Recipe collections

Couscous salad with chicken and red peppers - lovely salad. As with most salads, the ingredients may vary – depending on your fancy and the contents of the fridge. I like to add some kind of cooked, warm vegetables.

The best pizza made at home is born between the frying pan and the grill. Easy dough, basic toppings, thin crust; no pizza stone, no wood fired oven. Beats takeaway every time!

A warm salad of Purple Majesty potatoes, zucchini and radishes. Dark potatoes are fairly common, but the ones I’d had before would turn ordinary white when boiled. Not these beauties! These are perfectly unique. To start with, the skin is almost completely black and while scrubbed, they reveal to have a thin film covering the tuber - like a second skin or, as I like to think, a veil.

Moroccan lamb pastillas are shaped like cigars with leftover lamb wrapped in filo pastry. Inspired by Jamie Oliver's recipe, these lamb pastillas are served with a yoghurt harissa dip.

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.

Mini puff pastry savoury tartlets with prawn, spinach or bacon and cheese homemade fillings. They might be a 70s throwback but still the favourite party food.

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.

Strawberry fizz cocktail with prosecco and grenadine. Let’s try this at home – I didn’t have any cassis or Chambord; I didn’t want to waste champagne on unknown quality and I wanted fruit in. It’s not exactly a sunrise but it’s rather excellent – and very summery.

Savoury tarte Tatin with confit tomatoes. Tomatoes are generally rubbish through three quarters of the year in the non-Mediterranean part of Europe. Tasteless and watery, with thick skins and not much flavour.