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I’m not into shooting birds, but I think I probably look forward to the game season with as much anticipation as those who are. I just love game birds’ rich flavours and dark lean flesh, as well as knowing they’ve eaten a wild and varied diet. If you ever need someone to introduce you to the joys of game, Tim Maddams, who used to work at River Cottage and has just written a book about game, is your man. I was lucky enough to join him in cooking this lovely dish of Pigeon with blackberries and chanterelles at Vale House Kitchen cookery school, near Bath. Easy to make (see recipe below), delicious to eat.

I couldn’t resist making game the centrepiece of a feast. So on 30 January the talented Will Holland, chef at Coast in Pembrokeshire, will be cooking a Game’s Up! Feast in Bristol. Will used to be head chef at the Michelin-starred La Becasse, in Ludlow, so knows his game. (Becasse is French for woodcock.) I can assure you we’ll be making the most of the final weekend of the shooting season.

Pigeon with blackberries and chanterelles

Serves 2

Rapeseed oil, for cooking

4 plump pigeon breasts (easily removed, see pp.150–3)

2 good handfuls of chanterelles, trimmed and brushed clean of grit

A knob of butter

A good handful of blackberries

A couple of handfuls of salad leaves

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place a heavy-based frying pan over a high heat and add a little rapeseed oil. Season the pigeon breasts with salt and pepper and add them to the hot pan. Give them a minute or two, until they start to form a nice caramelised layer on the base. Now turn them over and add the chanterelles and butter at the same time. After about another 2 minutes, once the pigeon breasts are firm but not overcooked, remove them to a warm plate and set aside in a warm spot to rest.

Finish cooking the chanterelles for another minute or two, then lift them out and put them with the pigeon.

Turn off the heat and pop the blackberries into the pan to warm and release a little juice. Add any resting juices from the pigeon and mushrooms to the berries.

Divide the salad leaves between a couple of plates. Slice the pigeon breasts and arrange on the leaves, then scatter over the mushrooms. Spoon on the blackberries and sprinkle over the juices from the pan. Drizzle with a little more rapeseed oil if you think it needs it and serve with some fresh crusty bread.

From: River Cottage Handbook No15: Game, by Tim Maddams, published by Bloomsbury. Recipe image: Gavin Kingcome

Recipe books are all well and good (I confess to owning hundreds and cherish them as I would children) but who has time to read them, let alone shop for all the required ingredients, after a long day at work? Riverford has come up with a brilliant solution: recipe boxes. Each box contains the step-by-step recipes and weighed out ingredients for three organic evening meals. So all you have to do is put them together – the fun part – safe in the knowledge that the ingredients are impeccably sourced from Riverford’s organic farms. It’s not just veg, there’s meat too.  Recently Riverford has been offering celebrity chef recipe boxes so I tried one by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, of whom I’m a massive fan.  The recipes were from his Light and Easy cookbook, so didn’t take a minute to prepare. The Spiced beef with bashed beans recipe was a winner. If you fancy having a bash at recipe boxes, there’s info on the Riverford website.

TEST TUBES OF SPICES – At first glance, the ceiling of Ametsa, inside London’s Halkin hotel, looks like the swanky decor you might find in any London restaurant. Look closer, though, and it’s actually made up of over seven thousand test tubes, each filled with the spices that are used in the restaurant. The cuisine here is Basque, so expect to find spices such as mustard, white pepper, paprika and turmeric. It’s no ordinary Basque cooking though, for its owner, Elena Arzak, is chef-owner of the eponymous restaurant in Spain’s San Sebastian that has no fewer than three Michelin stars. Ametsa is its London ‘branch’ if you like, and since being set up in March 2013 earned its own Michelin star in just six months. I was lucky enough recently to interview Elena and to join in a six-course dinner at Ametsa that was cooked by her and Ametsa’s executive head chef Sergi Sanz.

Two of the highlights were this stunning Squid Abstract – modern gastronomic art at its finest – and Moon Rocks, one of Elena’s sig dishes that mimics the surface of the moon. The moon dust is mostly sesame, while the rocks are filled chocolates and the craters are filled with wine jelly. I’m up for this sort of space travel any time!

We all make New Year’s resolutions but here’s one I might actually keep. It’s to get this neat little gadget to make me healthy smoothies each morning and keep me away from the coffee pot. And the reason I think I will actually keep this resolution: there’s barely any washing up. I’ve tried juicing in the past, and loved the results, but the prospect of scraping out all the pulp then scrubbing numerous bits of kit sadly means the juicer rarely comes out of the cupboard. I don’t mind preparing fruit and veg to sling into it, but the washing up is one task too many.

Having heard all the hype I decided to bite the Nutribullet. I got mine from Lakeland, where it retails for £99.99. The Nutribullet is not actually a juicer but a very powerful liquidiser. So it’s better for fruit, nuts and seeds than for veg, although thin vegetable leaves like spinach work well. Equipped with an impressive 600W motor it does its work in an amazing 10 seconds. I love the fact that you drink out of the machine, as the transparent cover turns into a mug. You can screw a lid on it and take it with you to work, and sip away throughout the day.

