A VEGGIE SUPPER

RAINBOW CHARD AND MUSHROOMS 

SERVES 2

1 head of chard

1 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion, finely sliced

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 medium red chilli, finely chopped, plus extra to garnish

4 field mushrooms

100g good quality mozzarella

handful mint leaves

Separate the chard leaves from the stalks. Bring a pan of lightly salted water to the boil and drop in the chard leaves for 2 minutes until wilted. Drain, refresh under cold water and, after squeezing out excess water, set aside. 

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan or wok and add the onion. Fry on a low-medium heat for 5 minutes until just soft. Add the chard stalks and continue to fry for another 5 minutes. Then, add the garlic and chilli. Cook for 1 minute more, then season well with salt and pepper. 

Preheat the grill to high. Lay the mushrooms on a baking sheet, top with torn mozzarella, drizzle over a little olive oil and season generously. Place the sheet under the grill and cook for 5 minutes until the mozzarella is bubbling and golden and the mushrooms have softened. 

Meanwhile, reheat the chard stalks and onions and stir through the chard leaves. Tear the mint leaves and, reserving a few for a garnish, mix through the chard.

Remove the mushrooms from the grill and serve on top of the chard mixture with the remaining mint leaves and a little more chopped chilli, if you like.

GUINEA FOWL DUMPLINGS

I'm crazed over little wanton wrappers and, despite having to queue through the back door of Loon Fung for them, they're within (quite) easy reach for a last minute supper, or sneaky dim sum in the middle of the day.  You can even cook them in the office microwave.

They're a great vehicle for leftovers - the weekend's roast, a couple of raw prawns that need cooking, shrinking vegetables, or stray rice noodles at the bottom of the packet.

For this recipe I used leftover stuffed guinea fowl made by my darling housemate - all hard work done. Make sure you have always have fish sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar on hand and you're away. Peel the wrapper, fill it, crimp it, steam it, dip it and pop it in.

 ASIAN-STYLE BROTH WITH GUINEA FOWL DUMPLINGS

SERVES 2

ingredients

FOR THE DUMPLINGS

150g leftover guinea fowl, roughly chopped

2 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp fish sauce

1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 spring onion

10 wanton wrappers

FOR THE BROTH 

750ml guinea fowl stock (or chicken)

3 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp mirin rice wine

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 star anise

thumb-sized knob of ginger, peeled and finely sliced

1 red chilli, finely sliced at an angle, extra to serve (optional).

5 shitake mushroom, sliced

3 spring onions

Place all the dumpling ingredients in a food processor, and blitz to a rough paste. Transfer to a small bowl, cover and set aside.

Heat the guinea fowl stock in a medium-sized saucepan over a medium heat. Add the fish sauce, rice wine and soy sauce and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and add the star anise and chilli. Cook on a low simmer for 10 minutes so all flavours can infuse.

Meanwhile, assemble the dumplings. Lay a dumpling wrapper in the palm of your hand and place a heaped teaspoon of the mixture in the centre. Fold up the sides around the filling to form a flower shape. Press to hold, using a little water to bind if necessary. Place on a lightly floured and continue until all the mixture has been used.

Drop the dumplings into the simmering broth along with the shitake mushrooms and cook for two minutes until the pastry is soft and they are hot all the way through. Ladle the broth into two bowls and divide up the dumplings. Scatter with the spring onions and the extra red chilli. Serve with a cold beer and extra soy sauce. 

RED PRAWN AND PAPAYA CURRY

After a heavy day on the food - testing three giant roasts in a day and and eating most of them - a supper of fruit and fish proved sufficiently antidotal. This serves perfectly as a simple midweek winner, bright and lively, and takes no time at all. 

RED PRAWN AND PAPAYA CURRY

serves 2

ingredients

2 tbsps olive oil

180ml coconut milk

2 tbsps red curry paste (this is a good quantity for Thai Taste Massaman Red Curry, but brands can vary hugely - taste before you paste)

1 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp palm sugar (or caster if you can't find any)

150g raw king prawns

100g mangetout

1 papaya, peeled, deseeded and cubed

2 tbsps chopped coriander leaves to serve

150g rice

Rinse the rice and add to a large sauce pan with 1 1/2 the amount of water to rice. Bring the rice to the boil and turn to a gentle simmer. Cover with a lid, tilted so the steam can escape, and cook for approximately 15 minutes. Drain any excess water and fluff up.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a deep frying pan or wok and add 1 tablespoon of the coconut milk. Stir and add the curry paste. Add the fish sauce and palm sugar. Pour in the the rest of the coconut milk, bring to the boil, and add the prawns. Turn down to a gentle simmer and cook for 2 minutes to reduce the sauce. Add the mangetout and papaya and cook for another minute.

Serve the curry with the rice, and the chopped coriander leaves.

AUTUMN COLESLAW

I adore this dish. The colour kicks us straight into autumn - bright pink and vibrant. It keeps to all the promises of a perfectly constructed salad: sweet crunch from the roots, creaminess from the yoghurt, citrus to cut through, a light nuttiness and a well-balanced freshness from the herbs.

It works wonderfully well alongside meat, hot or cold - a classic pulled pork, leftover roast ham or crispy chicken wings - or seasonal fruits - pears, apples or plums.

I could eat this for every meal. Even breakfast.

