It’s one of the best times of the year to be cooking; the harvest season when the autumn vegetables are full of flavour, but some of those early winter vegetables are appearing too. There are recipes here for everyone: some do take a long time to prepare and cook, but honestly I’m sick to death of feeling that everything has to be cooked and on the table in under 30 minutes. Now is the time, while many of us are housebound, to tackle those dishes or projects that were deemed too long or too hard, but it’s also time to cook mindfully using what we have with economy and enjoy the methodical and contemplative nature of cooking. A friend sent me a message the other day saying ‘we are entering an era of unprecedented recipe substitutions’. It’s a notion that actually fills me with joy, because that is when you, as a cook, instead of seeing limitations have to look for possibilities.