Beetroot and butterbean hummus

My love of beetroot is well documented on this blog. I simply can't eat enough of it. For many people, this fabulous root has been ruined forever for them by being exposed to the pickled variety, which completely kills off the earthy sweetness. You can roast it in the oven, wrapped tightly in foil and with nothing else added, for about an hour at 200C - afterwards, let them rest in the foil for 10-15 minutes then slip the skins off. Or you can cheat, as I so often do, and buy a vacuum pack of plain cooked beetroot from the supermarket for less than a quid.

Beetroot is also incredibly versatile - borscht is famous of course but it also works well in ice cream, for example, because of its sweetness and I recently stumbled across this recipe for beetroot rugelach, which I plan to make very soon.

Hummus takes less than 10 minutes to make in a food processor. This will keep in the fridge for up to a week in a sealed container.

What you need:
2 medium to large beetroots
A 400g can of butterbeans
1 tbsp olive oil
1 dsp tahini
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Sea salt and black pepper

What to do: 
Chop the beetroot into chunks, drain and rinse the butterbeans and put into a food processor along with everything else except the seasoning. Blitz into a thick purée, adding a dribble of water if you need to thin it a little. Season to taste, adding a little more lemon juice as well if it's on the sweet side.

Sprinkle a little dukkah over the top to finish.

Cook's tips: 
As with traditional hummus, quantities of ingredients are only a rough guide - it's down to personal preference so taste, taste, taste as you go. Beetroot can be very sweet, so I like to add a very generous pinch of sea salt. I also juice a whole lemon, so I have a little extra if the hummus needs more acidity.

Dukka is traditionally made with hazelnuts but you can use other nuts. This one in the photo is made with pistachios - I picked it up at a farmers' market but the recipe in the link is very easy and you can play with the ingredients.

Beetroot and spinach tarte tatin

Tarte tatin is a traditional French dessert - an apple pie baked upside down - but it lends itself well to a savoury filling too. I saw a recipe recently by Yotam Ottolenghi for a potato version. That's a bit too carb-laden for me but other root vegetables work nicely, partly because they have an inherent sweetness.

Like the traditional apple tarte, you need to add a little sugar in some form or other to generate a caramel that will help hold all the filling together.

What you need: 
2 medium cooked beetroot
Half a bag of fresh spinach
Butter
2 tsp demerara sugar
Salt, pepper
Half a pack of puff pastry

What to do:
Heat the oven to 220C. First steam the spinach, until it's slightly beyond wilted, set aside to cool then squeeze out as much water as you can. Cut the beetroot into 5mm slices. Melt a generous knob of butter in a medium-sized (20cm) ovenproof frying pan then sprinkle the sugar in. When the sugar has dissolved and the butter has started to sizzle, add the beetroot slices and gently fry them off on both sides (they should fill the pan in one layer). Scatter the spinach across the beetroot and season.

Roll out the pastry into a round just bigger than the pan. Take the pan off the heat and press the pastry over the beetroot and spinach, tucking the edges under. Pop it in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes until the pastry has risen up and is golden.

Take it out, let it cool a little and the, using oven gloves, place a plate bigger than the pan over it and quickly flip it over. The tarte should slip out intact onto the plate.

Cook's tips: 
Those vacuum packs of cooked beetroots that you find in the supermarkets are perfect for this if you don't want to boil or roast then peel the beetroot from scratch, plus they are vinegar-free and cheap. If you don't like beetroot, you can make this with rounds of carrots or long slices of parsnip - scatter a few fresh thyme leaves over them at the frying stage.

If you don't have an ovenproof frying pan, start the cooking in your usual frying pan then transfer the beetroot to a cake tin and finish the prepping in that.

When I buy packs of puff pastry, I usually cut them in half or even quarters and freeze what I'm not using. Half a pack is about right for this (a quarter pack makes a puff pizza pie).

A whole tatin on its own is quite a filling meal. I like a generous slice on the side of a roast or some pulled pork or pulled beef, then I'll finish it for lunch next day.

Parmesan roasted chicory

Chicory is very underrated. We don't eat much of it here and it mostly seems to get sliced into salads. Its slightly bitter taste may be a reason for its unpopularity - across the Channel it's eaten widely and braising or roasting it mellows the bitterness and wilts the leaves into a soft, lush heap.

This very simple dish has only three ingredients and is surprisingly filling. I usually make it as a standalone meal but if I'm really hungry I'll grill a lamb chop to accompany.

What you need:
2-3 chicory heads
Olive oil
About 1 tbsp grated Parmesan

What to do:
Heat the oven to 180C. Halve the chicory heads lengthways and put cut side up in an oven dish. Drizzle over a little oil and season lightly. Cover with tin foil or a lid and bake for 30 minutes.

Take it out of the oven and remove the foil. Sprinkle over the Parmesan and return to the oven uncovered for another 30-40 minutes until the chicory has caramelised round the edges and the cheese has formed a crispy golden crust.

Cook's tips:
Make sure the chicory, either white or red, is super-fresh. Once it's on the turn it becomes more bitter. 

For a more substantial meal, you can add some chopped bacon or lardons before you put the Parmesan on. You can gratinée it by mixing the cheese with breadcrumbs.

You can roast fennel this way too - use 2 small bulbs halved or 1 large one quartered. Fennel is a natural partner for pork and good quality sausages are a good match here - you can roast them in the dish with the fennel once the foil is off.