I’m currently experimenting with different recipes, but one trick I’ve learned is to include avocados, coconut oil and oil-rich nuts and seeds in smoothies so as to actually fill yourself up  – the supermodels and celebrities know this one. Otherwise, after half an hour of drinking your healthy smoothie you’re reaching for the breadbin. A nice recipe to try is this one by Emma Whitnall, a wonderful nutritionist whom I met on Results with Lucy detox retreat. (Don’t worry if you don’t have, or can’t get hold of, the pea protein and maca powder). You can find more recipes, and info about Emma, on her Facebook page

1 banana
1/2 avocado
1/2 cup frozen berries
200ml almond milk
1 tbs ground flaxseed
2 tsp maca powder
1 scoop Pea Protein Plus (optional)
1 handful kale
Top up with water for desired consistency

I’m a Nutribullet nut now. Or should it be a Bullet babe? Let me know YOUR favourite recipes!

Yotam has done it again. Despite the hype, this really is his best book – at least to judge from the handful of recipes that I’ve tried so far. I loved his wild mushroomy twist on the majedra that featured in his Jerusalem book, and the coriander pesto to go with oven roasted butternut squash is a real winner. I used it in my recent article in The Independent on coriander (which you can see at the bottom of the home page) to show that pesto doesn’t have to be just from basil. The only snag with making Ottolenghi recipes is getting hold of the ingredients, so the folks at Ottolenghi have put together a Plenty More Hamper which has it all. At £100 it’s not cheap, but if you can afford it will save a hell of a lot of trouble traipsing around delis and supermarkets searching for stuff. It also makes a great Christmas present – the hamper includes a signed copy of the book as well. Buy it in the Ottolenghi online shop www.ottolenghi.co.uk

Is it a herb, is it a leaf? I can’t quite decide, but what I do know is that Persian Cress one of my top discoveries this summer. It’s sweet, aromatic and peppery all at once. I was introduced to it by Steve Rothwell who is the man behind Steve’s Leaves and who also came to speak to diners at my village hall Endangered Foods Feast in May. Steve’s team are always looking for new exciting leaves to launch onto the market and Persian Cress is his most recent, only hitting Waitrose stores a few weeks ago. A distant cousin of watercress, Persian Cress does indeed originate from Persia (present day Iran.) What I love about it is that it’s stunning to look at – like delicate green lace – and it packs a peppery bite which gives a nice punch to a salad, plate of roast vegetables, or even a pesto. I tasted it recently on Steve’s farm with Daniel Clifford, the two-Michelin-starred chef at Cambridge’s Midsummer House and he created the super roast veg and quinoa dish pictured here which is splashed with some homemade Persian Cress pesto. Daniel also loves Persian Cress with seafood. Daniel, I and a few others nibbled our way through a number of ‘new’ leaves that Steve is trialling – including a very fiery wasabi rocket that was my hot favourite – so expect plenty more exciting leaves in the salad bowl. stevesleaves.co.uk 

Ever since head chef Roman Ivanov started serving Tuna Tartare at No131, Cheltenham, when the hotel-restaurant opened last November he’s been unable to take it off the menu. The cheeky combo of tuna loin in a soya and sesame dressing with guacamole is a winner, and with its butterfly wing toasts, looks the part too. Roman makes no secret of the fact that he took his inspiration from Barrafina in London where Nieves Barragan-Mohacho has been making Tuna Tartare for years. It’s not the only dish with wow factor at No131 either – I was hugely impressed by the small plates, such as the Serrano ham, roast artichokes and fried almonds. I was lucky enough to stay here too and I have to say, this is as near as it gets to being my perfect hotel (and I’m fussy!) Having visited The Wheatsheaf in Northleach, owned like No131 by Sam Pearman and his interior design genius wife Georgie, I had high hopes. But I was bowled over by the super decor – including heaps of original artworks – of the high-ceilinged rooms. Plus there was ‘proper’ French Press hot chocolate (on a stirring stick) waiting for me when I went to bed. Now it doesn’t get better than that.

www.no131.com

Beremeal – flour made from bere, an ancient type of barley probably brought over by the Vikings – used to be staple fare in Scotland, but is now grown and milled mainly on Orkney. So it’s a food that’s seriously endangered, which is why it’s included in Slow Food’s list of “forgotten foods”, and featured on the menu of our recent Endangered Foods Feast in Long Ashton village hall. Chef Tom van Zeller makes creative use of beremeal in this Carrots and Buttermilk starter which I recently ate in his tiny Harrogate restaurant. The dish includes carrots cooked two ways, buttermilk ice cream, homemade fresh cheese, wheat berries, prune puree – and chunks of beremeal biscuit that Tom bakes himself. They’re all simple ingredients but work fantastically together and the starter is one that guests always ask for. Do eat at Van Zellers if you are ever in Yorkshire. www.vanzellerrestaurants.co.uk

Art on a plate. Askham Hall near Penrith, Cumbria, is the ancestral home of Charles Lowther, who now runs it as a wonderfully relaxed hotel with his artist wife Juno. I was recently lucky enough to dine in its new restaurant, headed by Cumbrian-born chef Richard Swale, who has trained at the stoves of wild food gurus such as Rene Redzepi at Noma and Marc Veyrat in Annecy. Menu dishes are dictated by the seasons and what’s available in Askham’s amazing veg and herb gardens, and Richard is a keen forager too. This amazing lemon curd dessert, for instance, includes a flax seed meringue and a basil, cucumber and sorrel sorbet – and colourful microleaves from the garden. Stunning. www.askhamhall.co.uk

Instead of talking about a product or place, this month I wanted to let you know about an opportunity that could be of interest to anyone who is a new(ish) food or drink company in the southwest. It’s to be the recipient of the 2014 Seed Fund, which grants a year’s help with all those tricky sides of running a new business, such as branding, marketing, and finance. The Seed Fund (worth £100k) is an initiative set up by four south-west businesses. If you know a small company that would benefit from this amazing opportunity, please forward on the info.