September | JamJarJan

What was in Jan's Pan?
September

STUDENT SURVIVAL GUIDE 24/09/2024

And a new chapter begins...

It’s all rather quiet in our house. After 20 years of full-time motherhood both my boys have grown and flown, and once again it’s just we two, hub and I.

Son number one, already living in the Big Smoke, is well into the path of his chosen career. He’s starting an exciting new challenge working as a chef de partie, setting up a new restaurant in a luxury London store (and I’m always on hand for taste testing, of course).

Youngest son, on the other hand, has joined the wave of new students setting out on the next stage of their lives, as they head off to university. It’s the perfect introduction to the real world - daunting but exciting in equal measures.

Freshers’ week has been a huge learning curve: boxes to unpack and rooms to furnish, roommates to meet and friends to make, matriculation (had to look that one up) and course enrolment, student loans to manage, plus new clubs to join - not to mention socialising and burning the candle at both ends. Good thing he’s been practicing all summer, but even my boy admits he’s all boozed out after his first week of full-on partying. Now it’s time to settle down to the real business of student life.

First, and most importantly, what’s for dinner?! For many, these young adults are cooking and fending for themselves for the first time. At a stage of life when hunger is constantly knocking on your door, that can be a huge challenge. No more meals appearing instantly on the table, it’s down to them to put food on their plate.

Skills vary enormously across his new flatmates. Some are living on frozen pizzas, others are more confident and able. But they will learn from their peers and muddle through. Everyone has to eat - what better way to get to know your fellow housemates? Even studying Home Ec, soo many years ago, I learnt far more from my fellow students than I ever learnt on the curriculum. If in doubt there’s always Tik-Tok (oh so different to my student days).

Many parents loaded their children up with said pizzas, or left them with a big fresh food shop. Good intentions aside, they need to learn how to shop and budget for themselves from the off. Cooking from scratch is actually cheaper and doesn’t have to be difficult with some good store cupboard basics and simple recipes. My boy’s done well so far, considering he couldn’t see the point of cooking when it’s his mother and brother’s profession. Back home, in his view, why crowd the kitchen?

Meals mainly feature sausage, mince and pasta so far, but he’s surprised himself with the knowledge he has absorbed from a home where cooking is constantly on the go. But hunger is a great driver, and he’s starting to plan ahead. There are things he’s never had to consider before, like taking things out of the freezer well before dinnertime, or knowing that meat can’t be refrozen once it’s thawed. But if he can get through the term without a bout of mild food poisoning he’s done himself proud.

Whilst I will miss them both and will have to adjust to new routines and empty rooms at home, there are positives. I no longer need to pander to the needs of a ravenous teen wanting protein and carbs, keeping a well-stocked fridge full of ‘fillers’ to satisfy his humongous appetite. Not only a reduction in costs for us, but we can finally eat more veg-centric food that’s suitable for middle-aged appetites with midriff spread, rather than a carb-heavy protein rich diet designed to meet the demands of a growing teen seeking to build muscle.

It’s a new chapter for us all, but one to embrace, so no more tears and let’s rejoice - my job is done for now, I’ve grown two adults.

With all this in mind, here is this week’s offering

Top tips for student survival and in praise of Spag Bol - the most versatile of student meals

1 Stock up your store cupboard

Pool resources where possible, bulk buy things like pasta and rice and cook together if possible, it’s a great way to make friends. How about a student ‘Come Dine with Me’?
Buy flavour enhancers: soy sauce, chilli sauce, tomato sauce, spices and dried herbs

2 Brush up on a few food hygiene essentials

Prepare and store raw and cooked food separately
Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold
Reheat foods until piping hot
Cool foods quickly to store in the fridge or freezer
Change dishcloths and tea towels frequently

3 Make good use of the freezer

Batch cook foods, or freeze excess food rather than throw it away
Freeze cooked rice - great for egg fried rice, but reheat it thoroughly
Freeze leftover cooked potatoes - perfect for a fry up or for instant mash

4 Tinned and frozen foods are your friend

Stock up on plenty of tinned beans and tomatoes
Frozen peas or sweetcorn are nutritious and can be quickly cooked and added to dishes

6 Learn to make a good spag bol from scratch with minced beef and tinned tomatoes, and add red lentils to your recipe to make the meat go further

Perfect with pasta and parmesan
Add chilli and a tin of kidney beans to make chilli-con-carne
Top with mashed potato for cottage pie
Stuff into a tortilla or flatbread for burrito
Top tortilla chips and grate over Cheddar for nachos
Pile on top of potato wedges

SEPTEMBER 2025

I love September: we're so often treated to an Indian summer, with blue skies and an ideal temperature, not too hot or cold. Perfect for the last hurrahs of summer - eating on the patio with friends, or the last camping trip before the nights draw in.

