Recipe collections

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Pasta with fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil. I love fresh tomatoes with good quality pasta. The question whether you should buy ’fresh’ supermarket pasta is a moot point – buy dry. Good.

Pasta alla pizza is this simple but genius thing: pasta that tastes like pizza toppings. Pizza pasta is also the easiest supper you could possibly imagine.

This is the best and the easiest plum cake with crumble topping. German plum cake with streusel where plums can be swapped for any other soft fruit, it's brilliant every time.

Simple potato soup with mushroom flavour is as warming and comforting as easy it is to make. Chunky, waxy potatoes, carrot and celery in a fragrant, clear broth flavoured with wild mushroom – gorgeous.

Delicious homemade raspberry jam, easy to make even in small quantities. Equal amounts of fruit and sugar cooked to setting temperature. Also, don't believe in sugar free jams: they won't set. won't keep and contain unpleasant chemicals.

Classic rhubarb fool recipe, ready in minutes. A classic dessert, this rhubarb fool is made with rhubarb puree and whipped cream.

Sweetcorn and chorizo paella-style dish is stupidly easy to cook. No, you don't need a special pan and yes, you can swap chorizo for another kind of sausage.

Rissoles made with leftover roast duck, flavoured with apple and cheese. Rissoles are croquettes made with minced cooked meat, coated in breadcrumbs and fried or baked.

Chunks of beetroot roasted with honey, thyme, tarragon and balsamic vinegar. This is really gorgeous – beetroot baked long, loooong, you might even consider biscuit beetroot: cooked twice.

Roasted root vegetables with spiced bulgur wheat are a vibrant winter dish. It’s the classic roast vegetable medley with a summery vibe.

Roasted sweet potatoes with chorizo and bacon are the perfect blend of sweet, salty and spicy.

Potato, beetroot and celeriac rösti. A very Swiss thing. It’s the Alpine dish where you get the starch, the oil, the crispiness of frying, the seasoning – and preferably a sliver of bacon on top – which is just what you need after a day of skiing.

Homemade spiced sauerkraut, dead easy, can be made in small quantities. I should be talking all about raw and fermented so I’m side-tracking. Recipes abound, everyone is fermenting like crazy and the reports of all those good bacteria doing wonders to our guts are making poor old sauerkraut blush.

Sausage, pear and root vegetable tray bake with chestnut mushrooms and rosemary is an easy one pan dish that hits the comfort spot.

Sautéed courgettes with crisp and tasty toasted breadcrumb topping. Those are magic. They have the ability to transform the blandest vegetables into a feast.

Best red wine braised short ribs of beef with plum sauce, sweet and tender, called Obama’s short ribs, after the dish served to Barack Obama in a Harlem restaurant.

Slow cooked lamb neck fillet, oven braised with onions, peppers, pear and raisins. Lamb with Middle Eastern style flavours in a one-pot dish.

Salad of smoked mackerel, avocado, cucumber and celeriac; tasty and super-healthy. Tonnes of omega 3 from the mackerel - and it's mighty tasty!

Spicy seared bavette steak, seasoned with a dry rub of chilli flakes, oregano, garlic and a secret umami agent: dried mushroom powder.

Spinach and blue cheese pancakes aka crêpes. European pancakes are thin and - you guessed it - flat as a pancake. The savoury pancake filling is easy and makes a gorgeous dinner not just dessert.

Deep fried sprats can be eaten whole, head, tail and all but it’s very easy to lop the heads off and clean the sprats a bit. An easy, cheap and delicious treat.

Pan fried mackerel fillet with sweet sticky sauce. There are two secrets to successfully pan-frying fish. One is a smoking hot pan and the other – the skin of the fish PERFECTLY dry. Otherwise you’ll be scraping the fish bits off the pan forever.

Stir fry cabbage - super quick, super tasty, with herbs, garlic and honey. First off – buy the right stuff. The new season, loosely packed cabbage is the best, in fact the less on the head, the better. What the supermarkets call spring cabbage will do too.

Cabbage rolls stuffed with a pork mince and rice filling, baked in simple tomato sauce – that’s Polish golabki; the ultimate comfort dish. Also, the best use of the outer cabbage leaves.