I'm delighted to join Macmillan's Online Community; my work as a nutritionist has been devoted to helping those with cancer, and other serious health conditions, to find the confidence and skills to nourish their bodies through the food they eat.
My great aunt adored cooking and was my food mentor. As children, my sister and I loved staying the night with her, as we would wake up to wafts of homemade bread and…
Chicken soup
Preparation time: about 10 minutes
Cooking time: about 1 hour and 20 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
5cm (2in) piece of fresh root ginger, peeled
1 chicken, about 1.4kg (3lb)
2 celery sticks
1 medium onion
1 medium potato
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 whole star anise
6 black peppercorns
1 lime
Salt
A handful of frozen peas
A handful of flat-leaf parsley or coriander, roughly chopped
Method
I've just made the most delicious ribollita, the classic Italian soup with as nourishing a list of ingredients as you could hope to find. With its dark kale, tomatoes and beans, it's a real meal in a bowl. Whenever I make this dish, which I think the word 'soup' undersells, it rekindles happy memories of holidays spent in Tuscany when my daughter Maya was young. There was nothing more idyllic than coming home from the…
At last, my late-planted lettuces have reached their peak, along with the peas and runner beans. One of the things I most look forward to when summer comes is being able just to walk into the garden and pick whatever I fancy, whenever I fancy it, then putting together simple, crisp, delicious salads. At the moment, I’m adding all sorts of other ingredients to the leaves and vegetables, to make them complete meals in a…
With the high temperatures of late, I'm sure many of us have been looking longingly at the freezer cabinets in the shops, wondering if a cool and creamy ice cream could help us beat the heat. These last few weeks have been particularly hard for many of my patients going through cancer treatments, as drug regimens can make coping with humidity and high temperatures particularly difficult. I'm happy to recommend a bowl…
