In a strange way, being completely broke can be quite fulfilling. You sort out your living space rather than going out and getting drunk, you sell stuff that you don’t need or use on ebay rather than buying more clutter, and you use up all the random ingredients in your kitchen cupboards. It can be quite fun being creative with what you have. It’s a good job that I have started to see the positives of being broke really, because now that I own a flat, the end of each month is pretty dire, financially speaking. Yet, somehow this doesn’t affect my level of happiness, and that’s a valuable lesson to learn

Pearl barley

Vegetable stock

Courgette

Lemon juice

Creme fraiche

Garlic salt

Pepper

Olive oil

Hot pepper sauce to serve

I get so much satisfaction from cooking a meal like this – it’s rustic, simple and totally delicious, while costing next to nothing. I cooked the pearl barley in the vegetable stock and grilled the courgette slices with olive oil, garlic salt and pepper until crispy. When the pearl barley is cooked (after about half an hour), you just add all the other ingredients, and warm it all up together, until it has the consistency of a risotto. I feel like I’m on a bit of quest for simplicity and purity, in every area of my life right now – sometimes this goes tragically wrong, as with the infamous chocolate mousse incident – but on the whole, I feel healthier for it. I can’t wait to go to Greece next week, the food there is exactly like the sort of things I feel like eating at this time of year and in this state of mind – fresh and fuss free