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Home of Heston Blumenthal’s famously nuts nouveau cuisine caff (the Michelin-studded Fat Duck) Bray is also home to the big man’s lesser known Tudor-style gastropub, The Hind’s Head, serving mains for a less-than-eye-watering £15-£20.

Had the Sunday works: rare roast beef, gigantic yorkshire pudding and potatoes. Taking a really obvious pub food choice made a great comparison point with londonpubgastroaction – the verdict: it turns out Heston is indeed a genius.

The meat in this place (along with the triple-cooked chips) is just out of this world. (Word to the wise: If you’re a veggie, don’t even bother, pal.)

How to get there: Get a train from Paddington to Maidenhead – it’s walkable from there, or a 5 minute taxi ride. Booking most definitely necessary – tel. 01628 626151.

Obligatory historical gossip about the Hind’s Head Pub: Prince Philip had his stag party in the Hind’s Head back in the Summer of love  (1947). Staff report it was a messy, messy night.

Back in the real world (i.e. London): Two dreadful meals, to make me wish I was back in Bray. The incomparably sh*t Navajo Joe in Covent Garden, and the ever-Masonic Hercules Pillars, which tried to confuse me by serving a dose of molten lava disguised as a microwave meal.

Hey, in London, who can tell the difference anyway these days, right?

Take me back to Bray. Heston – forget the Little Chef, it’s a losing battle – you’re already a proven man of the people.

OK, this isn’t studentcooking.co.uk, but it’s come to LondonCooking’s attention that no matter how easy, simple, basic we try to make our recipes, some people (ie – my friend Sophie H., née C.) still won’t go anywhere near them.

With this in mind, here’s a recipe even the most fervent pulse or legume-dodger can make in about 5 minutes flat. No excuses, S.C.!

Ingredients

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1 can baked beans
1 onion
Cumin, to taste

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1. Chop the onion into small pieces and fry in a little oil.
2. When ready, add the beans, and cumin to taste.
3. You can put this on toast…duh!

If you’re really fancy, you could consider buying whole cumin seeds, and crushing them into powder yourself (let’s face it though, you’re making a baked bean curry. This isn’t going to happen.)

On an unrelated note, I see that the website URL studentcooking.com (listed under ‘EXTREME BRANDABILITY’ – nice caps) is available for just $24,000 – bargain!

NB – ‘Brandability’ is definitely not a word. Whoever coined it needs a big slap.

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London Cooking’s raison d’etre is to serve you regular lashings of delicious, quick, healthy recipes (plus a little bar/pub/restaurant tips on the side.)

On the odd occasion, however, we like to veer off topic.

There was a piece in London-based newspaper the Economist lately on the various different nicknames the capital has earned over the years:

Manhattan-on-Thames, Londonistan and, lately Rekyavik-on-Thames, to name a few. But where does the Economist say our fair city is headed now? In essence:

‘London will simply resemble the less prepossessing city it was in the 1970s and 1980s, before the excesses and excitements of the New Labour epoch’

So, as we journey to the past (not necessarily a bad thing?) LondonCooking would like to suggest the following as a fitting, affectionate new nickname for ‘the big smoke’:

Nodnol

This links us to the classic episode of Red Dwarf in which the crew lands in an alternate London where everything plays out backwards. And as they too discover, it’s not all bad…

What do you think? Does the name fit? And will it stick?

It’s got to be more cheery than ‘the Abyss’, or ‘the Empire of Hunger’, right?

Some extra-quick dinner tips which combine part ready food, part fresh ingredients – ah, Delia would be proud.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t Robert Peston, or even Niall Ferguson, but really Delia who predicted the downturn, with her ‘How to Cheat at Cooking‘ book last year, in a funny way. And like some kind of Norwich-based culinary Cassandra, she was roundly panned for it…

Pizza

• Co-op Margherita (ie – plain, cheese & tomato) ready pizzas are surprisingly good – much better than Sainsbury’s, for instance.
• Buy one (or two – they were on 2 for 1 offer at my local!) then add your own fresh ingredients, eg – I fried some sliced mushrooms, added salt and oregano – hey presto!

Ravioli

• Buy some ready ravioli, the type with mushrooms and cheese (available in most local supermarkets)
• Slice and fry some pointed cabbage – in season at the moment, and beautifully sweet (not stinky, honest…) – these are currently available even at my tiny local Sainsburys – get them while they’re hot…
• The ravioli only takes a couple of minutes to cook, since it’s ‘fresh’ – add the cabbage, and some olive oil (or butter if you prefer) – and you’re done!

If you’re short of time, or just can’t be bothered to cook, I find even combining ready & fresh ingredients makes me feel a lot better about myself than going the full-on ready meal route.

Buy Delia’s How to Cheat at Cooking @ amazon.co.uk

NB: I’m personally not a fan of instant mash, or canned meat… but needs must when the devil… you know the rest.

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Recently spotted by londoncooking playing an acoustic gig in Camden’s convivial Green Note bar (open mike afternoon – Sundays 1-5pm – nice…) The ever-versatile Vegan Meg here gives a masterclass in humous/hummus-making:

Couldn’t be easier really – so long as you’ve got a mixer. Which I don’t. (Gasp!) Unwilling to wip out the pestle and mortar for the moment, looks like it’s back to hummus bros for me, at least for the moment.

NB: Apparently, Americans call chick peas ‘garbanzo beans‘ – crazy stuff.