlook beside the squashes and sprouts, but a good bunch rewards patience more than technique. Here is how to spot one, deal with the grit, and coax out its sweetness with butter rather than a rolling boil.
I bought two knobbly quinces at a Saturday market and spent the week working out what they actually want from a cook. Here are my honest notes on choosing, poaching, membrillo, and the syrup that quietly stole the show.
Chestnut, button and portobello are the three mushroom bags most of us pick up without thinking. I cooked them side by side in the same pan, with the same fat and the same level of impatience, then gave each one a proper job in the Harris kitchen.
Parkin is supposed to improve with time, but nobody tells you which parkin, or how long to actually wait. I baked three very different tins and ate my way through a week of notes — here is what changed, what didn't, and which one is worth your oven time.
A grey November morning, three heat sources and a dozen crumpets: we put grill, griddle and toaster through their paces, then argued about butter. The holes matter, the timing matters, and the supermarket-versus-bakery result was not as clear-cut as expected.
A bag of Bramleys is one of the best things you can bring home in November. Here's how to judge them by feel and smell, what the supermarkets are actually selling, and four puddings — crumble, baked apples with mincemeat, a ginger pudding and a tarte tatin — that make the most of their sharp, collapsing nature.
A butter drawer with only one block in it is a drawer making compromises. Here is the practical case for keeping salted and unsalted butter side by side, with honest notes on UK creamery blocks and the small rituals that keep both tasting right.
A November 2026 audition for the Christmas table: Brussels sprouts charred, steamed and raw, with notes on bitterness, texture and the prep that keeps 25 December calm. Plus buying advice on stalks versus loose sprouts.
A practical, plain-English audit of the vinegars worth keeping in a UK kitchen — malt, cider, white wine, balsamic and more — with honest taste notes and the bottles that quietly gather dust.
The supermarket meal deal is fine. It is also £4 and a bit of sadness in a plastic triangle. Here are five lunches built from leftovers and supermarket produce finds, each with an honest taste note and a rough cost per portion.
The most-grown pear in Britain is also the most badly treated — bought hard, eaten harder, and written off as dull. A short defence of the Conference pear, how to tell when it is actually ready, and two things worth doing with it in the Harris kitchen this month.