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River Cottage Good Comfort: Best-Loved Favourites Made Better for You

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Last time we had friends over for dinner, I made a dessert of home-made avocado ice-cream, with brownies. I should have taken a photo because it was scrumptious, despite the recipe's claim that the brownies had only 91 kcal per serve because they were made with yoghurt instead of butter. I don't care about calories, but I do try to offer desserts that are healthy-ish. OTOH if I'm only going to make brownies once or twice a year, I want them to taste decadent. Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage has been re-evaluating its relationship with sugar for a few years now. Combine the ground almonds and salt. Add to the chocolate mixture and fold in carefully, using the spatula.

Cooked greens: About 150-250g cooked kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and/or broccoli, roughly chopped or shreddedAnd Good Comfort is in every way generous, as Hugh makes our favourite foods healthier, not by taking stuff out of them, but by putting more in: the best whole ingredients, celebrated in all their colourful and seasonal diversity.

Enjoying something which not only do we love to eat, but has some kind of resonance and a little bit of emotional goodness to it." But why are we so drawn to comfort food? "I've got a slightly highfalutin answer to that, I hope you'll bear with me," says Fearnley-Whittingstall.It becomes tougher sometimes to find the ingredients and turn on the oven - all those things are becoming harder and more expensive. But we still need to do that, because it's what keeps us sane and warm and together." Gelf Alderson has spent years serving up original, veg-centric meals to delight the guests at River Cottage. His recipes redefine the idea of salad, as playful flavour pairings, clever techniques and vibrant dressings bring out the very best in seasonal produce. We shouldn't be guilt-tripping people into eating healthy food, we should be tempting people to healthy food," he says. Tip the rice into a saucepan, cover with plenty of boiling water and bring to a simmer. Cook for 20 minutes, until almost al dente (still firm to the bite), then drain. The book begins with an Introduction. It's the usual cook's philosophy section, which in this case is HFW's mission to recreate comfort foods that are not heavy, cloying, too rich or too sweet. His key principle is 'Go Whole: The more whole, unrefined ingredients we can get on to our plates, the better. But he doesn't just mean the grains and pulses we typically associate with the term 'wholefoods'. He means foods that are whole, or very close to it, when we take them into our kitchens. (I heard these described the other day as 'foods your granny would recognise'.) Minimally processed is ok, so he includes dairy foods such as yoghurt and cheese, and some tinned vegetables (such as low-salt tomatoes canned with just water and a little salt.) He stresses that it's important to get the balance right: overdo the pulses and you're in the danger zone of 'padding'. Likewise, full-on wholemeal flour can take you a little far from textures you know and love, so 'half-wholemeal' is a better choice.

Maybe they are planning a River Cottage Vegan Baking handbook, like they have the Gluten Free one and other food-group specific handbooks like Mushrooms. There is more and more great technical advice out there from the likes of the aforementioned Vegan Baking Bible, and Philip Khoury's upcoming A New Way to Bake, on restaurant-grade patisserie, with restaurant-grade ingredients you can also see listed under his YT videos. But so far as I can tell, there still isn't a high-quality, trustworthy book focused on vegan baking with the sort of fruit and veg grown in the UK and on vegan versions of traditional British sweet recipes. We've been conned into eating more sugar than we even have a genuine appetite for," he says, good-natured outrage bubbling from his words. Tip the spuds into the pan. If they aren't already mashed, crush them roughly with a fork or masher, but keep the texture quite chunky. Let the heat penetrate the potatoes for a minute or two then add all the other veg, and any herbs or flavour bombs, with a little more seasoning. Stir together then press the whole lot down into a rough cake. We can have all those things and they can be truly delicious - and yet better for us than perhaps some of the old-school or conventional versions of those recipes."

In the same year, Hugh published The River Cottage Meat Book to wide acclaim and won a second André Simon Food Book of the Year Award. Good old bubble and squeak is a much-loved dish in my house. Rather than one ingredient being ‘bubble' and one ‘squeak', the name is thought to refer to the sounds emanating from the frying pan as the dish is cooking,” says Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

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