Quick winter minestrone

Soups are currently top of my menu as the weather gets chillier and I crave something substantial, warming and comforting. Soup generally ticks all those boxes for me and this minestrone is especially hearty as well as very simple to make.

Best of all, you can get it into a bowl inside 30 minutes. The other huge bonus is that you probably have most of the ingredients in the larder already.

As usual, prep everything first. This makes two generous bowlfuls and I reckon it tastes as good if not better for reheating next day.

What you need: 
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, finely diced
1 small packet of lardons (optional)
1 litre of vegetable or chicken stock
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 small (half-size tin) haricot beans
A handful of small pasta (baby macaroni or orzo)
A generous handful of greens, finely shredded
Pinch of mixed dried herbs

What to do:
Heat a glug of olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium hob and sauté the onion until it starts to soften. Add the lardons if using and fry until the fat starts to run off. Don't brown them or let the onions start to caramelise. Add the carrot, stir through for half a minute then pour in the stock, the tomatoes, the beans and the pasta. Season to taste and add the herbs.

Bring the pan to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the greens and simmer for another 5 minutes until the pasta is cooked to al dente. Dish up!

Cook's tips: 
Although minestrone is a chunky soup, the greens do need to be finely shredded - I aim to cut them as thin as Chinese "seaweed", which is actually made from cabbage, because they need to cook quickly. Most greens work well - spring greens, kale, cavolo nero and savoy cabbage all suit minestrone.

You can throw pretty much any veg into a minestrone as it's a seasonal soup that makes the most of what's available. If you don't have carrots to hand, use a parsnip, turnip or some celeriac. Use whatever beans you have to hand in the store cupboard - borlotti, cannelini and pinto, for example.

The basis of minestrone is vegetarian - any meat (or meat stock) is entirely optional. Bacon definitely suits this best if you want meat because of the depth of flavour it brings - use snipped-up rashers if you don't have lardons, or some chopped leftover ham or gammon.

You can finish the soup in the bowl with a teaspoon of pesto swirled through if you like (not my personal preference as I find it too overpowering) or a little grated parmesan or pecorino.

Orzo risotto with porcini

Orzo is a kind of pasta that looks like tiny grains of rice - it's often used to bulk out soups (it works well in minestrone, for example) or make the base of a salad. It's rare to see it in supermarkets, but if you find a bag somewhere grab it as it's a versatile store-cupboard staple and a 500g pack will last for ages. I found my most recent bag in a discount supermarket some months ago and paid about £1.20.

Because orzo looks like rice, it's a good substitute for it in some dishes and it makes a great "risotto". It takes about half the time to cook, so you don't want the pasta in the pan for more than about 10 minutes.

What you need:
Orzo, about half a mug full
Small handful of dried porcini
4-5 sundried tomatoes
1/2 litre of stock
1 small onion, finely chopped
Olive oil
Seasoning
Parmesan cheese

What to do: 
Using separate bowls, soak the porcini and tomatoes by covering with boiling water and leaving for 15-20 minutes (or according to packet instructions). Drain, reserving the liquid. Make up the liquid to the right amount by topping up with boiling water and adding in a little stock powder if you wish. Chop the sundried tomatoes into small pieces.

Sauté the onion in the olive oil until it's soft and translucent, using a heavy-based sauteuse over a medium heat. Toss in the orzo, stir through until it's coated in oil (as you would for a rice risotto), then pour in about half the liquid. Bring the pan almost to the boil then turn the heat right down so everything's on a gentle simmer.

Stir the risotto and add the tomatoes and porcini after 5 minutes. Stir again and add more liquid if it starts to dry out. The orzo should cook within 10 minutes but check it - it needs to be al dente, not mushy. Stir in some grated parmesan, season to taste and dish up.

Cook's tips:
Be really careful with the cooking time. Risotto rice needs 20-25 minutes, orzo much less, so get all your ingredients ready before you switch the hob on. Orzo also needs a lot less liquid than rice as it is much less absorbent, so you need to watch how much you add and only top up it little by little.

Tricolore with halloumi

Tricolore is Italian for 3 colours, and in Italian cooking that usually means the red, white and green of the national flag. It's also the name for a salad that is a jumped-up version of the classic caprese.

The caprese salad is really simple - just tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil leaves, dressed with a little olive oil and seasoned. The tricolore throws avocado into the mix. I often have an avocado lurking in my fruit bowl but I also often forget to eat them before they get overripe. I don't always have mozzarella in the fridge but I do usually have a pack of halloumi. This can be knocked up in a couple of minutes - it's healthy and quite filling and utterly delicious.

What you need: 
1/3rd of a block of halloumi
1 ripe avocado
A large handful of cherry tomatoes
Capers
1 lemon
Olive oil
Black pepper

What to do:
Slice the halloumi and arrange on a plate. Zest the lemon and scatter it over the cheese. Halve the avocado, take the stone out, then halve again so it's in quarters. Cut the flesh into slices and put them between the cheese, piling any extra into the middle.

Halve the cherry tomatoes and scatter over the plate, along with a heaped teaspoon of capers. Grind some black pepper over everything then drizzle with a little olive oil and the juice of half the lemon.

Cook's tips: 
I usually skip the salt as halloumi is quite salty, enough for this salad. Don't skip the lemon zest though - it helps to cut through the saltiness while lifting the vegetables.

If you don't like capers, use some halved green or black olives instead.

