I'm trying hard to eat more salad and keep off the comfort food. Salads made with grains, pulses or seasonal vegetables are more than just about lettuce and are a great way to provide a hearty meal and a good way to incorporate some exciting herb flavours. Toasted Pearl Barley with Lemon and Herbs makes a nice change from rice. It is a little more chewy, has a delicate nutty flavour and is filling. It soaks up the bold flavours of a rich meat or vegetable stew too, if like me that's all you want to eat at the moment. So serve as you prefer, hot or cold, both work equally well.

As the weather is getting warmer and the nights are drawing out I start to get excited about summer, having fresh garden produce and forgetting about cooking warming winter soups and stews. Discover the difference that a few fresh herbs can make to your spring salads by either adding them into the salad, providing a nice contrast to the crunchy leaves of lettuce, or blitzing them into a simple vinaigrette dressing. As herbs begin to shoot in spring, or I’m lucky enough to find some that have over-wintered well, I spruce up even the plainest of salads with a few sprigs of fresh herbs. Be brave and experiment with different herbs adding vitality, texture and flavour to your meals. Make the bulk of the salad with mild flavour leaves such as Cos, Romaine, Little Gem or Lollo Rosso. Lovage – use the leaves sparingly as they add a very strong savoury flavour when raw. The first stems of spring provide the most delicate flavour. Try rubbing the salad bowl with bruised leaves to impart a milder flavour. Chives – the snipped stalks add a delicate onion (or garlicky if using Chinese chives) flavour. Hard boiled eggs, crumbled crisp bacon, watercress, steamed Jersey Royals, raw or steamed freshly podded peas all contrast well with chives and will liven up a leaf salad. Chickweed – or hip weed as I call it, now grown commercially for the restaurant trade and used in both salads and garnishes. Full of vitamin C and tastes slightly grassy, throw this in in abundance as it’s delicate, mild flavoured and if from your garden, free! Winter purslane – sometimes called Miners lettuce and grows rapidly in the spring. Add the narrow early leaves or the curious stem-wrapping leaves for a cool, mild flavour also providing a succulent and juicy texture into a leaf salad. It’s also very nice wilted as in the spinach recipe. Chervil – use the stem and leaf chopped into salads to add a subtle aniseed flavour. It complements eggs, fish and cucumber particularly well. Crab, goats curd and chervil is a favourite combination of mine.

If you are going to use quinoa in your dishes then why not buy British? Here at SuffolkFoodie HQ we make a nice fresh and summery quinoa tabbouleh salad.

The lockdown and subsequent closure of restaurants has proved a big problem for suppliers to the industry. Creedy Carver duck is just one that has found itself with a surplus stock and limited outlets. It's a superb free range product that generally only the Chefs get their hands on. I got mine from Field and Flower and ate duck breast with my spiced plum sauce made with plums from the freezer.

I never need an excuse to light a fire outside and cook ‘al fresco’ and now it’s officially barbecue season that’s where I’ll be. The golden rule of cooking on a barbecue, or wood fire, is to cook over embers, not flames and to distinguish whether you are cooking something that requires searing rather than slow cooking. So, it’s always best to cook meats that require a fierce heat as soon as the flames have died down, and the embers are still glowing. Then grill ingredients such as fish, which require slower cooking, as the temperature of the fire drops. By mid-summer the herbs in my garden are at their best and plentiful so can be used liberally on barbecued food. Gutsy herbs indigenous/native of the Mediterranean and Middle East work very well in barbecues and include rosemary which adds an aromatic and resinous flavour working very well with fatty and rich meats such as lamb. I like to use the straight, small woody branches for my lamb, onion and rosemary skewers. Oregano and marjoram are both closely related and I still struggle to identify between the two growing in my garden. Oregano has a more pungent and domineering flavour whereas marjoram is slightly more delicate, also faintly savoury and lightly sweet scented. If using oregano then use a little more sparingly. It has a special affinity with tomato based dishes and sauces and works very well when put with lemon and garlic in a marinade. Coriander can be chopped and mixed into natural yoghurt with Indian spices to create a delicious marinade for both chicken and fish. The pungent, slightly citrus flavour marries well with lime zest and juice to make a herb butter which is delicious served on seafood cooked on a barbecue. Dill is often associated with Nordic or Russian cuisine and is used extensively in Persian cuisine. I love it with fish, particularly salmon which barbecues very well. Combined with sumac a Middle Eastern spice which adds tartness and astringency to food it makes a perfect marinade for salmon. Mint adds another dimension to whole grilled courgettes that have been allowed to cool a little and then drizzled with oil, salt and pepper and chopped mint. The same combination is also delicious on grilled halloumi cheese.

