This is a breeze to make and looks smart – a pale yellow set-custard studded with cherry tomatoes, although in the picture above I used a smaller dish than usual and the tomatoes are rather submerged. Serve it hot or warm for a summer lunch or as a starter with a leafy salad (including some bitter or peppery leaves or basil) or a fennel salad. You could also serve cold leftovers with the Spanish sauce coming later in the month. Serves 6 Butter for the dish 1 tbsp extra virg

Fresh tomatoes are with us all year, but there’s still something about eating them in summer – even late summer – that’s so much better. Flavour, probably. And choice. Shops, markets and allotments are awash with different types – not just plum versus round or beef versus cherry, but named varieties, on and off the vine. I could have specified varieties for all the recipes below, but it’s not necessary and it would be frustrating: Sainsbury’s doesn’t sell the same ones as Wai

New potatoes, boiled or steamed and tossed in butter are delicious, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else with them. Here are a few ideas: • Melt a thick slice of butter in a casserole. Add small whole potatoes, whole cloves of garlic and a few sprigs of thyme. Put the lid on tightly and cook on on the hob on a medium, then a low heat for about 30 minutes. Toss occasionally, holding the lid down tightly. Season. • Toss lukewarm boiled potatoes in sour cream, lots o

I know I should be insisting that there is nothing to beat fresh peas, but, honestly, for this recipe I think frozen petits pois are better – not least because, cooked like this, they taste remarkably like young, fresh peas. You can use some of the outer lettuce leaves you would normally discard, but not if they are very tough/damaged/grimy. The number of leaves depends on the variety/size. Serves 6 40g butter, cut into about eight pieces, plus extra for greasing 10-20 firm,

I’ve given two fillings here, but mix, match and add as you like. Olives, anchovies and capers are all candidates. Choose aubergines that are heavy for their size and are shiny and smooth, rather than dull and wrinkly, and make sure you have a very sharp knife for slicing. The filling quantities are per aubergine, which will give you six rolls; allow two or three per person as a starter, three or four as a main course. They go well with both the red peppers and the stuffed vi

Everyone seems to have a pet vine in their garden or on their balcony these days, but, if you haven’t, it’s almost worth nipping down to the garden centre to get one especially for making these. You might even end up with a grape crop too. If you use the brine-preserved vine leaves sold in delis, they won’t have quite the same aromatic freshness, but you will produce better dolmades than anything ready-made – and once you’ve stuffed and wrapped the first few few you’ll find y

I had a damascene conversion to vegetables in the summer of 2004. Actually I had no choice. For eight weeks, I was not allowed to eat dairy products or animal fats and proteins, except for lean, skinless chicken. It wasn’t that I didn’t much like vegetables before. It was just that I had always regarded them as a support act for the main protein event. Suddenly, if I didn’t become more creative with my veg cooking, I was going to die of meal-time boredom. So, I made an effort