Tsimmes

This dish of carrots cooked sweetly for a long period is a Jewish classic and there are probably a zillion ways to prepare it - every Jewish mother and grandmother has their own recipe, often handed down the family. As a child, I ate this sometimes at my grandparents' house to which we travelled once a month for a weekend feast, the whole family gathered round a long dining table. It was only years later that I actually had a go at making my own version.

The commonest way to prepare the basics is to cook the plain carrots alongside a beef brisket joint, simmering for ages, the meat then fished out to finish making the tsimmes and then bringing the meat and carrots together again on a serving platter. Delicious as this is, it's not practical for a solo diner, and anyway there are plenty of recipes for cooking tsimmes separately. Most versions involve simmering first then baking.

Sugar or honey is essential to boost the natural sweetness of the carrots and some people also add dried fruit - raisins or sultans, or perhaps some chopped apricots or prunes. Which way you go will depend on how sweet your tooth is. I like to keep it simple, though. In the absence of a large joint of brisket and half a dozen friends round to help you eat it, tsimmes still goes best with some sort of salty meat. Heresy, I know, but I like to pair it with a grilled gammon steak or bacon chop - a match made in heaven for my own palate.

 What you need:
250g carrots
1 very small onion
Unsalted butter
1/4 pint vegetable stock
1 heaped dessert spoonful light demerara sugar or honey
Lemon juice
1 heaped dessert spoonful ground almonds
1 egg, beaten
Black pepper

What to do:
Heat the oven to 180C. Grate the carrots very coarsely and chop the onion finely. Melt a knob of butter in a sauteuse and gently fry the onion until soft and starting to caramelise. Add the carrots, stock and sugar or honey, bring to the boil then turn the heat down and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Tip everything into a small oven-proof casserole. Grind in a little black pepper and a tiny squeeze of lemon juice. Taste the liquid to check the balance of sweet and sour and adjust if needed. Stir through the almonds thoroughly. Now add the beaten egg and stir through again. Bake for 30 minutes.

Cook's tips: 
Keep the ingredients to a minimum. A pinch of ginger can pep up the tsimmes - traditionally this is the only spice acceptable to use. And while coriander is a popular partner for carrots, bringing it in here would mean it's no longer a tsimmes.

Use a good quality stock powder, such as Marigold vegetable bouillon which is much less salty than a stock cube, and don't make it too strong - a heaped teaspoon should be plenty for a quarter pint of stock.

Don't leave out the egg - a baked tsimmes should be set firm like a pudding and it needs the egg to bind it together. Be very quick beating it through so it doesn't start to scramble before you put the dish it in the oven.

Some recipes include potato or breadcrumbs for extra padding. I find potato only adds blandness. The breadcrumbs should be stirred through but you could sprinkle them over the top for a gratinée.

Aubergine Howard

Many years ago I cooked professionally at a long-gone restaurant in Leeds - the Wharfe Street Vegetarian Café. Before it closed, the owners published a cookbook of the same name, full of many of the recipes they'd served up over the years. I lost my copy only a couple of years later after lending it to someone and, inevitably, it went out of print. I spent a couple of decades looking for a replacement but a friend recently tracked a copy down for me, so I've had a delightful trip down memory lane.

This original recipe, Aubergine Jamaica, was an exotic sort of moussaka, with the sliced aubergines layered with potatoes, celery and mushrooms and the spicy coconut sauce inspired by both Caribbean and Sri Lankan food. I've stripped it right back, ousting the potatoes and the rest and substituting peppers. I've tinkered quite a lot with the sauce too, changing most of the spices. I've renamed this incarnation for my book-hunting friend.

What you need:
About 250g baby aubergines
A large red pepper
Half a block creamed coconut (about 100g)
Tahini
1 small red chilli, finely chopped, or 2tsp "lazy" chillies from a jar
1/2 inch grated fresh ginger root
1 heaped tsp allspice
1/4tsp paprika
1/4tsp celery salt
Flaked almonds

What to do: 
Trim the stalks off the aubergines then halve, or even quarter them depending on their size. Put them in a small casserole dish. Deseed the pepper and dice it. Scatter over the aubergines.

Make the sauce. Put the creamed coconut in a pan with 1/2 pint (300ml) boiling water, a heaped tablespoon of tahini and all the spices. Warm it over a low hob, stirring while everything blends together and creamed coconut has fully melted. Don't let it boil. Taste to check the seasoning and adjust the spices and salt to suit. Pour the sauce over the aubergines, cover it with a lid and bake for 45 minutes at 200C. Check it during cooking to ensure it's not drying out - top it up with a little boiling water if you need to.

Take the lid off and scatter over some flaked almonds then pop back in the oven for 15 minutes more.

Cook's tips: 
Don't be alarmed at the amount of aubergines - they will shrink right down during cooking.

Do add more heat with chilli and ginger if you like things hotter - the coconut and tahini can absorb quite a lot of spices before their flavours become masked. Check for salt too - aubergines love salt and this is one dish where I'd add more than I usually do. Just add a pinch at a time and taste in between.

For a less calorific sauce, use half a can of low-fat coconut milk instead of creamed coconut.

If you want carbs alongside, rice is the best partner.

Warm summer salad

The news this morning said a month's worth of rain fell yesterday. I can believe it - I went out briefly to the shops and got drenched. The streets in my neighbourhood were completely awash because the drains were overflowing. And yet, it's still summer and the shops are full of delicious seasonal produce.

