Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers

Sunday13 March 18:00 on BBC One

Nigel Slater raids his cupboards, fridge and vegetable patch to create a week’s worth of delicious meals. In this edition, he demonstrates how to make our ingredients go just that little bit further.
Whether it’s adding grated beetroot to make a tasty meatball supper feed the masses, or putting the spotlight on a small garden harvest to make a sensuous pudding, Nigel’s clever tricks and inspired ideas show that you can often make bountiful feasts with apparently few ingredients.

Continuing on his travels to meet fellow gardeners, Nigel visits Kent, where with Mary Anne and daughter Evie, he rustles up some quick allotment fritters with their veg from their plot

The series is part of the ‘Dig In’ campaign.

Nigel Slater shows how, with a little forward-planning, all the stress can be taken out of everyday suppers, in the concluding episode of his series featuring healthy, inspiring but simple dishes.

Cooking after a busy day at work is often the last thing people want to do, but Nigel inspires with a range of dishes that can be easily adapted throughout the week, including a tasty vegetable-patch stew and even home-made ice cream.

Nigel also visits James and Melissa, whose London barge is an oasis of fruit and veg. Nigel creates a delicious salad from the fruits of their labours.

The series is part of the BBC Dig-In campaign – more details can be found at bbc.co.uk/digin.

Toast, a film based on Nigel Slater’s bestselling autobiography, can be seen on BBC One and BBC One HD this Christmas.

Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers is simulcast in HD on BBC One HD on Freesat channel 108, Freeview channel 50, Sky channel 143 and Virgin Media channel 108.

Wednesday 15 December

Wednesday 8 December

Passionate cook and gardener Nigel Slater creates a week’s worth of saintly and sinful suppers to prove that a little bit of what you fancy definitely does you good, as his series featuring healthy, inspiring but simple dishes continues.

In tonight’s programme, Nigel balances naughty recipes, including mouth-watering chocolate cookies and luscious duck with honey and figs, with clean-tasting flavours, making the most of fresh herbs, crisp tomatoes and crunchy greens.

Escaping the kitchen to the rolling fields of Devon, he meets the Barber family and rustles up a luxurious fool from the healthy contents of their fruit cage.

The series is part of the Dig In campaign – visit bbc.co.uk/digin for more details.

Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers is simulcast in HD on BBC One HD on Freesat channel 108, Freeview channel 50, Sky channel 143 and Virgin Media channel 108.

Wednesday 1 December

This week Nigel Slater rustles up five simple, delicious meals from ingredients that are often overlooked, as he continues his series featuring a week’s worth of uncomplicated yet tasty dishes in each episode.

A sumptuous beetroot cake, a lentil and chard stew and a beef and ale casserole are all put together effortlessly as Nigel inspires viewers with his culinary ideas.

Nigel also visits Derbyshire and helps keen gardeners Ian and Kathy create amazing food from their plot.

The series is part of the BBC’s Dig In campaign; for more details visit bbc.co.uk/digin.

Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers is simulcast in HD on BBC One HD on Freesat channel 108, Freeview channel 50, Sky channel 143 and Virgin Media channel 108.

Wednesday 24 November

Passionate cook and gardener Nigel Slater encourages viewers to step out of their culinary comfort zone with a week of adventurous suppers.

Everyone is guilty of cooking the same handful of dishes, but each of these recipe ideas from Nigel proves that adventurous doesn’t have to mean complicated. Nigel shows how easy it is to inject some excitement back into the nightly supper routine, just by exploring unusual ingredients like squid and rabbit, or being a bit more open to new cooking methods.

For this week’s allotment visit Nigel heads to Cornwall, where he unearths some rather unusual crops to cook with, thanks to the Bedser family and their experimental veg patch.

The series is part of the Dig In campaign: bbc.co.uk/gardening/digin. Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers is simulcast in HD on BBC One HD on Freesat channel 108, Freeview channel 50, Sky channel 143 and Virgin Media channel 108.

The new BBC One HD channel simulcasts a network version of the BBC One schedule, with the majority of peak-time programmes in HD, including The Apprentice, Strictly Come Dancing, Children In Need, Antiques Roadshow, Countryfile, The Graham Norton Show and The Royal Variety Show.

Passionate cook and gardener Nigel Slater brings another week’s worth of irresistible Simple Supper ideas with the emphasis on fresh, easy and adaptable.

In this programme Nigel rustles up five meals to create a menu that’s naughty but nice. Mouth-watering chocolate cookies and crisp duck with honey and figs prove that a little of what you fancy does you good. To balance the scales, Nigel then makes a couple of dishes full of clean-tasting flavours, with fresh herbs, tomatoes and crunchy greens.

Escaping the kitchen to the rolling fields of Devon, Nigel meets the Barber family and rustles up a luxurious fool from the healthy contents of their fruit cage.

The series is part of the BBC’s Dig In campaign. More information can be found online at bbc.co.uk/gardening/digin.

Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers is simulcast on BBC One HD on Freesat channel 108, Freeview channel 50, Sky channel 143 and Virgin Media channel 108.

The new BBC One HD channel will simulcast a network version of the BBC One schedule, with the majority of peaktime programmes in HD, including The Apprentice, Strictly Come Dancing, Children In Need, Antiques Roadshow, Countryfile, The Graham Norton Show and The Royal Variety Show.

A food writer for 17 years, Nigel Slater is one of the country’s best-loved cooks. He has written 10 books, seven of which are cookery books and, in November 2009, he was named Food Personality of the Year at the BBC Food and Farming Awards by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

In Autumn 2009, Nigel’s first series of Simple Suppers aired on BBC One, showcasing his enthusiasm for food and love of laid-back cooking. The series was tied-in with the BBC’s Dig In campaign, which encourages viewers to grow their own vegetables, either in their garden, allotment or patio, or even in a yogurt pot on the window sill. Nigel showed viewers how to rustle up simple but tasty fare from the fruits of their labours.

The series was a huge success – so much so that this autumn Nigel returns with more foodie ideas in a new series of Simple Suppers. And, if he wasn’t busy enough with that, the BBC is also currently in production of a film version of Nigel’s memoir: Toast – A Story Of A Boy’s Hunger.

Nigel took time out from his busy schedule, with three weeks of filming for the second series of Simple Suppers to go, to talk to BBC Programme Information’s Hannah Khalil about the new series and offer some grow-your-own tips.

Once again the series is not restricted to the kitchen and Nigel gets out and about with his cooking: “It’s the same format, we do some of the cooking in the kitchen, some outside in the garden and then we go off to people’s allotments and gardens and cook. We have a portable barbeque and a portable stove.”

With such an array of food and recipes Nigel confesses it’s difficult to pick his favourite simple supper. “That is a hard question, I suppose it’s our version of sausage and mash which is sticky sausages, which have got honey and mustard on them, and carrot mash, which is like a potato mash but made with carrots.”

The Dig In campaign is, in essence, an attempt to get people growing and cooking their own food. There are five selected vegetables each year, and, for 2010, they are basil, salad leaves, carrots, courgettes and French beans, and new and novice gardeners got the chance to apply for free Dig In seeds so [Read the rest of this entry...]