Cullybackey culinary queen on cooking sensibly for all seasons

Born in Coleraine, sprightly busy bee Jenny Bristow grew up on a dairy farm - both her parents were farmers - and when she wasn't larking about outside with her brother and sister, bringing in bales of hay, riding tractors or searching for frogs in nearby ponds she was happiest - surprise, surprise - in the kitchen.

Her first attempt at baking, aged five, was shortbread, which failed to stick together, but this was the beginning of an lengthy love affair with gastronomy that took her from being a home economics teacher to the smiling cookery whizz who fronted so many UTV programmes from High Days and Holidays to Cooked in a Flash to Jenny Bristow's USA.

And we shouldn't forget the plethora of cookery books filled with delicious recipes.

Jenny recalls: "Life on the farm was always busy and you were never idle which is something I have carried on into my own life, that is very much my ethos. I always loved being in the kitchen from when I was no age. Whereas my brother and sister were the more outdoorsy types. I was always in there doing chores and making things and I just absolutely loved it in the kitchen.

"I grew up in a house surrounded by food, I mean my mother would have had 40 over for Christmas lunch - she was absolutely my main cooking inspiration. Her attitude in life, which I have very much adopted, is that you always get on in life and get things done.

"People from a farming background will always get up early and get on with it and are very good at making do."

Today Jenny lives in a gorgeous, capacious home in Cullybackey beside a converted barn which has become Jenny Bristow's Cookery School where she has filmed programmes and where she holds cooking demonstrations based around all sorts of themes and often depending on the seasons, so at the moment she is focused on Halloween segueing into Christmas - hearty food is firmly on the menu as autumn deepens into winter and she adores picking fresh ingredients from her beautiful and bounteous garden, lush with plants, herbs and berries.

"I love being outside taking your pick of what is available, the elderberries in my garden for example need to be picked soon and made into an elderberry syrup. The haws are also beginning to ripen which also make a wonderful haw jelly once you add cinnamon or star anise. The blackberries on the hedges are so good this year, there is almost a second crop of them. There is something very therapeutic about picking your own ingredients from your own garden and I've always enjoyed doing that."

What is her favourite kind of cooking, and its ethos?

"I love making concoctions of various things depending on what is in season. I use an awful lot of vegetables, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, celery and all those green vegetables. Sauteing celery and onions on the pan in olive oil can be a great base for dishes. I sometimes use balsamic vinegar instead of cooking oil which makes a dish much lower in calories but still very flavoursome.

"I am totally led by the seasons and yesterday I bought a lovely pumpkin and I'll use it to make a wonderful soup, say maybe with some Thai flavouring or say with a bit of cumin and tumeric. Then take some more of the pumpkin and you can cut it up with your celery and your onions and all those things. Even add potatoes to it and nice cheesy toppings. And if you've any left over you can make a pumpkin pie which is delightful with a no-crust pastry that you don't bake in the oven."

Jenny is also keen to reduce the use of oil and butter in her cooking which has become expensive and swears by a dash of balsamic vinegar or a searing hot pan to avoid the need for excess lubricants.

"At the cookery school we are looking at ways of using less butter, which has become so expensive, so things will have less fat. We're looking at those traditional recipes where you can cut things down and make things as simple as a tarte tatin, with much less butter and sugar but which works just as well. I would cook for health, but you wouldn't notice a lot of the ingredient swaps or changes - so many dishes work just as well with that little bit less butter or fat. And you can overcome less fat by using more seasoning and herbs. With a good frying pan, if you have a good high temperature, you will find that you can cook well in the pan with hardly any oil at all."

She adds: I often cook dishes without any oil in them, say a pumpkin tart with spinach, red onions and maybe a bit of blue cheese on top of it, I would put the pumpkin into the pan with the onions and just a dash of balsamic vinegar instead of oil and lots of herbs going in instead of salt or some harissa, paprika or sundried tomato paste."

In this age of fast, convenience food a lot of people can't cook, won't cook, something which is clearly baffling to Jenny.

"We have tried so much to shorten cooking times and make the method for recipes pretty much foolproof. You can make so many dishes so quickly and easily with just a little bit of imagination.

"There is a simple, down-to-earth, using-your-head way of cooking and saving money by doing so with sensible shopping. We have so many handy, simple ingredients that will make all the difference to a dish such as a harissa paste, tomato paste - good store cupboard ingredients. But if you happen to have a bit of basil there and some herbs you can easily make a homemade pesto to go with pasta. You can make it even simply with parsley and coriander in a blender or try it on top of a simple pizza base or tortilla and bake it in the oven. Food is the best medicine that we have and we need to make good, sensible choices.

"You can buy lots of cheap vegetables and use them in such a way as to save so much money."

Mindful of the cost of living crisis which has left so many families struggling to put nutritious yet economical food on the table, Jenny insists that investing in easily accessible vegetables and adding to them what you can is a much better approach than foods like frozen pizzas or fish fingers.

"Celery, cabbage and onions give you a lovely base and then you can simply add whatever you can afford to put into it. I think fruit and vegetables are the basis of healthy cooking and there are a basic range that are inexpensive and that you can use so well. I adore baked potatoes and champ, which is so cheap to make, and try it with some crispy red onions on top with some spice. It's hard to beat plain, simple old-fashioned champ. Just use milk, butter, scallions and potatoes.

"There is a wonderful cut of meat called brisket which is a great, low cost cut of meat that is wonderful for stews, or you can keep some and serve in floury baps with a wee bit of chutney and mustard or try it with orzo pasta and top with tortilla chips.

"We need to educate people about food and nutrition and help share simple recipes that are economical. I think this is a real time for good common sense cooking, down-to-earth goodness. Mince is another good, economical base for a lot of meals”, she adds.

"One of the first programmes I ever did was all about what you could do with a pound of mince - so many things, from survival food like spaghetti bolognese to shepherd's pie to dinner party mince.

"This was in the very first book that I wrote, which was High Days and Holidays. There was a great meat loaf in there, farmhouse pie and a hotch potch and one of my favourite recipes that I still use which is Mother Hubbard's Pie. Another great one was a crustless quiche. This was convenient - you just put everything into a bowl and mix it together, bran or porridge oats and this sinks to the bottom and you get all these fabulous things on top of it, your broccoli, your mushrooms, your onions - whatever you want to add to the quiche and cheese also at the top with a lovely sauce."

Jenny has recently taken up fly fishing, spending lots of days along the River Bann trying patiently wiating to catch salmon.

"Is she any good at it? "Well, I'm getting better at it, put it that way! It's such a relaxing pastime, you sit there and the world is your own with a flask of coffee and some sandwiches."

And of course she immediately interjects with how deliciously she would serve up the fish.

"Filet the salmon, take the whole side off it and just leave the bones. Put it on a piece of foil, or on the barbecue, balsamic and brown sugar over the top, cinnamon and star anise too and cook for about 20 minutes and serve with baby boiled potatoes that I would dash with a barbecue sauce."

If food is the way to a man's heart then Jenny's husband is one very lucky man.

Keep reading the News Letter for a forthcoming competition from the celebrity chef to win a top-of-the-range Nordmende oven, as favoured by Jenny, and a £69 voucher to Jenny Bristow’s Cookery School Experience.