So despite the wind and rain last night, I used some of my favourite summer vegetables to knock up this salad for my supper.

What you need: 
Handful of Jersey Royal potatoes
A portion of fresh broad beans
4-5 asparagus spears
A couple of large salad leaves such as Cos or Romaine
Olive oil
Fruit vinegar
Seasoning

What to do: 
Pod the broad beans. Halve or even quarter the potatoes if large then boil until tender. Boil the broad beans for 3-4 minutes and cook the asparagus for 5-6 minutes.

While everything's on the hob, wash the leaves, pat dry and tear into pieces. Put in a bowl. Make a very light dressing with the oil, vinegar and a pinch of sea salt and black pepper.

Drain the potatoes and tip them over the salad leaves. Drain the broad beans and scatter over the potatoes. Pour the dressing over and lay the asparagus over the top. Eat while still warm.

Cook's tips: 
You need about 500g of broad beans in the pod for one portion. If the beans are small, they won't need skinning. Larger beans will need boiling for around 5 minutes and should be skinned as their skins are much tougher.

You don't need much dressing at all - just enough to coat the ingredients slightly, not to drown them. A herb-infused oil works really well for this and if you have a citrussy vinegar, use it (raspberry vinegar is also nice). Taste and taste again to check the balance of flavours.

To make this more substantial, you could include some crispy bacon or top it with a poached egg.

Peperonata

Nearly the end of May and the weather is still so erratic that my cooking is veering between winter comfort food one day and lighter summer dishes the next. Peperonata falls into both camps.

This Italian dish is usually served as an antipasto, but it works just as well as main dish in itself or as an accompaniment to some grilled fish or meat of some sort. The classic version usually has tomatoes and garlic in it and some recipes have a list of ingredients as long as your arm. My preference is to keep it simple - no tomatoes, no garlic, just letting the sweetness of the peppers speak for themselves.

This takes just 5 minutes to prepare and makes enough for one very generous portion (depending on the size of the peppers) or two smaller ones. Like a lot of slow-cooked dishes, this tastes just as good if not better when reheated the next day.

What you need:
3 peppers
1 onion
Olive oil
Seasoning

What to do: 
Halve the peeled onion and slice it thinly. Pour a very generous glug of olive oil into a heavy sauteuse and sauté the onion over a medium heat until it turns translucent. While the onion is cooking, deseed the peppers, remove any white pith inside, halve them vertically and slice thinly.

Add the peppers to the pan and stir them through thoroughly so they are completely coated in oil. Leave them to cook down over a low heat for about an hour. Stir them once in a while so they cook evenly and put a lid on halfway through to generate some juices. Season to taste at the end.

Cook's tips: 
Like ratatouille, peperonata should be lush and unctuous, never watery.  Plenty of oil and a low heat (gas/electric 2 or 3 depending on your hob) are essential, as is time. Cook it too quickly on a higher heat and the water will leach out, the peppers will break down too fast and you'll end up with a soggy mess.

The peppers need to be very ripe to maximise their natural sweetness, but they should still have smooth, wrinkle-free skins. The Italians use red peppers throughout but I like to mix it up with different colours - those trio packs of red, green and yellow or orange peppers produce lovely colours as well different levels of sweetness.

You can add a small pinch of sugar to boost the sweetness if you wish. A bayleaf tucked in will add a little savoury depth, as will a small sprig of lemon thyme. You could also add a few torn fresh basil leaves at the end. But, really, this is not a dish for mucking around with - simple is best. 

Braised fennel

Fennel is a very underrated vegetable, I think - we don't eat nearly enough of it in the UK and it can be hard to find as many supermarkets simply don't stock it, not even the bigger branches. And with greengrocers in ever-dwindling supply, finding fennel can be tricky. All of which is a shame as it's tasty both cooked and raw and it's the perfect companion for pork.

It has a pronounced aniseed flavour so it's not surprising it's used as a flavouring in that most aniseedy of drinks - pastis. I like to add fennel to fish soups, or slice it thinly to make a crisp slaw in summer, when the warmer weather demands salads. It's also delicious in its own right when cooked and makes a good side dish for a pork chop or sausages.

What you need: 
2 medium bulbs of fennel
Olive oil
About half a pint of vegetable stock
Seasoning

What to do: 
Heat the oven to about 160-180C. Trim the fennel by slicing off the top stalks and paring the root to remove any brown hardness. If you have fronds, set them aside. Quarter the bulbs and brown gently on all sides in a frying pan or sauteuse with the olive oil.  Transfer to a heatproof dish, sprinkle over the finely chopped fronds, season and cover with the stock. Bake for about 45-60 minutes - they are done when you you can easily insert a fork into the base of the stem. 

Cook's tips:
Choose the freshest bulbs - they should be bright white with pale to mid-green tips and feel very firm. Don't buy if they look dry and wrinkly or they are starting to turn beige or yellow.

The fronds taste like dill - they can be used as a herb in their own right or used as a dill substitute. Just chop finely after washing. 

To boost the aniseed flavour, add a glug of pastis to the pan to deglaze it before transferring the dish to the oven.

You can turn it into a gratin by topping it with fresh breadcrumbs and a little grated parmesan. Bake as usual, add the topping then pop under a hot grill until until it's crisp and golden.

