I am a big fan of the leisurely food movement. This is my slow cooker. I’ve just switched it on for an overnight gentle cook of a batch of soup. Today’s batch is a root vegetable, lentil and pearl barley “big” soup – chunky and hopefully sustaining. Tomorrow morning I’ll get up and the whole house will be infused with the smell of yummy soup. I’ve recently discovered the virtues of pearl barley in soup – for such an unassuming ingredient, it gives a rich, satisfying texture that’s hard to describe, except to say it makes it glossy.

Each week I make something different from anything we’ve had recently – last week’s was spicy split pea, the week before, sweetcorn chowder, before that lentil and tomato etc, etc. We take it to work for our lunches, served up with home-made bread. On day 1 it’s ladled straight out of the slow cooker into thermos flasks, then afterwards from the crock pot in the fridge into a saucepan and on into the flasks. It generally does us for three days and then some goes in the freezer for an emergency.

Let me tell you, it’s a lot more nutritious and much tastier than a plastic triangle sarnie…