This should feed 5 people easily. Adapted from The Little Swedish Kitchen by Rachel Khoo – I highly recommend the book and TV series.

• 500g tagliatelle pasta
• 350g hot dogs, chopped into small chunks
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 100ml double cream
• knob of butter or slash of oil
• splash of milk
• 2 tablespoons of capers, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
• heaped teaspoon of paprika (not smoked)
• 2 spring onions, finely chopped
• salt & pepper

Get a big pan of salted boiling water and get the pasta on.

Fry the onion and sausages in the butter or oil until the onion starts to brown. Add the cream, paprika and tomato puree. Simmer for a few minutes. Loosen the sauce with the milk and some of the pasta water if you think it needs it. Mix in the capers and spring onions. Serve.

Ingredients

• 1 chicken stock cube
• a handful of frozen stir-fry veg, quickly fried
• 1 far garlic clove, thinly chopped
• 1 red chilli, thinly sliced
• a few good slugs of soy sauce
• a few shakes of Worcester sauce
• thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger root, thinly sliced – it’s always a ‘thumb-sized’ piece of ginger. Perhaps because ginger looks like thumbs.
• 1 teaspoon Chinese five spice
• pinch of chilli powder
• some sugar or sweetener, e.g. honey or agave nectar
• 2 packets of thick easy-cook ramen / udon noodles – the moist ones.
• 8 strips of pork belly
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• vegetable oil
• sesame seeds
• spring onion, chopped
• some baby spinach leaves
• a sheet of nori / dried seaweed

Method

Rub the pork belly strips with Chinese 5 spice and set aside.

Quickly fry a few handfuls of frozen stir-fry veg in some vegetable oil and set aside.

Add some sesame oil to the pan and turn up the heat. Sear the pork belly strips until they are brown on each side and set aside. Pour off any excess fat.

In the same pan, with all the caramelised porky bits, combine the chicken stock cube, sauces, sweetener, 750ml hot water, garlic, ginger, fresh chilli, a pinch of chilli powder and a pinch more 5 spice. Bring to the boil and simmer for a while. Add more water if required. Add the noodles and veg.

Slice the pork belly in the opposite direction to the strips so each porky chunk has a strip of meat and fat and add to the pot. Simmer gently until pork and noodles are cooked, add the spinach and put the lid on until it has wilted.

Serve and garnish with sesame seeds, spring onion and shredded nori.

Ok, this is about as French as cricket, but I was listening to fip as I was eating this, and the presenter wished her listeners a ‘bonne Dimanche’. Bonne Dimanche indeed.

To feed one person you will need:

• 2 slices off a large white crusty loaf of bread
• 1 rasher of bacon
• A sausage opened out, or a sausage-amount of sausage meat
• A slice of cheese (I used Emmental)
• Condiments of choice

Put the grill on! On some foil, flatten out the sausage meat so it’s the same shape and size as your bread. The idea here is that it cooks much more quickly than a normal sausage. Put it under a medium-high grill with the bacon.

When the bacon and sausage are looking cooked on one side, flip them and put the bread under the grill. Keep an eye on it.

When the bread is toasted on one side, flip it over, put the sausage meat on one slice and add the cheese on top. Keep under the grill for a minute or two until all the meat is cooked and cheese melted.

Assemble and eat with condiments like tomato ketchup or American mustard.

SonA had a fried egg in his as well, but I think that’s de trop.

Serves 4. You will need:

• 1 packet of Lidl bratwurst.
• 1 jar of Sainsbury’s Basics Curry Sauce
• Heinz ketchup
• skinny oven fries

Sainsbury’s Basics curry sauce is currently on sale for THIRTY PENCE for a large jar, same size as their ‘Chinese Chip Shop Curry Sauce’ which is around FIVE TIMES more expensive. The cheaper sauce has less salt, less fat and fits the bill perfectly.

I fried the bratwurst, but next time I’ll grill them and I grilled the skinny oven fries. I heated the curry sauce in a small saucepan with a very large squirt of ketchup.

When the fried are crispy, serve with the sausages and douse in curry sauce / ketchup mix. EAT. And feel very, very guilty.

Feeds 3.

• 6 tortilla wraps
• 6 eggs
• 6 sausages
• 3 rashers of bacon
• splash of milk
• butter & vegetable oil
• half tsp vanilla extract
• half tsp ground cinnamon
• salt & pepper
• 6 slices processed cheese (the more artificial the better)

Put the grill on, and cook the sausages and bacon. Use 3 eggs to make 1 plain batch of scrambled eggs. Place 1 slice of cheese on each of the 3 wraps and divide eggs equally among 3 wraps. Slice the cooked bacon & sausages and do the same, piling everything up in the middle. Trim 3 wraps so they are slightly smaller, place on top of each wrap, and fold the bottom over to make a tight package.

