Recipes

With winter already in full swing and cold mornings firmly part of daily life, January is the time many households focus on staying well and strong for the remaining colder months – starting with breakfast.

To celebrate this year’s National Pizza Day on 9th February, make Matthews Cotswold Flour’s Cotswold Pizza Flour (1.5kg, £2 from cotswoldflour.com and Waitrose) your go-to flour for perfect pizza dough.

If learning to cook is one of your goals for 2026, the best place to start is by perfecting the everyday basics.

When I was a kid, my mum was a pretty good cook. My brother and I were lucky — we had a stay-at-home mum who cooked proper evening meals for us every day. Like most children, we each had our favourites… and our least favourites.

With winter truly upon us we all want to hunker down in the warm and wait until the spring arrives with the sunshine.   But there is one good thing about this time of year – it’s also soup season!

I had to laugh this evening — I actually found myself asking ChatGPT whether eggnog and Snowballs are the same thing. For years I assumed that custard-yellow bottle with the red writing was eggnog… because it looks like eggnog, and it’s yellow, and everyone wheels it out at Christmas.

From curry houses packed with festive diners to at-home menus inspired by global flavours, 2025 is shaping up to be the year of the alternative Christmas feast.

From Christmas Eve nibbles to Boxing Day blowouts, here’s how to weave cheese through every part of your festive feast — plus three foolproof recipes guaranteed to impress.

Cook them properly, and sprouts become sweet, nutty, caramelised little gems that hold their own against even the biggest festive showstoppers.

Whether you love them buttery and simple or dressed up with festive flavours, carrots are one of the easiest Christmas sides to prepare ahead, freeing you up for Bucks Fizz and present chaos