Spring fills me with a renewed sense of joy and excite­ment, and not only because it means the silly sea­son is approach­ing. After a winter of slow cook­ing and roas­ted root veget­ables, I long for fresh fla­vours and some sunshine.

Fresh herbs are cru­cial in cook­ing, and even the smal­lest little bal­cony or win­dowsill can allow you to feel a sense of sat­is­fac­tion from grow­ing your own food – des­pite plenty of windy weath­er and neg­lect, I always seem to have a flour­ish­ing pot of mint and basil on the go.

Both of these herbs are great as gar­nishes and in pasta, but mint espe­cially screams spring to me. Anoth­er thing I love about the impend­ing warm­er weath­er is a break from hiberna­tion and a bit more social­ising. Often a catch-up wine will turn into snacks for din­ner, which is one of my favour­ite things. While there are some great store-bought dips out there, you will often have all these simple ingredi­ents on hand, and a few minutes is all it takes to whip up some­thing simple, impress­ive, deli­cious and healthy.

Res­cue frozen peas from a life of over­boil­ing and bore­dom by mak­ing them the star in this spring-inspired dip. Wow your friends, then bask in the impend­ing sunshine.

Pea and Mint Dip

Ingredients

• 2 cups frozen peas, defros­ted slightly
• 3 spring onions (white part only), chopped
• 1 clove garlic
• Bunch of fresh mint (about ¼ cup, loose)
• 150g Greek-style nat­ur­al yogurt
• 20g freshly grated Parmes­an cheese
• Juice of 1 lemon
• ½ tsp chilli powder, to taste
• Salt and pep­per, to taste

Method

1. Place peas, spring onion, gar­lic and mint into a food pro­cessor and pulse until chunk­ily mixed togeth­er (you don’t want a purée).
2. Place in a bowl and add the yogurt, cheese and lem­on juice. Add the chilli powder and salt and pep­per, and stir to com­bine. Taste and add more salt, pep­per, lem­on or chilli, accord­ing to your taste.
3. Serve with veget­able crudités – car­rot, cel­ery and radic­chio are all good.

You can also serve the dip with toasted gar­lic pita breads, or make your own easy gar­lic bruschetta by sli­cing a baguette into 1cm slices, then rub­bing these with gar­lic, drizz­ling them with olive oil and toast­ing them in a sand­wich press.

Serves 4–6 as a snack