Now we did the next bit different ways.

You can fry this wrap on both sides until golden brown and serve with scrambled eggs made with cinnamon and vanilla, or you can fry the wrap quickly on both sides, dip in the vanilla / cinnamon scrambled egg mix and fry again. I actually preferred the first way. EAT.

Serves 1 adult, 2 teenagers & 1 child.

Ingredients:

• 400g good quality pasta (I used De Cecco miniature penne)
• 23 frozen Ikea meatballs
• 1 tin of plum tomatoes
• splash of Worcestershire sauce
• teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
• half an onion
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 fat clove of garlic
• heaped teaspoon of sugar
• squirt of Heinz tomato ketchup
• half a bottle of red wine
• half a Knorr beef stockpot thingy
• 1 tablespoon of plain flour
• half teaspoon each of chilli powder, dried oregano, dried thyme
• salt, pepper
• some fresh basil & parmesan to garnish

Put the oven on – 225 degrees C – for the meatballs.

Finely chop the onion and fry on a low heat in the oil. As it starts to colour, add the garlic, chilli powder, thyme and oregano. Fry for another minute or so, taking care the garlic doesn’t burn. Slowly add the wine and then the beef stock cube. Add a can of tomatoes and a can of water and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer for 5 or 1o minutes and add the Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, small amount of salt, pepper, sugar. Then add the sieved flour, and when you are happy everything is  cooked, blitz with a hand-blender. Check the seasoning, add ketchup to taste. Simmer and reduce for 15 minutes or so while you cook the pasta on the stove and meatballs in the oven.

You should end up with a thick, rich sauce. When the meatballs are cooked, plop them in the sauce pan (hey, I wonder if that’s where the name comes from…) so they soak up that umami-rich loveliness. Dish up a portion of pasta on each plate, add meatballs & sauce on top, garnish with shaved parmesan and fresh basil. EAT.

Makes 3 burritos.

Ingredients:

• 1 huge potato (or 3 small ones)
• 1 medium or small onion
• some fresh chillis
• half a red pepper, diced
• 3 eggs
• 3 sausages of choice
• 5 rashers of bacon
• salt, pepper
• olive oil
• smoked paprika
• chilli sauces of choice
• 200g grated cheddar cheese
• 3 tortillas / wraps

Put the grill on, grill the sausages and bacon. Remove the bacon when crispy.

Peel and grate the potato and onion – I used a food processor and picked the gratings out by hand to leave the juice out. Fry the potato and onion in a big pan. If it sticks and goes brown in places, so much the better. Add the diced red pepper, fresh chilli, salt, pepper, some smoked paprika. After about 10 minutes, chop the crispy bacon into chunks and add to the pan, stir. Crack in 3 eggs and mix, stirring until the egg is cooked. Then add the cheese and stir until melted.

Now get your 3 tortillas and place a cooked sausage in the middle of each. Surround the sausage with the mixture from the pan, and add your chilli sauce of choice at this point (we like the Wahaca ones). Fold your burrito and quickly grill them in the same tray you cooked the bacon and sausage in.

I’d have taken a better photo, but they didn’t hang around long enough. Not quite as epic as Epic Meal Time’s, but a whole lot quicker and easier. And so, so tasty. We could all have eaten another one…

This was perfect meal for a wet and not-at-all warm half term supper. Adapted from Jamie at Home.

Serves 4 hungry young hippos.

• 1kg pork shoulder, skin-on, seasoned with salt & pepper
• 1 or 2 onions, thinly sliced
• some fresh chillies
• 2 heaped tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
• 2 tsp dried oregano and/or marjoram
• 2 red, orange or yellow peppers
• 1 x 400g tin tomatoes
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• rice, soured cream, wraps to serve

Heat the oven to 180C. Fry the pork, fat-side down, in some olive oil in an 0ven-proof casserole for about 15 minutes. When the fat has rendered a bit, put the pork to one side and fry the onions, chilli, paprika, fennel seeds, herbs and peppers for about 10 minutes. Then add the tomatoes, red wine vinegar and pop the pork back in. Top up with water and put in the oven for an hour or two, until the pork is cooked and pulls apart in tender strands.

Serve with rice and / or wraps and soured cream. Delicious.

Ok – not a recipe, but this was so tasty I had to share. A BLT with melted cheese. Slice crusty bread in half, spread with a little mayo. Add ketchup & American mustard to one side. Slice sweet small tomatoes on one side & cover with black pepper. When you flip the bacon over, add a thin slice of your cheese of choice to the cooked side & let it melt in the frying pan. When the cheese is gloopy, add the bacon to the bread and stuff in some leaves – rocket would be good but I used lettuce & baby spinach. Assemble and eat. The weather justifies it.