Life gradually returns to its usual rhythm after the summer as we return to our usual routine, or start new ventures. September often signifies a new chapter, and it’s no exception in this house. With one son out and one back in, the camper van has earned its keep. We piled it high to transport Student Son back for his second year of uni, and then crammed in all of Cheffy Son's goods and chattels from his London abode, back home to escape the extortionate rental costs of the Capital. Back to commuting sadly, but an opportunity to save towards his goal to travel and experience the wider world and learn about foreign cusines first hand.

Student son has settled into his new digs and plans to up his game with his student meals. The landlord’s promise of a full fridge of food and air fryer never quite materialised, but now he’s discovered that he can feed himself adequately he's vowed to be more adventurous (and buy more than one vegetable a week??). He's already purchased frozen peas, which no student should be without, and I snuck in some of our beans, prepped and ready to go, so there's no excuse not to get his greens.

Here in the garden the advent of autumn is signalled by rosy red apples galore, in the garden and in my veg box, but you can’t beat an apple freshly picked from the tree. They’re crisp and juicy and with so many to hand it seems pertinent to provide some apple recipes this month. Apples have appeared in all my salads recently (thinly sliced fennel, apple and carrot with a lemon mustard dressing is my current favourite), and as everyone should be armed with a classic crumble recipe I’ve given you a good basic recipe that can be pimped up as required with oats or nuts for extra texture. Plus a quick flaky pastry apple tart using ready rolled pastry that can be whipped up in no time.

This month saw the Speciality and Fine Food Fair at Olympia, which coincided with the Golden Forks Awards - the pinnacle of the Great Taste Awards. The tube strike made the journey challenging, but the effort was worth it. A day full of inspiration: new trends, seminars and savvy suppliers with delicious foods to sample: check my round up below.

Coincidentally, I bumped into the two Thomas's of French and Day Deli in Ware, also there to discover worthy goods to stock, so I know where to head to buy my favourites. Sadly they didn't win the Small Independent Retailer of the Year when the awards were announced at the end of the day, but never mind Boys, you're the winners in Ware as far as I'm concerned.

In the meantime, if there's truth in the old adage 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away', then I'm all set for my health kick into winter, and there's plenty going spare if you're passing by and you want yours...

What's in Jan's Pan
Apples Galore

With so many apples to be used, it would be rude not to give suggestions for their many uses - sauces, chutneys, salads and of course a huge range of puddings, from the humble crumble to a glorious tarte tatin (my favourite, it takes me back to Le Gavroche on my honeymoon, their version adorned with gold leaf).

I've focussed on the crumble here, plus a quick flaky apple flan when a tarte tatin is a touch too far to construct.

Here's where my 'core' recipe concept really comes into its own, with a good basic apple crumble recipe. When there's apples around, you can't beat a crumble.

But is it that straightforward? Do you cook your apples first and then top with crumb? Do you cook the crumb first as well (as they do in restaurants according to Matt Tebbutt, as he made his version recently on Saturday Kitchen). And what proportion fat to flour? There is no right or wrong.

To save you scrabbling for a recipe, I've an easy to remember formula: 3 parts flour to 2 parts butter to 1 part sugar to give a light buttery crumb to melt in the mouth, reminiscent of shortbread. And to save on extra pans and processes, I put the freshly sliced apple straight into my ovenproof dish, top with the crumb and bake until the apples are tender and the crumb is golden. Bramleys or eating apples will work - Bramleys break down easily to a puree, eating apples hold their shape to give more distinct pieces. A combination of both works well.

Add butter and sugar to the apples plus a tablespoon of lemon juice for a caramelised flavour and add your favourite apple-friendly spice such as cinnamon, cardamom, ginger or nutmeg to the crumble - you choose.