Beetroot and broad bean risotto

Risotto is my go-to comfort food when I need something soothing and creamy and I have two standby favourites - my chicken and pea risotto and a broad bean and bacon recipe, which I think I borrowed from Nigel Slater back in the mists of time. But once in a while I'll ring the changes and shuffle the ingredients around. Springtime offers endless possibilities, with all the lovely new vegetables coming into season. Earlier this week, I came home from the market laden with tiny haricots verts, young turnips and beetroots, purple sprouting broccoli, a bunch of asparagus, two globe artichokes (the first I've seen this year) and fresh garlic.

Wednesday's supper was going to be based around the purple sprouting - it's one of my favourite vegetables and only in season for a very short time so I tend to eat a lot of it when it's around. But then there was a change of plan and it was risotto for tea instead.

This is very brightly coloured but has a light, creamy texture and a surprisingly delicate flavour. Suitably springlike, it also hits the spot while there's still a nip in the air as we ease towards Easter. 

What you need:
Half a mug of Arborio rice
1 onion, chopped
2 small cooked beetroot
A mug of broad beans
A pint of vegetable stock
Half a glass of vermouth
Olive oil
Crème fraiche
Fresh dill and chives, chopped
Parmesan cheese
Seasoning

What to do: 
Blanch the broad beans and skin them. Dice the beetroot finely.

Sauté the onion in the olive oil over a medium heat until it turns translucent. Slosh in the vermouth and stir well. When it's almost absorbed, start adding the stock - little by little, stirring well each time and making sure it's almost absorbed before adding more.Test the rice after 15 minutes; it should be al dente. When it's at this stage add the broad beans. Keep stirring for another 5 minutes and add more stock if you need to. Add the beetroot and stir through very carefully.

Take the pan off the heat, stir through a generous teaspoon of crème fraiche, a handful of grated fresh parmesan and the chopped herbs. Season to taste.

Cook's tips: 
As usual with beetroot, it's a good idea to wear protective gloves when handling it if you don't want to stain your hands red. Ready-cooked beetroot saves you an hour of preparation time - don't buy the sort in vinegar though.

The easiest way to chop a very small amount of herbs quickly and finely is to put them in a coffee mug and snip them with kitchen scissors.

If you use frozen broad beans, dump them in a heatproof basin and pour boiling water over them. The water will cool fairly quickly and the skins should just slip off.

Ratatouille

For such a simple dish, there's been an awful lot of hoohah written about how to make ratatouille - whole columns on which order to add the ingredients, or whether to cook them separately then bring them together, or if it's acceptable to use an Italian olive oil in this quintessentially French dish...

Personally, I don't think it matters much. I prefer to cook everything together because I think the ingredients should get to know each other in the pan rather than on the plate. And besides, life's too short to have five pans to wash up instead of one. I use the olive oil to hand - as long as it's good quality I don't care if it was pressed in Outer Mongolia.

What does matter to me are having good quality fresh ingredients, nothing wrinkly or tired-looking. The tomatoes matter most of all - a good tomato needs sunshine to have flavour, which means it needs to come from a hot country where it was grown outside in soil. I never, ever buy Dutch or Belgian tomatoes as they are grown in vast sheds under artificial lighting and rooted in water. They don't see earth or fresh air and they taste of nothing. I buy British in season and the rest of the year I only buy Spanish or Moroccan or whatever, as long as it's had sun.

On the basis that it is almost impossible to make one portion of ratatouille, this makes two generous ones, or even three if you dish it up alongside meat and carbs. And besides, ratatouille is one of those dishes that often tastes better next day...

What you need:
1 onion
4-6 medium size tomatoes
2 small courgettes
1 small aubergine, or 5-6 baby ones
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
A handful button mushrooms (optional)
2-3 cloves of garlic
Herbes de Provence or a bouquet garni
A bay leaf
Olive oil

What to do:
Heat a very generous amount of olive oil in a heavy pan on a moderate heat. Prepare the veg - cut the onion into wedges, the peppers into wide strips, the tomatoes into quarters, the courgettes into thick rounds and the aubergine into chunks (you can leave baby ones whole, or halve them). Peel and crush the garlic.

Sauté the onion and garlic until they are soft and the onion turns translucent. Add the tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and a pinch of the herbs, stir through, turn the heat down a notch and let everything stew gently for 20 minutes. Add the courgettes to the pan, stir through again and let stew for another 10-15 minutes. If you're including mushrooms, this is the time to add them. Season to taste and dish up. 

Cook's tips:
Ratatouille should not only look glossy and luscious, it should be unctuous too. If it's watery, it's not right. That's why it's important to turn the heat down and cook it slowly - if the hob's too hot the vegetables will boil and leach water. They will also break up too much. Don't put a lid on - let the water evaporate during cooking. This is another reason not to use hydroponic tomatoes as their water content is ridiculously high. It's also why I add the courgettes a bit later as they can turn soggy very quickly once they are cooked.

More on tomatoes - a punnet of cherry tomatoes or the baby plum type also work well in ratatouille.

Mushrooms have no place in a classic ratatouille but are a useful and acceptable extra to pad it out, especially if you're vegetarian and won't be having any meat on the side.

Grilled meats make a good accompaniment for carnivores - a lamb chop or two, sausages of some sort, or even a steak. Grilled or roasted fish is good too.

If you want carbs, rice, grains such as cous-cous, bulgur or quinoa, or a noodly pasta such as tagliatelle are all a good match. Or mop up the juices with some crusty bread.