BEETROOT, CELERIAC & CABBAGE COLESLAW

serves 8

ingredients

1/2 white cabbage

1/2 celeriac, peeled and grated

3 small beetroot, peeled and grated

finely grated zest and juice 1 large lemon

2 tbsps greek yoghurt

sesame seeds to garnish, optional

large handful mint, finely shredded

large handful coriander, finely chopped

olive oil to dress

Add the grated beetroot to a large bowl (not the one you are going to serve the coleslaw from). Finely shred the white cabbage, discarding the tough core and slicing up any large pieces, and add to the beetroot with the celeriac. Add the lemon zest and juice, and lightly toss - you want to avoid over tossing the beetroot at this stage as it will stain the other vegetables.

Keep covered in the fridge until you are ready to eat it. Just before serving, stir through the yoghurt so that it is evenly distributed. Move to a clean bowl, then dress with the sesame seeds, mint and coriander. Drizzle, generously, with olive oil.

* If you are not going to eat all of the coleslaw, leave aside some of the salad after adding the lemon juice. Any leftovers can keep for up to three days or can be cooked up as an autumn gratin. Butter an oven-proof dish and pour in the lemony root vegetable mix. Pour over cream, season, grate with parmesan and bake for 25 minutes in a hot oven (200°C/fan180°C/gas 6). Heaven.

PRUNE AND RICOTTA FROZEN YOGHURT

PRUNE AND RICOTTA FROZEN YOGHURT
Not too greedy.

SERVES 4-6

ingredients

250g ricotta

200g natural yoghurt

250 prunes, pitted and chopped

1 tbsp dark brown Muscovado sugar

pinch salt

Blend all the ingredients together until almost smooth. You want 70% of the prunes to dissolve and the rest to keep a bit of shape.

The prunes will be sweet already so there is no real need for added sugar in this recipe, but I think a spoonful of dark brown muscovado really enhances the flavour.

Now, for freezing. If you have an ice cream machine, turn for 45 minutes before transferring to the freezer for a couple of hours. If no machine, place the blend in a metal boil with tin foil as a lid and stir every half hour for 3 hours.

Serve as a sticky after dinner desert with a shot of coffee, or piled on pancakes for breakfast.

SUMMER SAUSAGES

I spent a very wet Saturday stomping around Broadway market, sheltering under green-striped tarpaulins, standing nose to nose with the marketeers. I scooped up two old cushions, a greedy burger form Lucky Chip, two corn on the cob and a couple of peculiarly shaped courgettes. Despite the sodden shoes and soggy mop, it was quite a perfect day. 

This sausage dish is a great cheerer on a wet day and needs very few ingredients to give a great supper. Get bonne saucisse, a bunch o' cherry tomatoes, strange courgettes and an onion. And that's pretty much it. I love it. 

SUMMER SAUSAGES

serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil

8 pork sausages

1 large echalion shallot, sliced

3 garlic cloves, crushed 

20 cherry tomatoes

2 courgettes (custard white are fun)

1 tbsp passata

50ml water

salt and pepper

handful sweet basil, torn

Heat up the olive oil in a large, deep frying pan over a medium heat. When hot, add the sausages and cook for 10 minutes with a lid on, turning occasionally to brown evenly.

Chop the sausages with a wooden spoon and add the onion and garlic. When the onion has softened, throw in the tomatoes. Cook for 5 minutes and add the courgettes. Season and stir.

Now add the passata and the water and simmer for 5 minutes. When the sauce has reduced, tear up the basil and stir through. Serve with a well-dressed salad and a hunk of bread for mopping. Dead cosy like.

PASTA AL POMODORO

Emily picked this recipe up from her days as a nipper in Naples, one of those 'gran segreti dalla nonna' that no-one who'd tried it would dare forget. We ate the sauce - fat ripe tomatoes simmered down into a rich, sticky, and oily passata - tossed through beautifully formed Umbrian pasta and mopped up the remainder with hunks of bread.

REAL ITALIAN TOMATO SAUCE

with flat pasta

serves 8

ingredients

250ml extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic, sliced

15 very ripe, fresh plum tomatoes, peeled and left whole

handful basil leaves, torn

salt and pepper to taste

large jug water 

700g good quality pasta - this sauce works particularly well with flat or tubed pasta.

Parmesan to serve

Gently warm the oil in a large saucepan and add the garlic to infuse. Leave it to soak up the flavour for 3 minutes, without burning the garlic. Add the peeled tomatoes and basil to the pan, season, and leave to simmer over a low heat with the lid on. After about an hour the juice of the tomatoes will have thickened. Add a generous splash of water and leave to reduce for another 45 minutes. You want to cook down the tomatoes for a total of three hours to get the maximum flavour, so every time the sauce thickens add a little more water - you may only need to do this once more but keep an eye. As you reach serving time, make sure the sauce is thick enough to coat the pasta and is not watery. If in doubt, simmer a bit longer without adding more water. Taste for seasoning.

Bring an extra large pan or two medium sized pans of salted water to the boil and add the pasta. Cook as the packet suggests, and drain when al dente. 

Transfer the pasta into the tomato pan and mix through evenly adding a little sprinkling of salt. Pour the pasta into a big serving dish and take to the table. Divide into smaller bowls and scatter with Parmesan.