You will need:

• tin of sardines in spring water
• tablespoon tomato puree
• 2 or 3 tablespoons of very finely chopped or minced onion
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of finely chopped parsley
• half a tablespoon of tomato sauce
• half a tablespoon of olive oil, unless you’re John Paul Getty in which case go for it and use more
• squeeze of lemon juice
• half a teaspoon of chilli powder
• salt and pepper

Strain the sardines and combine all the ingredients. You could whizz it up in a blender but I just mashed it with a fork in a bowl and spread it on crusty bread with cucumber. Delicious!

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 big carrot
• 7 potatoes
• 4 fillets of frozen suspiciously generic white fish (don’t ask)
• 4 fillets of frozen smoked fish e.g. haddock
• A splash of milk
• Approx 150ml double cream, possibly slightly old
• Approx 100-200g cheddar cheese, no idea how much really
• 2 eggs
• 8 nuggets of frozen spinach
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon plain flour
• pinch of mixed herbs
• pinch of smoked paprika
• Optional: few fennel seeds, a very few threads of saffron
• Butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, smooth mustard, grain mustard
• Optional tomato ketchup

For the sides

• A bowl of frozen peas
• 10 leaves of cavolo nero
• 1 spring onion
• lemon juice

Method

Put the oven on 200C, fan 180C

If the cavolo nero has just been picked from the allotment, as ours had, put the leaves in a bowl of salted cold water.

Peel and dice the potatoes, boil with salt and the eggs until the potatoes are soft and the eggs are hard.

Meanwhile, finely chop or food process the onion, celery, carrot. Fry in oil in an oven-proof pan until soft. Add the fish, spinach, black pepper, bay leaf, smooth mustard and a splash of milk. Put the lid on and simmer until the fish is cooked and falling apart.

Then take the lid off, sprinkle in the flour, herbs, paprika, any other spices and add the cream. Reduce the mix by stirring and simmering with the lid off.

When the mix looks gloopy, remove the bay leaf. Mix in the diced cheese. Halve the peeled eggs and place 4 halves in a cross so everyone gets half an egg.

Drain and mash the potatoes with a knob of butter, pepper and a large teaspoon of grain mustard.

Spread the potato on top of the fish mix, put lines in it with a fork and bake in the oven for half an hour or so until it starts going crispy.

Slice the spring onion into chunky diagonals and fry in olive oil, butter and pepper. When they are soft at the sliced cavolo nero. Slice the stems thinner than the leaves. Fry until wilted, add a squeeze of lemon juice.

Zap the frozen peas for around 3 or 4 minutes in the microwave, drain and serve.

Dish up the pie, cavolo nero and peas with a squirt of ketchup and a glass of white wine.

Comfort bliss.

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.

So this week I roasted some potatoes and carrots in a little vegetable oil and stuck a couple of duck legs in the oven too. I did them in a Nigel Slater duck salad style: rubbed the skin with Chinese five spice and seasoned with salt & pepper and roasted at 200C for an hour. I crisped the skin up a bit by injecting the fat back in with a metal baster. I then added the rendered fat into the potatoes for extra yumminess.

Steamed some green veg. Cooked a couple of slabs of salmon in the same oven, with olive oil, salt, pepper & dill. Quickly pan fried the steak with a bit of garlic and some bloody ‘artisanal’ bread left over from the farmers’ market. Sliced the steak and the duck and everyone helped themselves. Didn’t bother with gravy – there was a dollop of mayonnaise for anyone who fancied it.

Net result: much less bother than a normal roast chicken with gravy, and the boys are now hooked on roast duck. It was delicious, and so easy. Nice one, Nigel.

- Smoked haddock (preferably undyed)
- milk
- Onions
- Turmeric
- Curry powder (such as Garam Masala)
- lemon juice
- Basmati rice
- eggs

Put the basmati rice on to cook, and chuck an egg in the pan, one for each person. Poach the haddock in some milk (or milky water).

Fry the onion with the turmeric and curry powder, adding the juice of at least one lemon when it’s really sizzling. This should smell great. When the rice and the haddock are cooked, add them to the frying pan, stirring as you go. Check seasoning, chop the eggs and add them, serve. Tastes great with George Watkins’ Mushroom Ketchup.