Watermelon, Feta and Mint Salad with Lime and Cardammon

I don’t know about the rest of the world but down here it has been 33 degrees for the last few days. That is hot even for the kiwis, let alone somebody still used to Scottish temperatures. On the plus side I can get a watermelon bigger than my head for $2.99 - perfect to cool and rehydrate my melting body.

- Start by making a cardommon suger syrup. Bring to the boil 00ml of water and 200g of sugar, boil for 2minutes then turn off the heat and add half a teaspoon of ground cardommon seeds. Allow to cool.

This makes quite a lot but Rachel Allen says it will keep forever in the fridge. Although I dare you not to eat it all a lot sooner.

- Chop up your watermelon into chunks, mix with the same or a little less feta cheese, some salt and ground black pepper.

- Squeeze over the juice of a lime, and spoon over a few dessertspoonfuls of the cardammon syrup.

- Top with a handful of fresh mint leaves and pop back into the fridge to keep cool, but eat it quite soon.

We had ours with Coronation chicken and baked potatoes and then because it was so good I made some more the next day as a foil for some spicy salmon burgers.

Banana, Cardammon, and Orange muffins

Kiwis love banana loaf. I can’t say I do - to be honest it comes a close second to pasta salad as a pointless use for leftovers. But I am not a kiwi and that many of them cannot be wrong, and . . . I quite often make a Nigel Slater recipe of bananas roasted with cardamom, sugar, butter and orange juice ( which is delicious ) and . . . I had some ripe bananas and . . . needed to make something to take to my meditation class, so after a quick google search for vegan muffins I sort of put them all together and this was the result.

- Put the oven on to heat - 150 c (because my oven is on the hot side, probably 175 c normally).
- Put two cups of self raising flour in a bowl along with a pinch of salt, half a cup of sugar and half to one teaspoons of ground cardomom seeds ( I like to crush my own in a pestle and mortar because they taste better and I like all the different sized bits you get)
- Add in the grated zest of a couple of tangarines or an orange.
- Peel three ripe bananas and squash them with your hands to mash roughly mash them ( great fun! ) and add to the bowl along with a quarter cup of oil.
- Then squeeze the juice out of you tangarines or orange and make it up to one cupful with more orange juice from a carton ( or more oranges if you have them )
- Pour this into the bowl, quickly mix, and spoon into a muffin tin.
- Cook for 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown.

Allow to cool and dust with icing sugar for prettiness.

I liked them, and so did the meditators, but at work today feelings were mixed - perhaps a bit too strange for them ? I suppose you have to be careful playing around with old childhood favourites.

Carrot and Walnut soup

Autumn is officially here in the southern hemisphere so what better way to celebrate than with a soup that includes a real autumn ingredient - nuts. Walnuts in this case. Nuts add texture and flavour and of course don't require cooking, just grinding up and softening a little by soaking in some stock - lovely!

- Slowly fry a small onion (peeled and roughly chopped) in some olive oil and a piece of butter until soft and pale brown.
- Meanwhile grind up about two ounces of walnuts. I do this by putting them in a little ziplock bag and bashing them with a rolling pin.
- Pop the walnuts into a bowl and pour over enough vegetable stock to cover them.
- Peel and chop two or three carrots and add them to the onions.
- Pour in a pint and a quarter of vegetable stock, bring to the boil then turn down the heat to a gentle bubble and leave until the carrots are soft.
- Blend the soup along with the reserved walnuts and their stock until all is as smooth as you want.
- Pour back into the saucepan and reheat adding no more than half a teaspoon of ground cardammon seeds. Go carefully here as the aim is just to get a hint of cardammon and they are quite strong.

I had mine with a big splodge of Yoghurt and some more black pepper along with some flatbread with a few curry leaves on top.