With winter on its way (we actually had some snow overnight – in October!) my thoughts are turning towards warm comfort foods to keep us all cosy. Soups and casseroles are top of the list, and my slow cooker really comes into its own at this time of year.

I recently bought a new slow cooker recipe book that just deals with vegetarian food, as meat seems to feature very strongly in my other ones. I already make soups, a great veggie chilli and a yummy vegetarian bolognese in my slow cooker, but wanted some more ideas. I’m also not always sure how long to cook beans, etc for, so thought it would be helpful to have some recipes to adapt.

The book I ordered is Real Food: Vegetarian Recipes for Your Slo-Cooker by Annette Yates and it arrived this week. It was published in 2003 and there is an updated version, but based on the reviews it didn’t sound like there was much difference so I opted for the cheapest! I’ll add it to the website book reviews as soon as I’ve had a chance to test it out.

I think I will also make some time to start looking through some of my old Vegetarian Living and Cook Vegetarian magazines for inspiration. I haven’t actually bought any new ones for a while, but maybe will ask someone to treat me to a subscription for Christmas…

Talking of Christmas, I suppose I had better start thinking about what to cook for Christmas dinner this year! Last year we had a gorgeous nut roast as well as trying the Quorn family roast, with all the usual yummy trimmings. The nut roast recipe was from one of my favourite blogs, We Don’t Eat Anything With A Face - if you haven’t visited before it really is worth taking a look. There is now a very handy recipe index on the right hand side which makes finding what you want very easy too.

What are your favourite books, magazine or websites for finding new recipes? It’s always good to find new inspiration, so please share in the comments below