4 medium-sized apples (approx 600g total), peeled cored and sliced

50g butter, diced

50g soft brown or golden caster sugar

1tbsp lemon juice

For the crumble

150g plain flour

100g butter, diced

50g soft brown or golden caster sugar

1tsp spice of choice

Preheat the oven 200C/180C fan/Gas 6

Put the apples into a 1 litre ovenproof dish, add the lemon juice and sugar and toss well to coat.

Dot with the butter.

Put all of the crumble ingredients into a food processor, or rub together until you have a coarse crumb.

Sprinkle over the top to cover the apples and pop into the centre of the oven for 40-45mins until the apple is tender and the crumb is crisp.

Serve with cream, custard, or my new favourite - whipped cream with a spoonful of ready made tinned caramel or dulce de latte, naughty but nice.

Note for Student Son, I gave you plenty of apples to keep you going so there's no excuse not to whip up a crumble. But if making the topping is too much effort then why not use some breadcrumbs, or some muesli or granola to give a crisp topping?

In this case, simmer the apples in a pan or cook in a covered dish in the microwave with a tablespoon of water and a sprinkle of sugar for 5-10mins until they soften.Tear up some stale bread into chunks, and toss with some melted butter and a sprinkle of sugar. Put the apples into an ovenproof dish and top with the crumbs. Bake in the oven at a lower temperature, 180C/160C Fan/ Gas 4 until the crumb is crisp, around 15-20 minutes.

If you've got some granola all you need to do is cook the apple then sprinkle it over the top. Serve it with some yoghurt or custard for a super quick fix.

For a really easy flaky apple tart, unroll a sheet of ready rolled pastry onto a baking sheet, keeping the paper as a liner. Use your knife to mark a 2cm border on each side, and prick the area within the border with a fork to stop the pastry from rising.
Cut 4-5 eating apples into thick slices and arrange them in a single layer up to the border.
Dot some butter over the apples and sprinkle evenly with caster or soft brown sugar, or drizzle with honey. Add some pecans if you have them.

Bake in a hot oven 220C/200C Fan/ Gas 7 for 25-30 mins until the pastry border is crisp and risen and the apples are soft and golden brown.

Perfect for a breakfast pastry or afternoon treat with minimal effort. I always have ready rolled pastry to hand, in the fridge or freezer, as it provides the perfect base for a no fuss sweet or savoury meal solution whatever the situation. Sorted!

Speciality and Fine Food Fair 2025

This annual trade fair coincided with the Golden Forks Awards, held across the way at Battersea Art Centre. Supreme Champion of the Great Taste Awards was revealed as East Neuk Kilnhouse for its Hot Smoked Mackerel Fillets. Not a product that I tasted in my role as judge, but a worthy winner indeed considering that out of the 14,340 products that were entered only 5,680 (39.6%) achieved an award according to the Guild of Fine Food's statistics. Of those just 273 (1.9%) achieved the maximum 3 star endorsement proving just how good the quality must be.

Across the river at Olympia I was busy doing some more tasting, and picked out lots of Great Taste products. This year's winners were displayed on the Guild of Fine Food stand, and it was good to meet some of the suppliers. Do listen to the Great Taste Podcast if you are interested, as you get to hear all sides of the story and exactly what a Great Taste means to all involved.

I was there to look for trends and inspiration, and was invited by Macdonald Events, who host the event, to join a tour of the stands. So many businesses started out in Lockdown, and it's great to see them thrive; the Start-up Village was testiment to that. We found plenty of fermented foods, deli products, quality cooking sauces, and products from around the world as well as the UK. We hopped from sweet to savoury, with our tastebuds tingling (all those chilli products), as we munched our way from stall to stall.

We chatted with Louisa's Honey (top left) who had taken part in the Pitch Live event where they had the opportunity to successfully pitch to Selfridges to stock their honey. They analyse their honey so they can specify the exact nature of the honey to guarantee it is pure and natural.

Chocolate products were everywhere (despite the extortionate cost of beans at the moment). Sloth & Spoon (middle top) had me drooling over their range of chocolate and caramel spreads, and there were hot chocolate drinks to sample over at The Coco House (Top Right) with their distinctive packaging alongside complementary mugs.

