Helen Goh’s recipe for baked apples with lemon and tahini | The sweet spot

After the excesses of December, these baked apples are a light, refreshing vegan pudding. The filling makes good use of any dried fruit lingering still from Christmas, and is brightened with lemon and bound with nutty tahini. As the apples bake, they turn yielding and fragrant, while the sesame oat topping crisps to a golden crown. Serve warm with a splash of cream, yoghurt or ice-cream (dairy or otherwise), and you have comfort that feels wholesome and indulgent.If need be, you can make these vegan and/or dairy-free with a few simple tweaks

Hurrah for veganism and Victorian sewers | Letters

As a vegan of nearly 40 years, I agree with much of what Dean Weston says about animal welfare (Letters, 30 December). But as a former civil engineer, I cannot overlook the massive category mistakes in his assertion that the government’s animal welfare strategy “treats animal suffering the way Victorian engineers treated cholera. Add a valve here, a filter there, and never question the sewer itself.”Victorian engineers did not “treat” cholera, but were arguably more effective than the medical profession in dealing with the disease. They reduced the prevalence of cholera precisely by constructing adequate sanitation

Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for roast sweet potato, feta and butter bean traybake | Quick and easy

A brilliant, warming 30-minute traybake, all in one tin. I love the combination of roast sweet potatoes with crumbled feta and a bright, fresh pesto; adding butter beans to the mix brings another hit of protein, as well as getting more legumes into your diet – win-win! A jar or tin of chickpeas would work just as well, if that’s what you have in, and feel free to substitute the parsley for other soft herbs, should you wish.Prep 15 min Cook 30 min Serves 22 large sweet potatoes, scrubbed or peeled (up to you) and cut into 1½cm chunks570g jar butter beans (or 400g tin butter beans), drained and rinsed2 tbsp olive oil 2 tsp smoked paprika2 tsp flaky sea salt 200g block feta, crumbledFor the spring onion pesto 25g flat-leaf parsley, leaves and tender stems3 spring onions, trimmed and roughly chopped50g almonds, or pine nuts 50ml extra-virgin olive oilJuice of ½ lemonHeat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Tip the sweet potato chunks, butter beans, olive oil, smoked paprika and a teaspoon of sea salt into a roasting tin or tray large enough to hold everything in almost one layer, mix well, then roast for 30 minutes.Meanwhile, blitz the parsley, spring onions, nuts, olive oil, lemon juice and half a teaspoon of salt in a high-speed blender or chopper

Poon’s at Somerset House, London WC2: ‘The tofu dip alone is worth booking a table for’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

The cooking is refreshingly light, delicate and, you might even say, wholesomeIf you find yourself ice-skating at Somerset House in central London over the next week or so (and hurry: you’ve got only until 11 January before it closes), then first please accept my commiserations. Second, please also note that the Chinese restaurant Poon’s, by Amy Poon, scion of the Poon’s restaurant dynasty, recently rooted itself in the New Wing.Ice-skating itself I have nothing against, but we can all agree that these slippery yuletide stampedes on temporary rinks are the polar opposite of festive, so surely it would be far better to be hiding indoors in the warmth with a round of prawn wontons, a bowl of nourishing “magic soup”, or some wind-dried meat claypot rice. Plus, when the weather outside is frightful, the decor in Poon’s is utterly delightful. So gorgeous, in fact, that within two minutes of entering this dusky, muted salmon-pink, twinkly peach, womb-like space, I found myself asking for the name and brand of the paint shade, because it felt instinctively one that, if applied to my own walls at home, would solve many existential problems

How to make garlic bread – recipe | Felicity Cloake's Masterclass

Once upon a time, an ex and I used to throw an annual party – a non-chic affair with a recycling bin full of ice and bottles – where the star, and the thing that everyone really came for, was the garlic bread: 10 or 15 loaves of the stuff, always demolished while still dangerously hot from the oven. I believe the original recipe was Nigel Slater’s; this is my tweaked version.Prep 15 min Cook 25 min Makes 1 loaf1 ciabatta loaf, or baguette – a slightly stale one, ideally80g room-temperature butter, salted or unsalted4 garlic cloves 1 small bunch parsley, or another herb of your choice (see step 6)40g parmesan, or similar hard cheese, finely grated, plus a little extra for toppingA squeeze of lemon juice, to finishSalt, to taste (if using unsalted butter)You can prepare this ahead of time (and you should, too, if you want to get the smell of garlic off your hands before the festivities begin) – the day before, or even up to a month in advance (in which case, wrap, freeze and bake straight from frozen, though, if you do so, add five to 10 minutes to the cooking time). In both cases, wrap it well in foil before storing.While day-old bread is easier to butter, it must still be soft enough to absorb large quantities of butter (anything too dense or crisp will repel it) and robust enough to maintain its structural integrity once soaked

Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy party platters: halloumi with pineapple salsa and za’atar carrots with labneh | Quick and easy

This hot halloumi platter is such a crowdpleaser that it’s worth making with two blocks of halloumi, even for a smaller group. I like to include this as part of a spread of mixed hot and cold dishes – a jolly, festive update on cheese and pineapple on a stick (which is admittedly hard to improve on). Then, a high-impact, low-effort dish: za’atar roast carrots with labneh and pistachio. On a whim, I hung a carton’s worth of plain yoghurt in muslin for labneh the other week, and now I can’t stop – it takes just 30 minutes for a soft-set, which is what you want here (for a firmer set, leave it to hang for an hour).To get ahead, keep the cut pineapple in a large bowl in the fridge, the chopped mint and chilli in a small bowl, and the red onion and lime juice in another small bowl