Pease pudding hot, pease pudding cold

Pease pudding is such a quintessentially English dish it's even got its own nursery rhyme.Yet it seems to have not only gone out of fashion, but almost completely forgotten about. What a shame - it's cheap, filling, nutritious, low GI, healthy and tasty! In the winter months, those characteristics make it the perfect hearty dish to keep the cold out.

It's not made with fresh garden peas but the split green or yellow variety. You do need to plan ahead, as the peas need soaking beforehand, but it's well worth it. This is the kind of recipe to make over a leisurely weekend, putting the peas to soak on a Saturday afternoon then doing the cooking on the Sunday evening. This recipe makes a generous amount so you can, as the rhyme says, enjoy it hot or cold.

What you need: 
250-300g dried peas
1 small onion, finely diced
1 large carrot, finely diced
2 fresh bayleaves
25g butter
1 litre dilute vegetable stock, cooled
Seasoning

What to do:
Soak the peas for 24 hours in cold water and then drain, rinse and drain again. You may need to change the water halfway through the soaking process.

Put the onion, carrot and peas in a saucepan and add the stock. Bring to the boil, skim off any scum, then turn down the heat a little and keep on a rolling simmer for at least an hour until they have turned to a soft mush and the veg have mostly melted into the mixture. The liquid should have completely evaporated or been absorbed - if not, drain the peas carefully and return to the pan. Fish out the bayleaves then blend the mixture with a stick blender or in a food processor. Season to taste and beat in the butter.

Tip half in a bowl and eat while piping hot. 

Cook's tips: 
Pease pudding goes exceptionally well with pork, particularly cured meats such as bacon chops, gammon steaks, ham hocks or one of those Polish-style smoked pork sausages. If you've boiled the ham, save the liquid and use it for the stock.

It's also delicious cold. Pour the leftover pease pudding into a bowl and put it in the fridge when it has cooled. It will set firm. Use it as a side dish with cold cuts, or spread it on piping hot toast.

I like to turn my leftover pease pudding into a terrine - line a small loaf tin with cling film then wafer thin slices of ham. Pour in the pease pudding, cool then chill in the fridge. To turn out, put a plate over the top of the loaf tin, flip it over, tap the tin hard then ease out the loaf. Carefully peel off the cling film then cut into thick slices - delicious with crusty bread and crudités.

Leftover pease pudding also reheats well in a microwave. Put in a bowl and cover with clingfilm then heat on full power for about two and a half minutes. It does not freeze well, however.

Winter root veg casserole

For me Christmas is almost entirely about the food - it's an opportunity to seriously indulge in rich dishes that you'd probably never eat during the rest of the year, and there's the excess too. I don't know anyone who doesn't overeat at Christmas.

My dinner this year was a small partridge, roasted along with some root vegetables (parsnips and carrots) plus homemade cranberry sauce from a friend. Then there was the cheese, the stollen, the mince-pie ice-cream... All that came after my traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast with smoked salmon and cava. Then onto Boxing Day, which is where eating up the leftovers starts. I'd roasted two partridges so I stripped the spare of its meat and turned it into a casserole (and there was just enough left for lunch the next day). Last night's supper consisted of cheese - a by-now very runny Camembert and the rest of the Blacksticks Blue - plus chutney, gherkins, olives and oatcakes.

And now, with delayed-onset indigestion, I feel the need for simplicity again and to give my overworked stomach a break. After so much meat and fat, I want only vegetables. (I'm also seriously considering the alcohol-free January challenge, which is becoming more popular, but that's another matter.) And with a pile of parsnips, swedes, carrots and sweet potato to finish up, this is healthy, filling, frugal and seasonal. This makes up to two helpings, depending on how much veg you use.


What you need: 
1-2 parsnips
1 carrots
1 medium onion, diced
1 small swede
1 large sweet potato
1 small fennel bulb
Half a litre of vegetable stock
A little plain flour
Half a glass of tawny port
Worcestershire Sauce
A couple of sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves

What to do:
Peel all the roots and cut into large bite-size chunks. Trim the fennel and cut into slender wedges. Sweat the onion in a little olive oil over a moderate heat and when it's softened and translucent, add a couple of heaped teaspoons of flour. Stir the flour through and cook it a little then add the stock slowly, stirring into the flour to stop any lumps forming. Add the port and a small dash of Worcestershire Sauce, the thyme and the bay leaves. Grind in some black pepper. Add the vegetables, bring the pot to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until all the veg are tender. Season to taste and eat.

Cook's tips:
No port left over? Use a glass of dry white wine instead, or a little cider or beer.

This casserole is ideal for using up some of the Christmas leftovers, so you could chuck in the last few mushrooms at the back of the fridge or ordinary potatoes. You can chop and change the roots - if you don't like swede, for example, use some celeriac instead, which will add some woody depth to the flavours. If you must have meat, chop up the last couple of slices of streaky bacon and cook them with the onions. You could also throw in leftover goose or ham if you have some.

Leftover duck or goose fat can be used to sweat the onions.

Strict vegetarians should leave out the Worcestershire Sauce as it contains anchovy. Use some soy sauce instead.

Lettuce and peas with preserved lemon

After a carb-heavy week in which I consumed not one but two cheese fondues (and recycled the leftovers of my own homemade one into a rarebit for the next day's breakfast) plus potatoes and much bread, I craved something light for supper. And with the unexpected early autumn heatwave hitting 28C in my city, a summer recipe was on the cards.