I loved the range of quality deli products from Ralph's (bottom left), especially the wine crackers which are made from ground grape seeds, truly innovative. The Drinks Bakery crackers were melt in the mouth, and we had fun sampling them with the appropriate wines; it was here I bumped into Messrs French and Day so I really hope they will stock these delightful delicacies.

Chilli Oils and Asian sauces were everywhere, all with their own version of the addictive Lao Gan Ma Crispy Chilli oil (an essential in this house).

We met Simran of A Spark of Madness (aptly named) with her range of condiments made in Hong Kong. Her crispy chilli is heavy on the Szechuan pepper, giving it a fragrant, floral note, and we loved her addictive Cantonese inspired Caramelized Spring onion and Crack sauce (say no more).

Iconic brand Poons, who are opening a retail outlet in Bermondsey, also have a spectacular range of products; I'll check that out next time I'm up that way and would love to try their new opening at Somerset House in London. I was drawn to the Makan Malaysia stand too, as I'm still hankering after Malaysian cuisine, and their Satay sauce took me right back to Borneo and Norman Musa's supperclub (see March and June archives for details).

Other products of note were Harry's Nut Butter with its innovative additions such as smoked paprika, extra spicy, pumpkin seed crunch and hazelnut cacao. Gymkhana of Mayfair's curry sauces make it possible to enjoy restaurant standard curries at home. There were all manner of teas and coffees too, but the favourite was Sip and Smile tea's range of herb, flower and spice blends grown and produced in Dorset. Rise and Shine, Cloud Nine, and Sweet Dreams to name but three of their natural blends.

And finally, yes, that is me bottom middle, posing as a bear. Now don't tell me you wouldn't do the same for a sample of Pure maple in its distinctive maple leaf shaped bottle. 72 % is produced in Quebec and it takes 40 litres of sap to produce 1 litre of syrup so it would be rude not to taste it, wouldn't it??

What's in Jan's Air Fryer?

This month I've mainly been experimenting with biscuits as they can be cooked quickly on demand without firing up the oven. I make a batch of raw dough which I keep in the fridge or freezer, then cut slices and cook to order.
I've tried a few recipes recently which use peanut butter as the fat content which are delicious, so I have developed these to give a high protein energy boosting snack, with honey, oats and wholemeal flour.
Nutty butter & white chocolate cookies
Makes approx 12-15 biscuits
200g smooth nut butter* of your choice
50g rolled oats
50g wholemeal flour or spelt
1/2tsp baking powder
100g set honey**
1 egg***
50g white chocolate chips

Mix together and form into a log approx 6cm in diameter. Wrap in greaseproof paper for storage and to help shape it.
Refridgerate until firm, or freeze.
When ready to cook, slice and shape into 2cm rounds (30-40g each) and place on a liner.
Cook on the bake setting at 160C for 10 mins, then allow to cool before removing from the paper. They should be crisp on the outside and soft in the middle.

*always choose a nut butter with no additives other than salt. It’s easy to whizz up your own if you have a food processor, whether from peanuts, almonds, cashew or hazelnuts. Roast the nuts (180C fan for 15-20mins, but keep an eye on them). Whizz the cooled nuts on the highest setting with salt to taste. Keep going until the oil starts to release and the nuts become a smooth paste - be patient, it can take a while, but the results are worth it.
**I use Wainright's organic Zambian Forest honey for the best flavour. I buy it in 3.18kg tubs (yes, we like it…). It's a deep rich caramel colour with a toffee texture; fair trade, raw and cold pressed which enhances its nutritional value. Buy it in Waitrose or Holland & Barratt, online or in wholefood shops. Always buy the best honey you can afford - it's one of the most adulterated foodstuffs out there, and where would we be without bees??
***I always buy Organic Free-range eggs, and I buy mixed sizes since I learnt that it was better for hens and farmers not to insist on large eggs, according to the 'Size matters' campaign highlighted by the British Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT) back in 2021. Read about it here and change your shopping habits. There is very little difference in the weight of the eggs, but if the quantity needs to be exact, then weigh what you need.
I'm lucky enough to have a constant supply of freshly laid eggs from my enterprising 14 year old neighbour's new pets. He is supplementing his pocket money by selling me a dozen a week laid by his 3 chickens - a win for us both!