Serves 2.

Ingredients

• 2 Sainsbury’s Basics frozen white fish fillets, defrosted and chopped into large chunks
• Optional: handful of defrosted frozen prawns
• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
• 2 fresh chillies
• small (160ml Waitrose Essentials) tin of coconut cream
• 3 cloves of garlic
• tin or carton of Basics chopped tomatoes
• 3 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger
• small handful of fresh coriander
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

To make the paste, whizz up in a blender the chillies, ground coriander, cumin, ginger, turmeric & garlic.

Fry the onions and red peppers in some oil, add the paste – fry for a bit more so the spices seep into the oil, then add the tomatoes and coconut cream. Bring to the boil, add the fish and simmer for 20 minutes with a lid on. Add some chopped fresh coriander at the end, and serve with boiled basmati rice. Delicious and warming on a dark and stormy winter’s night waiting for Sherlock to come on TV.

I’d have taken a photo, but it didn’t hang around long enough.

It feels like summer is almost here, so while I was tidying up the garden I got a lamb stew on the go. It’s a bit like this one that I made a while back, with a few twists.

For the stew:

• 500g lamb
• 400g tin tomatoes
• harissa paste
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 6 – 10 dried apricots
• salt & pepper
• half an onion
• a few garlic cloves
• 4 small carrots
• water

Put the oven on at about 170C. Cut the lamb into big chunks – about the size of a piece of meat that you’d say ‘ooh lovely’ if it was served to you in a posh restaurant, but secretly you’d be disappointed. Rub a couple of tabelspoons of harissa paste, salt & pepper all over the meat and leave to marinate at room temperature for an hour or so.

In a casserole dish, quickly brown the meat, add the onion thickly sliced, garlic and whole carrots. When it’s looking brown all over, add the tomatoes and a can and a half of water. Add the apricots, halved, and bay leaves. Put in the low oven for a couple of hours, topping up the water after an hour if required.

For the cous cous:

• 250g cous cous
• salt & pepper
• 1 tsp vegetable stock powder
• dash olive oil
• half a teaspoon of sumac

Cover all the ingredients with boiling hot water, stir & leave until cooked.

For the roast veg:

• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 red onion, quartered
• 12 cherry tomatoes
• sliced butternut squash, skin-on
• 1 aubergine, diced

Coat the veg in olive oil, salt & pepper and roast along with the stew – keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t catch.

This was lovely in the garden with a glass of cold Riesling, with fish for the pescatarians. The lamb was sweet & spicy & melty. Delicious.

This is pretty easy and so so tasty.

• half a leg of lamb or 800g lean diced lamb
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 400g tin of chickpeas
• cinnamon stick
• small packet of ready-to-eat apricots roughly chopped
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
• salt & pepper
• water
• couscous – enough to feed your hoard
• vegetable stock cube or melt

Put the oven on to 190° C. If you have half a leg of lamb (rather than diced lamb), chop it into very large pieces – about 6 chunks maybe. I left the bone in for extra flavour. Remove as much of the fat as you can as you cut it – use a sharp knife or a pair of kitchen scissors if you like. I know fat adds flavour, but lamb is so fatty you can afford to remove a lot. Rub the ground spices (add more cumin and coriander if you like, but go easy with the paprika), salt & pepper into the meat and fry in a little olive oil in the casserole. When it starts to brown, add the garlic, apricots, tomatoes, cinnamon stick, drained rinsed chickpeas and enough water to cover the meat. Bring to the boil, cover, then put in the oven for about an hour.

Make the couscous up to the packet instructions – I like to add a veg stock melt or cube to the mix. Spread a layer of couscous over the casserole and bake or grill with the lid off for a further 10 minutes or so. Serve with some freshly-steamed green beans and crusty bread to mop up the juice.

This recipe from Waitrose Kitchen magazine was utterly delicious.

I’d use half the amount of star anise next time, and I substituted a small amount of nutmeg as I didn’t have any mace. I fished out the bay leaves, cinnamon and star anise before serving. Perfect for a firework night supper, and a great way of cooking cheap packs of diced pork shoulder. (Click on the image above to get a larger image of the recipe).

Serves 4. You will need:

• 200g cous cous
• 2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
• 2 x teaspoons harissa paste – more if you like it hot
• 2 x large teaspoons of garam masala ground spice mix
• 1 x 400g tin of chickpeas
• 1 very large or 2 medium onions
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 3 chicken breasts
• 2 handfuls of chopped dried apricots

Chop the onion and fry in a little olive oil with the garam masala spice in two separate pans. The spices should cook a bit and flavour the oil. After the onion has cooked a bit add half the chopped garlic to each pan. Add a teaspoon of harissa paste to each pan and give a good stir.

Cut the chicken breasts into strips and add to one pan, stirring so they get coated with the spices and cook all over. Add one third of the drained, rinsed chickpeas to the chicken, and then put the rest (two thirds) in the veggie pot.

When the chicken strips look cooked, add a handful of apricots and a tin of tomatoes to each pan, season with salt & pepper, top up with a little water if needed, put lids on and simmer for half an hour or so. Make the cous cous up by following the instructions on the packet – I just poured on boiling water to slightly more than cover the cous cous in a bowl, left it for 10 minutes and fluffed it up with a fork.

Give everyone two large spoons of cous cous and put the stew on top – serve with a dollop of yoghurt if it’s extra spicy, or and / or some chopped coriander leaves.

It was delicious. The veggie one ended up much spicier than the meat one for some reason – I must have put more harissa in it. I’m having the leftovers with Turkish flatbread for my lunch tomorrow. Can’t wait.

This is a great, easy, delicious stew – just fry some onions and sage in a casserole, bung in some diced stewing beef, root vegetables (I use parsnips, swede, carrots, potatoes), red wine and beef stock. Cook for an hour ar 160C, then leave in the oven for a few hours on a low heat, say just over 100C. Melty meat, warms the soul. I make a veggie version too – replace the meat with some beans, and the beef stock with veggie stock.

Lancashire Hotpot is traditionally made with lamb, but this hotpot variation calls for beef.

- Some diced stewing steak. About 500g.
- Potatoes – loads.
- One onion.
- Half a pint of red wine.
- Veggie stock cube (optional).

Preheat the oven to 170c.

Peel the spuds and cut them into chunks about the same size as the pieces of your meat.

Coarsely chop the onion.

Throw the meat, potatoes and onion into a large pot.

Pour in the wine and top up with boiling water. Add the stock cube if you want.

Put the lid on the pot and leave in the oven for three hours. I usually take it out and give it a stir once an hour, but there’s really no need to!

Serve while piping hot. You can garnish with beetroot, and it’s also really good with some biscuits of shortcrust pastry to help mop up the juice.

I think it’s a great dish for this time of year. It’s lovely to put on before going to see a fireworks display. When you come back home the delicious smell will meet you at the front door, and the meal will warm you all up again. If there are any left-overs it’s just as good reheated in a saucepan the next day!