I’d definitely recommend investing in a soup maker or slow cooker to get you through winter. They’re both so easy to use and you can cook virtually anything in them!  I love taking healthy food to work and anything warming always fills me up more than a boring sandwich. Plus, when you’re out in the cold all day the best feeling is to come home to a warm house smelling of good food. Take a look at the recipes below and let me know if there is anything delicious I should try.

1. Tomato, red pepper and chorizo soup

500g vine tomatoes, 150g chorizo, 1 red pepper, 1 tsp smoked paprika, sprinkle of mixed herbs, 300ml vegetable stock and a drizzle of lemon juice.

Chop it all up, click the smooth option on your soup maker and 30 minutes later you’ll have the BEST soup ready to eat!

2. Chilli con carne

1 tin of red kidney beans, 1 tin chopped tomatoes, 3 small chillis, 250g mince, half an onion, a handful of chopped cherry tomatoes, one third of green pepper, table spoon of gravy granules, 1 x beef stock cube, smoked paprika, some crushed chilli seeds, salt and pepper.

Throw all this in the slow cooker and heat on the low setting for 6 hours. I always end up throwing more gravy granules in but pair this with either a quick cook rice packet or tortillas and it’s a CRACKING winter meal.

3. Beef stew

500g chopped beef (you can often pick this up cheap reduced in Supermarkets- just pop it in the freezer if you don’t plan on using it straight away) 1 x beef stock cube, 300ml boiling water, gravy granules and whatever veg you have leftover in the fridge! Carrots, potatoes and suede are good choices but I personally also like adding mushrooms and peas.

Again, a similar technique to above – throw it all in the slow cooker and put it on a low heat for approximately 8 hours. If you wanted to add dumplings to the mix then you need to prepare these first. It’s just 150g self-raising flour and 70g of suet mixed together and rolled into golf ball sized dumplings. When you’re coming to the end of the 8 hours, turn the heat up high and put the dumplings in the stew mix after stirring. After 30 minutes you’re winter feast will be ready and your house will smell AMAZING.

4. Honey roasted gammon

1 x joint of gammon, honey, salt and 100ml of water.

Pour the water in the slow cooker, place the joint in the centre of the cooker and drizzle with honey. Then place on a low heat for 8 hours. This is a great one for a Sunday! I will usually sort the horses, throw this together and then by the time Dan and I are home in the evening, we will have a delicious gammon joint to have with either vegetables, fresh bread or chips.

5. Root vegetable soup

2 x potatoes, handful of leeks, 1 carrot, 100ml double cream, 100ml milk, 500ml vegetable stock, salt and pepper.

Peel and chop the potatoes, chop the carrot and also the leeks. Throw them all in the soup maker along with all the stock, milk and cream and put it on the smooth setting. This makes 3 portions of soup and is a great one for the weekends ahead of a week at work.