Recipe collections

Fennel and spinach lasagne rolls, a pasta bake with salty feta mixed into mild fennel, and creamy spinach sauce as a background to the rolled up, stuffed lasagne sheets.

Fermented buckwheat bread: the most natural and the healthiest loaf possible, with a great flavour, and wholly gluten free.

Fermented red cabbage with chillies and ginger, Europe’s answer to kimchi. Red cabbage sauerkraut is made exactly like the white but it’s vibrant and a bit more crunchy.

Creamy fish pie with layered sliced potato topping. Chunky fish and prawns, Mornay sauce and crispy layer of sliced potato topping finished with bubbly cheese..

Roasted gammon hock with plum sauce. Gammon hock is a cured pork shank or knuckle, easy to prepare and extremely good value. Soak it, boil it and then roast it for meat falling off the bone.

Garlicky runner beans with butter and Parmesan, unexpectedly delicious for such a humble bean. The best way to cook runner beans is to blanch them for 5 minutes, until just tender, then toss in butter and parmesan.

Glazed carrots cooked in a butter and stock emulsion, flavoured with cinnamon and finished with parsley, lemon and almond flakes. Just the side for a roast chicken or a meatloaf!

Gochujang chicken, spicy and sweet Korean stir fry with gochujang, fermented chilli paste based sauce. Gochujang is your next go-to store cupboard ingredient!

Grilled hispi cabbage with almond flakes, deliciously charred quarters cooked in a frying pan or griddle can be as tender or crunchy as you like it.

Quick grilled lamb neck fillet marinated overnight in rosemary, mint and honey. Buy it cheap, cook it quick - beats the pricey lamb chops or steaks.

Grilled whole mackerel with spice crust: it’s healthy, it’s cheap and it takes fifteen minutes to prepare. With a squeeze of lemon and a simple salad, it’s an easy and delightful dish.

Grilled mussels with crispy topping of black pudding breadcrumbs are an elaborate but easy starter or lunch dish, moules and black pudding being a marvellous flavour pairing. Crispy, slightly cheesy crust over cooked mussels in their half shelves is simply delicious.

Herby courgette pasta bake, with roasted garlic and Pecorino, simple and super-tasty. The best thing to do with courgettes? Bake them with pasta!

Honey millet porridge for breakfast provides a wonderful variety from oats. Hulled millet, tiny yellow beads toasted with cinnamon and cooked with honey is a lovely breakfast dish.

Island buttermilk cake: no eggs, no butter, just fresh berries and the magic ingredient - buttermilk. The cake originates from Cranberry Island Bakery in Maine which sadly is no more. Huge shame as their defunct Facebook page also shows some divine whoopies.

Oven baked fresh sardine fillets with herbs, garlic and lemon, Italian style. Sandwiched in pairs, they only take 13 minutes to cook.

Large supersized jam tart with easy shortcrust pastry bottom and lid, and no rolling out involved. Get that jar of your best raspberry jam into action!

Kabocha squash gratin, a creamy, cheesy, delightfully comforting winter dish using a lesser known squash, also known as Japanese pumpkin.

Kale crisps baked in the oven in two flavours: garlic and chilli, and Middle Eastern coriander-cinnamon. Best for when you need a zero calorie snack.

Kalpudding, Swedish brown cabbage meatloaf, served with boiled or mashed potatoes and a sweet and spicy preserve, is best homemade – and one more reason NOT to go to IKEA!

Roasted rolled breast of lamb stuffed with raisins and served with roast grapes. Lamb breast is one of those cheaper cuts of what is an expensive kind of meat, with huge potential.

Homemade lamb doner kebab from Tom Kerridge is made in the oven, served in a tortilla wrap and devoured in seconds. Who said you can’t make street food at home?

Greek style lamb koftas served with a simple harissa dip. Lamb koftas are perfect for a barbecue and just as tasty griddled, with this easy recipe for koftas and harissa sauce.

Lamb neck fillet stuffed with spicy nduja sausage, grilled with fresh rosemary sprigs. New season lamb neck is best for grilling, and nduja flavours it beautifully with spicy heat.

Roast lamb shank with anchovy and caper butter, meltingly tender, served on a bed of stir fried cabbage with bacon and tomato - the best side dish for lamb.

