Emma Lee
It’s that time of year again, and we’re all trying to recover from the excesses of the festive season, with firm resolutions to swear off whichever food groups are bothering us most and dive into plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. The problem is that healthy eating can be rather unexciting, and it’s not long before we tend to fall back off the wagon, so we’ve decided to make an effort to get excited by the prospect of a better diet, and these are the recipes we’re raring to cook.
A perennial favourite in the House & Garden office is what we call ‘soupy beans and greens’ – beans simply cooked in water and stock with garlic and herbs for flavour and greens for extra goodness (and often cheese to make it even more delicious). The exact recipe can vary depending on what’s in season, but this one by Caroline Fidanza is a good base to work from, according to our Commerce Editor Arabella Bowes. You can use jarred beans to make it quicker (and they come in their own delicious stock) – just make sure to get some good ones as the beans are the star of the show.
For a quick and easy workday lunch (which helpfully avoids any queuing for the microwave – a nightmare at this time of year if your office is anything like ours), our Deputy Digital Editor Christabel Chubb recommends this delicious chicken salad in lettuce cups. It’s a brilliant recipe for a picnic in warmer months, but right now it’s a fresh, zingy way to banish the Christmas cobwebs – and you can replace the mayonnaise in the recipe with Greek yoghurt for a slightly healthier twist.
If you’re also on the salad train this January, our Commerce Writer Tilly Wheeler is looking forward to making this dish from the Daylesford cookbook. ‘ Normally I’m a creature of habit when it comes to making salads,’ she says, ‘so this recipe involving blue cheese, hazelnuts and pickled pear stood out to me as it’s so different from the leafy side salads dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar that I usually default to. While it may take a little more effort and preparation, it will undoubtedly be worth it.’
This salad comes from the Ginger Pig Christmas Book, but it works really well for the post-Christmas period – it’s super-healthy and makes the most of delicious seasonal produce, with butternut squash and pomegranate seeds combining with herbs, roasted peppers and feta for a satisfying and tasty dish. And it’ll certainly travel well for those work lunches.
For especially zingy flavours, we can’t recommend enough this Mexican-inflected salad by Wahaca founder Thomasina Miers. It just looks cheerful, for a start, and the combination of sweet pineapple and salty halloumi, with the tang of pickled onions and the spice of chilli and herbs, is just irresistible. Oh yes, and it includes black beans too, because we’re all about the beans at the moment.
Our Digital Writer Rose Washbourn, meanwhile, is whipping up a batch of this cavolo nero minestrone by Georgia Levy. The beans, greens and tomatoes make up a ‘trinity of goodness’ that packs in plenty of nutrition, while being delicious enough that it doesn’t feel too virtuous. And it’s also an easy one to take to work, although you will have to tackle the microwave.
As an alternative (but using many of the same ingredients), our Senior Manager of Audience Development Allegra Pavoni – freshly back from a holiday in Tuscany – is gathering ingredients for this classic Tuscan ribollita. ‘It’s a healthy meal but still very hearty,’ she says, ‘and also very tasty, fast and easy to make perfect for cold winter days when I feel a bit lazy and just want a cosy meal. And every time I cook it, it reminds me of my Christmas getaway to Tuscany, so it feels even more comforting.’
Staying in the Italian world, we love a cosy ragù recipe for this time of year, but it doesn’t have to be made with meat if you’re trying to cut down. Eleanor Maidment’s recipe for a lentil and aubergine version is a great way to pack in the veggies and pulses, and as a bonus it can easily be batch cooked and frozen for a quick weeknight dinner.
Our Digital Director Virginia Clark always leans towards citrus flavours in January to liven things up and cut through all that Christmas stodge. Amelia Christie-Miller of Bold Bean Co’s recipes are always favourites, and this chickpea and lemon soup is a winner. The garlic, ginger and turmeric in the soup make it wonderfully flavourful and very good for you, while the plentiful lemon keeps it all bright and fresh.
Another favourite of Virginia’s is anything in the ‘sweet potato as jacket potato’ family. Roasting (or microwaving a sweet potato and then loading it with other lovely things. The recipe below is a good base – feta and sweet potato are a match made in heaven – but we also love the idea of mashing avocado, perhaps with some peas and fresh herbs, and adding that to the mix. Lime juice is another good ingredient to throw in, and plays nicely with the sweetness of the potato and the saltiness of the feta.