Review: The Syrian Spoon

A review of "The Syrian Spoon" - a brand new vegetarian cookbook available now. All the recipes are from two former Syrian refugees.

Review: The Vegan Bean Cookbook

A vegan cookbook that should interest non-vegans too

I’m not a vegan myself, but like so many of us I’m constantly on the lookout for healthier ways to eat. So when I stumbled across The Vegan Bean Cookbook recently it grabbed my attention.

This is a new publication from Sicilian author and food blogger Andrea Soranidis. It’s now available in the UK and looks to be a little gem, packed full of creative and tasty recipes.

What’s the USP?

The focus is on helping you create memorable vegan meals which are good for your body, relatively inexpensive and which can be prepared quickly.

Healthier School Meals for All Children: An Interview with Ian Dunn

Ian believes passionately that children should be eating healthier school meals. He’s the driving-force behind https://selfsufficientschools.co.uk/ and https://vegschoolmeals.co.uk/

I first came across the Self Sufficient Schools account on Twitter last year. It had a post asking people to sign a petition to make School Food-Growing & Self-Sufficiency a dedicated subject area of the UK National Curriculum. I was curious to find out more about this initiative, which was started by North London-based Ian Dunn, because it immediately struck me as a very good idea.

I still have fairly vivid memories of school food, which, back in the 1960s and 1970s, wasn’t very good at all. This was a salad-free era. I remember great big tubs of mashed potato and baked beans, toad-in-the-hole at least once a week, and always fried fish, or fish fingers, on Fridays. If we ever saw any green vegetables they’d usually been boiled to within an inch of their lives. Desserts were stodgy and unhealthy – treacle sponge or spotted dick – and nearly everything was served with custard. Fresh fruit was a rarity!