Leek and potato bake, or gratin, with creme fraiche and cheese. This is a vegetarian dish which resembles tartiflette or pommes dauphinoises in its levels of comfort.

Leek and potato soup, homemade is the best. Soup is the easiest, cheapest and quickest thing to cook at home. Especially if you are a proponent of Soup With Bits, like me – you won’t need a blender.

Leek slaw, a simple salad of raw leeks with cucumber and radish, seasoned with black pepper and honey. Leeks are incredibly healthy when eaten raw, did you know?

Creamy leeks sautéed with wild garlic. Wild garlic aka bear’s garlic or ramsons turns up in April in woody, wet, marshy lands and down in the overgrown part of my garden.

Lemon and poppy seed biscuits, zesty and crunchy and not too sweet, are super easy to make without rolling out the dough. And most importantly, they are perfectly dunkable.

Lentil and chorizo stew, with ripe fresh tomatoes and lentils cooked from scratch - or a 15-minute shortcut to just as wonderful spicy, hearty dish. This recipe for lentils and chorizo is a cross between Spanish lentil stew and Mexican chilli.

Malva pudding is a South African baked dessert, traditionally served at Christmas. It’s a soft cake flavoured with apricot jam and drenched in vanilla cream sauce.

Meatball casserole with courgettes, red peppers and tomato sauce. So okay, wait until you’ve made so many meatballs for one dinner you’ll have a pile left over for a casserole for another.

Pork and smoky bacon meatballs with tomato flavoured bulgur wheat, a variation on Swedish, Italian and Moroccan meatball classics.

Pink Mexican rice, arroz rojo, is easy and incredibly tasty. Spicy restaurant style Mexican rice is cooked like pilaf, with tomato and onion puree for the colour, chillies for the heat and diced potato and carrot for the texture.

Mexican street sweetcorn salad, esquites, with sweetcorn cooked in the frying pan mixed with a salty, herby, spicy, cheesy dressing, is the second best thing after a holiday to Cancun!

Samin Nosrat’s chocolate cake, aka midnight cake is one of the easiest and the nicest chocolate cakes in the world. It is an old, revived Betty Crocker recipe, and I finish it with a mixed dried fruit salad topping for a citrusy tang.

Creamy mushroom ragu made to Heston Blumenthal’s recipe is a rich and flavourful dressing for pasta, gnocchi or polenta. With a hint of tomato, it's Umami Central.

Mushroom sauce, creamy and fragrant, with a few dried wild mushrooms that make all the difference. The sauce for pasta, steak, chicken, meatballs and whatever you fancy.

Moules marinières with cream, fairly standard, but this recipe has a tiny twist. The usual spiel is to cook mussels with wine, take them out and then add cream – what a waste of time. I added the cream beforehand, turned up the heat full whack and threw the shells in...

Oatmeal biscuits, the healthiest cookies, sprinkled with pinhead oats. They are gluten-free and only contain three spoonfuls of sugar. Definitely good for your gut with all the fibre, but oatmeal apparently also lowers bad cholesterol levels while providing bags of nutrients.

Homemade granola with olive oil and maple syrup, with seeds, nuts and dried apricots. It’s toasted in the oven till golden, crisp and irresistible.

Osso buco - shin of veal, slow cooked with porcini and tomato sauce. The shin of veal is a delicious cut, actually much better than a lamb shank, equally cheap, cooks all by itself and is a joy to eat – just leave the marrow to me.

Oven braised racks of baby back pork ribs with Creole seasoning and maple syrup glaze, cooked for 4 hours into tender perfection.

Oven roasted courgette with hot and sweet seasoning, a twist on Thomas Keller viral ‘scored zucchini’ recipe.

Thai pork with chilli and basil, pad ka-prao moo, spicy and fragrant, is classic Thai street food dish and unbelievably easy to make at home.

Pan-fried calves' liver with red onions cooks in 5 minutes, it's tender, juicy and delicious. And eating offal is a way to reduce waste and meat emissions.

Pan-fried wood pigeon breast is a great starter. It's an easy and quick recipe for very underrated, tasty, cheap and sustainable meat. Serve it with orange caramel and pomegranate seeds.