I love the festive season, but burnout is real – so November is a time I keep things simple

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but Christmas is fewer than 50 days away. And we are now in that period of time I like affectionately to call The Calm Before the Storm. Halloween and Bonfire Night festivities have been and gone, and lead us in to these precious few weeks in between. The ones before The Chaos. Before the bombardment of Christmas invitations, the endless drinks with picky bits, kids’ shows and carol services.

Do not misinterpret me – I adore Christmas. I live for it. I will go to every one of my kids’ shows and watch them sing Little Donkey totally out of tune five times over. If you are having mulled wine and mince pies at your house, I will be there with a cellophane-wrapped poinsettia (especially if you follow Felicity Cloake’s mince pie masterclass). All that said, however, these weeks “before” make me anxious, as if I should be preparing for a marathon. Should I be carb-loading or vitamin-popping? How many logs of Tamal Ray’s cookie dough should I have in the freezer for all those “unexpected visitors”? I’m telling you now – Christmas burnout is real.

So, this year, I am going to try something different. While everyone is being virtuous in January and cutting out everything that makes life fun, I will do the opposite. I will spend November nourishing myself and eating all the rainbows, so I am in tip-top health come the festive season. Then I will continue to enjoy life in January, because no one needs to be cutting out anything when it is that grey, wet and cold outside.

November will be my time to replenish – give me Tarunima Sinha’s autumn vegetable galettes (pictured top) or Helen Graham’s butternut squash and saffron orzo with chilli-fried leeks for a spot of autumn-winter colour. I often make chicken stock after our Sunday roast (we’re big fans of Olia Hercules’s punched potatoes with roast chicken). This month I’ll be putting the stock to good use and following Jinghua Qian’s top tips on how to make a great congee, which is nourishment in a bowl.

That way, I will hopefully embark on the December marathon in peak condition, ready for all the mulled cider and potato cakes (thanks, Nigel), making all the gifts (I’ll be bagging up little towers of Philip Khoury’s pistachio and cherry amaretti for my loved ones) and eating all the cheese. Then, come January, I will let myself down gently. Ease myself out of the opulence with comforting sofa dinners such as Kirsty Scobie’s smoked haddock, pea and chorizo macaroni cheese, interspersed with lighter meals, broths and soups (I’m a huge advocate of Rachel Roddy’s pumpkin, lentil and barley soup). In my head, this all makes total sense. Going in fighting fit, and slowly easing out when it all gets too much. No cold turkey this January for me (boom, boom).

Let them eat cake | This week, I made two of my pistachio tres leches cakes, one for a friend’s fireworks gathering and the other for a family dinner. I add ground pistachios to a classic tres leches sponge and pistachio paste to the soaking milk. It works incredibly well, and the beauty is you have to make it in advance (it needs to soak overnight), so it’s perfect if you’re entertaining. Big hit all round.

Lucky dip | I’m a real condiment and dip obsessive, much to the frustration of my other half, because they take over a good third of our fridge space. The latest thing to take up residency in there is Odysea’s garlic skordalia dip. Skordalia is a punchy Greek garlic relish that’s often served as part of a meze. However, with this one, you can forget the rest of the meze altogether: just serve it with a plate of salty chips and you’ll be in heaven.

What I’m reading | There are always a few cookbooks on my bedside table – at the moment, I’m focused on Sanjana Feastsby Sanjana Modha. She takes classic Indian recipes and techniques, and has fun with them. There are traditional recipes such as black dal, instructions on how to make naan and sections on spice blends. But she also does her own take on familiar dishes, such as sticky toffee gulab jamun and halloumi fries chaat (obviously high on my to-do list). Also, the book is vegetarian and vegan, if that is how you roll.