Eating is a sensory experience, and sometimes it’s a good idea to re-set your senses. Maybe you’ve been eating too many aggressively flavourful foods, maybe your stomach is iffy due to illness (or indulgence), or maybe you just don’t feel like doing. In any case, a bowl of soupy, falling-apart, porridge-like rice is what you need.

Whether or not there’s any actual science behind it, lots of people swear by the sickness-busting properties of raw garlic. Some of my friends and family will actually chow down on raw cloves in an attempt to send their symptoms packing.

Hello, and welcome back to Will It Casserole?, the column where I take your delicious concepts and re-imagine them as casserole creations. It’s been a while since we’ve casseroled together, and this split pea soup situation is truly a return to form.

Quick, think of things that are fast! Rockets? OK. Cheetahs? Sure, absolutely. Bullets? Oh, yes, quite. A bowl of rich, creamy soup? Ah, generally, no. Not so much. Then why do we call cars that have been made to go faster “souped-up?”

I have never understood the point of canned, chopped tomatoes. They rarely taste as good as their whole, peeled brethren, and they never break down fully while cooking, keeping their cube-like shape long after all other ingredients have turned to mush.

It's that magical time of year again, temperatures are once again climbing to levels most accurately described as "dangerous" and "oppressive". What a time to be alive.

Look. You're about to make a feeding trough of bread and probably put dip in it, so it's best you level with yourself. Look at the face on your head in the mirror and say "I'm going to make a double bread bowl now", to completely free yourself from every last bit of ego.

There’s soup, then there’s soup that seems to have the ability to heal the body and soul. What’s your trusted recipe for a bowl of magical recovery?

My love for corn has been well documented. I will eat it steamed. I will eat it creamed. I will strip the cobs of their golden, juicy kernels and eat them raw.

And, once I am left with nothing but naked cobs, I will use those corn sticks to make a corny broth.

A good chicken stock is more than chicken-flavored water. Though you should aim for your stock to be flavorful, a good one should also be rich and mouth-coating, with a body that just won't quit. This, my friends, is why you should make your stock with chicken feet.

Video: If you're a reader of Eating Trash With Claire the Lifehacker series where I convince you to transform your kitchen scraps into something edible and delicious - you should get excited, because it's now a video series. First up, I show you how to make a delicious, flavour-packed stock out of scraps, shells, and other "trash" that is actually treasure. Enjoy!

Cheap beer gets a bad rap, but I've been choosing it over the fancy stuff more and more these days. Unlike heavy IPAs, generic lagers don't compete with food or give me a hangover, and they're an absolute joy to cook with.

Vegetarian and vegan cooking should celebrate vegetables rather than forcing them into a meat-shaped box. I'll take "oh damn, I didn't know I liked eggplant" over "this is surprisingly tasty, but I'd rather eat real bacon" any day of the week.

Stock is the backbone of so many recipes. Whether it's used as a cooking liquid for rice or beans, or as the base of a soup or gravy, the quality of your stock influences the quality of your final dish. Though it isn't hard to make, there are a few tweaks you can make to ensure yours is a rich and tasty stock that's anything but watery.

A good salad is all about achieving that perfect balance of flavours and textures, and nothing adds crunch quite like a crouton. You can purchase pre-made croutons pretty easily, but it you want a truly great cube of golden, crispy, just slightly chewy bread, you should make them yourself. They're also dead easy to make.

For the uninitiated, this is chicken and rice soup with a hint of lemon and dill. For those in the know, this is the good stuff. This is the stuff I wasn't allowed to make during my time in the Greek restaurant, because it's the kind of thing only a mother's touch can truly perfect. I am, however, one persistent mother, and got to learnin', though I will admit it's a bit complicated.

Making chicken stock at home is great -- you end up with a house that smells like soup and a pot full of savoury broth. Whether you make your stock from fresh ingredients or saved-up scraps, one secret ingredient will help make your chicken stock extra rich and delicious.

Garlic skins have always been my least favourite part of peeling garlic. They either stick to my fingers, or float about the kitchen, carried by slight breezes before making their home on random appliances. But I resent them no more, my dears, because it turns out they make a kick-arse broth.

Marmite is a somewhat polarising spread. (Their slogan is "Love it. Hate it.") Made from brewer's yeast, the salty paste is the British answer to Vegemite. Like Vegemite, it has an umami-packed, almost condensed-soy-sauce-like flavour that can be overwhelming in large amounts. Add just a smidge, though, and you'll boost the savoury-factor of whatever you're eating many times over.