Okay these are a bit naughty and this isn’t really cooking, but I’ve made these a few times recently and they vanished very quickly indeed.

You’ll need:

• 2 or 3 small packets of tortilla chips - Sainsbury’s Basics ones are only 17p per packet
• 1 jar of salsa - eg Sainsbury’s Basics, 69p for 200g jar
• A few handfuls of grated cheese
• A spring onion

Spread the tortillas on a baking tray or dish. Smother in salsa. Sprinkle with cheese and the chopped spring onion and grill until bubbling hot. Great with chilli or even Buzz Burgers.

Or French Toast, which I made for the kids ages ago and they all hated it. Except now Henry loves it and wants it every day. Makes 1 portion.

• 1 egg
• 1 thick slice of soft bread
• splash of full-fat milk
• pinch of cinnamon - more if you fancy
• maple syrup to taste
• knob of butter
• heart of gold

Beat an egg and cinnamon with a splash of milk - and a fork. Put the butter in a hot frying pan. Put the eggy mixture on a plate and soak each side of the bread in it. Put the bread in the pan and fry until a beautiful mottled brown colour. Eat immediately with maple syrup - bacon on top is perfect too!

Okay, doesn’t sound that appetising, but this went down a treat with a bottle of the excellent ginger-spiced Blandford Fly beer. I didn’t even grumble about the brown rice - it was totally like being back in a cafe in Bristol in the 1980s… Recipe adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery, BBC, 1982, serves 4.

• 200g red split lentils
• 1 litre water
• half teaspoon ground turmeric
• vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 250g finely chopped cabbage
• dried flaked chillies
• tomato puree
• half teaspoon dried ginger

Boil the lentils in the water, removing scum and add the turmeric. Cover and simmer gently until tender. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a pan and sizzle the cumin seeds. Add the garlic and onion, cabbage & chillies. Fry until cabbage starts to crisp. Add salt if you want. When the lentils are cooked, add the tomato puree and ginger and the cabbage mix. Simmer for 2-3 minutes and serve with brown basmati rice.

Henry & Tilly went pumpkin carving the other day, and they brought home a couple of extra pumpkins they hadn’t finished - which was a bonus as I could make soup…

• Large pumpkin
• 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
• large knob of butter
• 4 large carrots
• 2 large onions
• cumin seeds
• ground cinnamon
• ground ginger
• nutmeg

Scoop the inside of the pumpkin with an ice-cream scoop. Keep the seeds to one side and chop the pumpkin flesh. Save the empty pumpkin either for use as a soup tureen or to make a lantern.

Fry the onions gently in the butter for 5 minutes with a few cumin seeds, taking care not to brown the onions. Add the chopped carrots, pumpkin and stock. Add salt, pepper, ground ginger and cinnamon to taste - I used about a quarter of a teaspoon of ginger & cinnamon - a bit more would probably have been even nicer. Simmer on a low heat, lid on for about half an hour. Whizz up with a hand blender or food processor and serve with crusty bread, grating nutmeg on top. Perfect after an autumn walk in the park!

For the seeds… put the oven on a low heat - no more than 125 centigrade. Wash the seeds removing any flesh or stringy bits, pat dry with kitchen roll. Place on a baking tray in the oven until quite dry - took about half an hour. You can then put them in salads, or do what I did - toss them in a little sunflower oil and lots of sea-salt - deeeelishous!

Adapted, if not pinched, from the Able & Cole recipe, adding Noilly Prat vermouth and using mint instead of thyme, as we have mint growing by our kitchen door but no thyme. That’s the trouble with modern life; never enough thyme.

• 450g broad beans, shelled. Peel the skins off the bigger beans.
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 glass Noilly Prat vermouth
• 2 or 3 big fat cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 500g risotto rice
• 1.7 litres of hot chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you prefer but I’m afraid this really does taste a squillion times better with chicken stock). Best if you make your own chicken stock, it’s really easy and makes you feel good. I’ll post my highly scientific method soon.
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint
• Sea salt and pepper
• Fresh parmesan shavings

Gently heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan. Cook the onion until it has softened but do not let it brown. Add broad beans and the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes. Stir in the rice and continue to cook until the grains have become translucent and glossy. Throw in the glass of Noilly Prat and inhale deeply. Life doesn’t get better than this.

Turn the heat down and add the stock, one ladle at a time. All the liquid must be absorbed before adding more. Stir all of the time. This will take no less than 20–25 minutes. Add half the mint with the last ladle of liquid. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Take the pan off the heat, cover and leave of stand. Serve hot on warmed plates and sprinkle with the last of the mint and shavings of Parmesan.

This is adapted from “Super Soups” - a tiny National Trust recipe book I picked up years ago in Northumberland.

- 1 head of celery.
- 1 large carrot.
- 1 large onion.
- 1 and a half pints (900ml) vegetable stock
- 75g grated cheddar cheese
- 100g grated stilton cheese

Trim the celery (optionally leave one or two stalks aside for later). Peel and chop the carrot and onion and place in a saucepan with the stock (I just use a veggie Oxo cube) and season.

Let it come to the boil and then simmer for about an hour.

Give the soup a whirr with a blender. Reheat in the pan and add the grated cheese.

If you decided to save some celery stalks now is the time to chop them into slices. Add them to the bowls when you serve to give the soup a bit of crunch.

This has evolved from a recipe on the side of a packet of Marmite stock cubes. I don’t think you can get Marmite stock cubes any more - it probably dawned on people that you could just use ordinary Marmite in cooking instead. It’s a basic vegetable stew, made with whatever we have to hand.

• Lots of root vegetables - potatoes, parsnips, turnips, carrots etc
• celery
• garlic
• olive oil
• large onion
• tin of tomatoes
• tin of mixed beans - kidney beans, borlotti beans etc
• mushrooms, if you have them
• tomato puree
• slug of red wine
• teaspoon of Marmite
• dried mixed herbs
• bay leaf
• 2 handfulls of small pasta (such as ditali lisci no. 58)
• teaspoon of vegetable stock powder such as Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon.

Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil. When well-cooked add the roughly chopped celery and root vegetables. Fry for a few minutes and add all the other ingredients, topping up with water as needed to cover the veg. Simmer on the stove or in the oven for an hour or so.

Adapted from ‘Stones Spells for Magic Feasts’, a veggie cookbook from a cafe in Avebury, Wiltshire - near the stone circle.

• Fresh tomatoes
• fresh basil and/or dried herbs
• garlic
• onion
• cream
• red wine (optional)
• vegetable stock
• tomato puree

Halve and roast the tomatoes with garlic and onion, scattered with oregano and basil (we used dried mixed herbs and fresh basil). When skins start to blaken, pulp in the Magimix. Put the puree in a pan with some red wine (we skipped that with no ill-effects), stock and tomato puree. Whisk to combine, reheat gently on the stove and then stir in some cream or fromage frais (we used double cream) when it simmers. Just delicious.