Recipes

Roasted red peppers bring a wonderful combination of sweet and bitterness and go well with many things – omelette, grilled chicken, lentils, or whole grain spelt – or as part of a mezze.

I absolutely love this dish: it’s incredibly simple, but the garlic, rosemary, salt, and olive oil work perfectly with the creamy sweetness of the beans. It's great as a lower-carb substitution for mashed potato.

I have an absolute passion for ricotta – its creamy softness, and flavour so delicate it is hardly there – and it combines fabulously with the sweetness of the strawberries and bitterness of the radicchio. Radicchio makes for excellent salads – gorgeous colour, robust enough that it doesn’t collapse into a wimpy heap if you add heavier ingredients, and just enough bitterness to be interesting without making your eyes water. There are many salads to make with it, but I love this one.

I met a friend at the market yesterday when I was piling cauliflowers into my basket. What are you going to do with them, she said? Roast them, I replied. How do you do that? she said. I nearly called the emergency services.

This recipe emerged out of the winter of outdoor socialising when I was endlessly looking for warming and comforting food (that didn’t involve chips or chocolate) to eat while I waited for my toes to regain some feeling. I no longer have to risk hypothermia to see my friends, but this has remained a great favourite ever since. Like many things with pumpkins, a spoonful of zhoug and a dollop of yogurt are particularly good.

I can never quite decide about preserved lemons – whether they are delicious or taste like loo cleaner (n.b. do not go and check) but combined with the sweetness of the pumpkin and onions and the picante olives they are definitely delicious.

I love the combination of beetroot and orange, and putting them together with chickpeas and a spot of caraway and coriander works really well.

Before I started my downsizing mission, I used to make a beetroot puree that involved vast amounts of double cream and brown sugar. It was absolutely delicious. This has neither but is equally delicious – no idea why – but I thoroughly recommend it. It goes wonderfully well with game, salmon, or breast of chicken.

I recently rediscovered guinea fowl thanks to the shelves of Sansepolcro’s Co-op being stripped bare in the shopping frenzy before the All Souls – Tutti Morti – national holiday, and it has given me a fit of the raptures. Combined with fennel and orange it's sensational.

Sicilian food is a delicious mix of Italian and Arabic. I was introduced to this combination by Tom Duguid – a wonderful artist based in Italy – and I am completely obsessed with it.

For as long as they are in season, peaches and nectarines feature frequently in my cooking. Anchovy and olives go particularly well with them, either in a salad with radicchio (with some thinly sliced onion) or this extremely easy and delicious chicken dish.

I love this spiced chicken salad: the diced lemon cools it down a little and the pomegranate give it little bursts of sweetness; a delicious 15-minute lunch or supper.