I'm not wildly keen on lettuce in its natural state - too many bad memories of the native English sort, all green and floppy and tasteless to start with then going soggy the minute dressing is applied - although I do enjoy a Caesar salad if the dressing is not too heavy and I'm very partial to frisée aux lardons, the recipe for which came from Parisian Boy.

I do like cooked lettuce though - the secret is to braise it gently until it's just wilted - and it goes spectacularly well with peas. Versions of lettuce with peas can be found all around southern Europe, each bringing out the essential sweetness of the main ingredients and many involving a generous dollop of double cream in the sauce. I find this too heavy for my liking, so I use half-fat crème fraîche instead for lightness and I like to add a note of tartness with preserved lemon.

What you need: 
A small onion, chopped
1 Little Gem lettuce, rinsed, drained and quartered
A mugful of frozen peas (or fresh if in season)
100ml of hot vegetable stock (a teaspoon of Marigold vegetable bouillon is enough for this quantity)
A generous spoonful of half-fat crème fraîche
Black pepper to season
1 preserved lemon
6 or 7 capers, rinsed (optional)
Small handful of chopped flatleaf parsley (optional)

What to do:
Make up the stock and heat some olive oil in a heavy sauteuse. Sauté the onion over a moderate heat until it turns translucent. Add the quartered lettuce and fry gently for a minute or two, turning it to wilt on all sides. Pour in the stock, add the peas and a good grinding of black pepper, then turn the heat down so it's only just simmering. Leave for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, halve the preserved lemon and pick out any pips, then slice very thinly. Purists say you should remove the flesh and only use the skin but I love the salty sourness of preserved lemon so much I use all of it. I also like to throw in a few capers, again for the tartness - give them a quick rinse under the tap if using (they are an acquired taste) to get rid of the brine. Add to the pan then stir in the crème fraîche. Serve immediately, sprinkled with the chopped parsley if using.

Cook's tips:
You can buy preserved lemons in most big supermarkets - Belazu and Al'Fez are the two main brands. You can also order them online from specialist websites that stock exotic ingredients, if you can't find them in a deli.

Little Gem really is the best salad leaf for this. Don't use anything bitter, like raddichio or endive, as it doesn't lend itself well to be cooked this way and the end taste is too sour. Iceberg is utterly tasteless, cooked or raw, and will bring nothing to the dish. Cos/Romaine, lamb's leaf and Batavia all work well - you'll only need only 3-4 large leaves of the Cos or Batavia, just shred them roughly before adding to the pan.

Two fondues and cheesy suppers

It's been British Cheese Week this past week - I don't normally get excited about "official weeks" for this, that and the other as most seem rather trivial, but the revival of artisan cheeses in this country is to be applauded. Some 20 years ago, when I upped sticks to France for a bit, UK supermarkets were full of generic slabs of factory cheddar and it was almost impossible to find real cheese in this country. There has been a revolution since then, with cheesemakers all over the UK vying to create some truly delicious cheeses that can easily match those from across the Channel. (Sadly, the supermarkets are still full of factory cheese.)

Cheese is a staple for solo food lovers. As a lone gourmet, once in a while I'll dig out the oatcakes and dine on a cheeseboard - a slice of Brie so ripe it's almost running off the plate, a slab of tangy, salty Roquefort and a wedge of artisan cheddar plus an apple make a very decent supper in front of the TV with a glass of wine. And I sometimes resort to the comfort of cheese on toast in the evening when I'm not massively hungry and feeling a bit lazy. I aim to have good bread in the house and will spread the untoasted side with some French grain mustard or some onion marmalade before topping with slices of cheese. I have a particular liking for Red Leicester, if I can find a decent piece, but all the traditional British hard cheeses toast up nicely.

Melted cheese, yummy as it is, always makes me yearn for fondue. It's a dish for sharing, of course, and it looks difficult, but it's actually really easy to knock up enough for one person and you don't even need a fancy fondue set (although I get mine out if I have guests). This takes under 10 minutes after you've prepped the ingredients.

What you need: 
100g Emmental, grated
50g Gruyère, cheddar or other hard cheese, grated
2tbsp Kirsch
1/2 level tbsp cornflour
1 clove garlic
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

What to do:
Peel and cut the garlic clove in half then rub it all over the inside of a small non-stick saucepan. Carefully blend one tablespoon of Kirsch in a mug or small jug with the cornflour. Warm the pan on the stove over a moderate heat and slosh in the second tablespoon of Kirsch until it starts to simmer. Turn the heat to low and start adding the cheese to the liquid a bit at a time, stirring the whole time with a wooden spoon to stop it sticking and burning. Make sure each handful of cheese is fully melted into the Kirsch before you add the next.

When all the cheese is in the pan and has melted, add the cornflour and Kirsch mixture to it and keep stirring furiously - this is really important, else the fondue will separate and curdle. Let it cook for two to three minutes more so the cornflour cooks through - it's ready when it looks like a creamy cheese sauce and comes away from the sides of the pan. Season to taste, though you'll probably find you don't need salt at all. Tip into a bowl and get stuck in. You can use chunks of crusty bread, boiled potatoes or crudités to scoop up the fondue. I usually have a small green salad on the side too - it helps cut through the richness of the cheese.

Cook's tips:
Be sure to use Emmental for the most authentic flavour and texture - this rubbery Swiss cheese has a high melting point and a pleasingly nutty flavour. Emmental usually, but not always, has holes in it, like Gruyère which is the other traditional cheese in a fondue. You can substitute other cheeses for the Gruyère, such as cheddar, but the results can be a little unpredictable as their melting point will be different so do keep an eye on the pan if you experiment.