I made these succulent chicken kebabs, marinated in Indian spices and yoghurt for a budget saving barbecue supper last night. I used chicken thigh meat which is tastier and more succulent than the breast. Use less chilli powder or cayenne pepper if you prefer less kick, although the amount in this recipe won't have you gasping for water! If you do not have all the spices in your store cupboard, don't worry, just substitute all of the spices with curry powder.

God help us if Carob makes a comeback in 2021. The chocolate alternative of the 70's and 80's that tasted horrible and traumatised a generation. My first restaurant business (in 1982) was The Chalice Vegetarian and Wholefood Restaurant in Bury St Edmunds and the one ingredient that I hated was Carob. Despite my numerous hippy recipe books and an eclectic and colourful team of cooks, including many well travelled Sannyasins from Medina Rajneesh, you'd never find me with a Carob Drink or Carob Shortcake Biscuit in my hand. Carob may be naturally sweet and cocoa coloured but it's no replacement for the real thing. No doubt the shift towards plant-based and health conscious foods will drive this trend. Expect to find it in nut butters, sweet treats and drinks. Being high in antioxidants, calcium, fibre, iron and protein and low in fat and sodium, Carob is sure to be the next superfood. But it's not chocolate.

(photo taken from my Eva Batt Vegan Cookery, co-published with the Vegan Society. 1985. And no, we didn't bake these)

Pizza's come highly recommended from Lucy's Restaurant in Fornham All Saints. This neighbourhood restaurant has adapted so well to the lockdowns and continues to offer an excellent takeaway and delivery service. Check their website for the menu as pizza's change regularly. Don't forget to order yourself a pud too. 5 mini cannoli for £5.99.

The resilience of restaurants throughout the lockdowns and the ingenuity of proprietors just amazes me, none more so than the Get My Goat campaign from the lovely Justin and Jurga Sharp at Pea Porridge. For a start the marketing and humour from Justin, the Goatfather, is one of the best calls to action on social media I've seen for a while. Who could resist Bury'sGoatTalent and GoatWhisperer Justin's beautiful four course dinner? We ordered the middle eastern style, heat at home GoatToGo supper last week. It was phenomenal! Justin and Jurga are great advocates and supporters of Cabrito Goat, who source meat from British dairy farms and who supplied the kid goat meat for the four course menu. Not only was the menu fantastic, but the information sheet and serving instructions were superbly presented and included interesting information about the ingredients, and the cooking techniques used for each course. Plus exact reheating instructions - this is the kind of dinner that I enjoy. While the Goatfather mans the kitchen alongside award winning chef and flatbread maker extraordinaire, James Carn Pryor, Jurga ensures that the ordering, payment and collection of the GoatFest goes smoothly and will sell you some wine; it's good, buy it.  From Lowerland, Prieska. (the land of the lost 'She' goat) high altitude, hands- off naturally farmed grapes are made into complex wines. Loweland, Die Verlore Bokooi NV (red) and Lowerland, Die Wonde-Draai (white).  My goatness we are lucky in Bury St Edmunds.

Get My Goat continues to be available each Thursday, Friday and Saturday at £55 for two people.

• Superb instructions and interesting information about each course
• all courses were beautifully presented, you could eat them out of the tub!
• Pea Hummus and Flatbread
• Sourdough Flatbreads arebaked in the 'Grizzly' charcoal oven by award winning Chef James Carn Pryor
• Dining at home means the baby can join in too
• Berber Goat Kofte, goat yoghurt labneh, pomegranate, mint
• Persian kid goat tagine, cous cous, pumpkin, chickpeas, apricot, coriander
• Basque style burnt cheesecake with pistachio and rose petal preserve
• try the wine it really is sensational
•  

What's that I hear you say? The Amelie Flam-kuche flatpack is a new on-line, delicious, UK delivery ready meal, from father and son team Regis and Alex Crepy at Amelie Restaurant in Cambridge. Flammekeuche is a traditional Alsace dish, so think France meets Germany. It could be described as a skinny pizza, but it's rather more like an unleavened pastry or flatbread. Thin with crispy edges as it comes out of the oven and the perfect snack at any time of the day. You can choose the toppings when ordering your flatpack (which contains 4 bases and will keep for up to 4 days in the fridge) then it's a quick assembly job; which is also fun and easy for children to do, cook for six minutes in a very hot oven. Et Voila!

• sour cream is traditionally used on a flammekueche base, here with Amelie signature creme fraiche
• Toppings are freshly prepared. Piquant, sliced onions, mushrooms and mozzarella with the pesto adding colour and punch
• Preheat the oven to 230 C and it takes just six minutes to cook
• Voila! We chose the mushroom and mozzarella flatpack
•