If you don't have Kirsch, white wine is a good substitute. I have even used vermouth, vodka and grappa as a replacement when there's been no Kirsch in the cupboard. The point is to have a clear alcohol in which to melt the cheese.

The lazy gourmet option
I'm no fan of prepared foods, as it's usually just as quick to cook from scratch and it'll certainly be healthier, with less fat, salt and additives.

However, the lovely artisan cheesemakers at Butler's Cheese were kind enough to send me a sample of their new product a few days ago, to mark British Cheese Week. I've been a big fan of Butler's ever since I discovered their amazing Blacksticks Blue on the cheeseboard at the Mark Addy when dining there a year ago. A striking tangerine colour with thick grey veining and a black rind, it has a creamy texture and a defined mould taste that easily rivals Stilton, although I'm not sure it'll displace Roquefort as my favourite blue cheese.

Anyway, the cheese boffins at Butler's have created a mini microwaveable fondue made with their own handmade Lancashire cheese - I had my doubts when I first looked at it, because I struggled to believe you can make an edible prepackaged version, but the ingredients list is tiny and apart from cheese, milk and cream it has only a small amount of preservative. No Kirsch, but it is veggie-friendly and it comes in two little white plastic ramekins (see, I told you fondue is for sharing).

Putting my scepticism aside, I prised off the lids and popped the ramekins in my microwave, which is normally only dusted down for defrosting or reheating. Thirty seconds, a quick stir, another 15 seconds and another stir and it was ready.

I have to admit I was impressed - this really is almost as good as a homemade fondue, being both creamy and slightly stringy, and you could really taste the sharp and salty Lancashire cheese. Shared between two people, it would make a great tasty starter. For a lazy lone gourmet, the two pots together made a surprisingly filling meal with some crusty bread. If you don't have the confidence to rustle up a fondue yourself, this is a very acceptable alternative.

You'll need to be quick though - the Butler's fondue is only available between now and Christmas at Sainsbury's. It'll set you back just £3.

Creamy portobellos on toast

On busy days, I like to be able to rustle up an evening meal very quickly. My aim is 30 minutes or under, but if I can do it in 10 minutes that's even better. At the moment I'm craving simplicity because I've had several meals out this week with friends - one was a heavily meat-laden grill which I still feel bloated from, another had a decadently rich pudding of the sort I only indulge in once a year. So something quick, plain and simple was key for this supper. And as the weather turns nippy, something comforting also ticks the right boxes.

When I was a child my mother would shop every day for fresh food and she often came home with huge, flat portobello mushrooms that she would turn into a quick tea by serving them on toast. What I liked most were the copious black juices that would soak into the toast and turn the crispy bread into a soaking, dark mass rich with the flavour of the mushrooms. Whenever I buy portobello mushrooms, it's pretty much guaranteed what I will do with them.

I usually add some greens alongside the mushrooms, to give the dish an extra lift as well as provide some of my five a day. On my latest trip to the shops, I found some late-season purple sprouting broccoli, which stirred some excitement. I'm no fan of the more common calabrese broccoli, which I find largely tasteless and prone to turning quickly into soggy mess, but I adore purple sprouting which has a finer flavour and is less inclined to turn into mush if you take eye off it for a few seconds. 

What you need: 
2 portobello mushrooms
A little unsalted butter
A generous tablespoon of half-fat crème fraîche
2 slices of wholemeal bread
A pinch of fresh thyme leaves
6 spears of purple sprouting broccoli

What to do:
Melt a generous knob of butter in a small non-stick saucepan over a moderate heat. Slice the mushrooms into 3-4 strips then cut the strips into chunks. When the butter starts to froth and sizzle, toss in the mushrooms and stir with a wooden spoon to ensure they are all coated with the fat. Turn the heat down slightly and let the mushrooms cook. Meanwhile, pop the bread in the toaster and put the broccoli on to cook - you can steam it for around 6 minutes but I usually put half an inch of water into a pan, bring it to the boil, throw in the spears, jam a lid on and give them around 3-4 minutes, so they are still al dente.

The mushrooms are cooked when the pan is full of black juices. Turn the heat down as far as you can and add the crème fraîche and stir it through. Add the fresh thyme leaves and season with black pepper to taste (and salt if you used unsalted butter). Put the toast slices on the plate and tip the mushrooms onto them, spreading them out so the juices cover the bread. Serve the broccoli alongside.

Cook's tips: 
Timing is most critical for the broccoli. Get your pan on in good time. If the toast is ready before the broccoli, just leave it in the toaster, where it will stay warm for several minutes. Likewise, just turn off the heat under the mushrooms if you need to. 

I don't bother to butter the toast - there is already butter in the mushrooms, plus the crème fraîche and the juice from the mushrooms, which is plenty.

Lemon thyme, if you have some, works even better than plain thyme as the citrus notes help cut through the richness of the sauce. If you don't have any fresh thyme a tiny pinch of the dried variety will do, but add it earlier so it has a chance to soften during the cooking and release its flavour fully.

You can use any greens if purple sprouting broccoli is out of season - a little stir-fried kale or spring greens are a good substitute. If you use late-season purple sprouting, be sure to trim the stems well as they can be woody - you may need to cut off 3-4cm.