Left over rib eye chopped up and cooked with soy sauce and a dash of oyster sauce…

Pumpkin seeds roasted with a pinch of rock salt…

.. turn into a very quick lunch-time treat !

The following is a recipe for making stuffed peppers. We filled them with rice containing bacon, peas and onion but the choice of ingredients can vary widely, for example by omitting the bacon you can make the meal vegetarian and much lighter. I prefer to use brown basmati rice but feel free to use your favourite rice.

You will need:

• one onion, chopped
• 2 handfuls of frozen or fresh peas
• 1 cup bacon bits
• 1 cup rice
• 1 can tomato puree or juiced fresh tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3 peppers (any colour will do)
• goat’s cheese to cover the tops of the peppers

Cook your rice according to the instructions on the packet. Note that brown rice will take longer to cook, about 30 minutes for one cup of uncooked rice. Cook in double the amount of water to start with, but you may need to add more if this dries up before the rice is cooked.

In a fan fry the onion for a few minutes until it softens, then add the bacon and peas and cook until the peas are fully defrosted/cooked and the bacon starts to become brown and crunchy.

Add to the rice and add the tomatoes and sugar. Mix well.

Remove the tops of the peppers by carving out the stem and seeds. Place in a skillet with water and bring to the boil. Cook for about 15 minutes of until they have softened. Please note that they will cook further in the oven so don’t overdo it.

Stuff the cooked peppers with as much rice as possible, but leaving a small 1cm gap at the top.

Cover with goat’s cheese and cook in a 180 degree oven for about 20-30 minutes or until the peppers just start to brown.

Split in half when serving and warn your guests that they will be rather hot! Bon Appetit!

For this summery yoghurt dressing, you will need:

• 3 tablespoons Greek yoghurt
• 1 teaspoon vinegar or preferably rice wine vinegar
• 1-2 teaspoon French Dijon mustard
• 2 cloves garlic (optional, I didn’t use these)
• pepper to taste

Whisk very thoroughly!

Serve over fresh salad or as a substitute to caeser salad dressing

I found this recipe of this website.

You will need:

3/4 cup raw brown rice (or cooked, in my case. I used wholegrain Basmati – I strongly recommend this type)

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

2 eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, or 2 teaspoon dried parsley flakes

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 small bowl well washed fresh spinach or defrosted frozen spinach

2 tablespoons fine dry bread crumbs

1 tablespoon butter — melted

Combine the eggs, parsley, salt and pepper

Add to the cooked rice

In a separate bowl combine the breadcrumbs, melted butter and shredded cheddar.

If you do not have ready-made breadcrumbs you can make them easily by toasting two slices of bread. Break these up and use a blender to crush them.

Mix the spinach in with the rice

Place the rice mixture in a buttered casserole dish and cover with the breadcrumb mixture.

Bake in the oven on 200 degrees celcius for 30-35 minutes or until piercing with a knife comes out clean. This dish also tastes delicious cold..

(..and with more cheese)

400g minced beef/pork

1 large onion, diced

2 cups tomatoes

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup sweetcorn

2 tablespoons curry powder

150ml coconut milk

Place your diced onions in a pan or wok with a tablespoon of olive oil , 2 tablespoons of water and the curry powder. Cook until the onions have turned translucent and soft, adding more water as they cook if necessary so as not to let them burn.

Add the meat and toss until it turns brown. Ideally the meat should be defrosted.

Add the tomatoes, sugar and sweetcorn and stir well. Leave to simmer on a low heat for about 40 minutes so that it reduces and thickens.

Finally add the coconut milk and cook for a further ten minutes. You may serve this as a pasta sauce or as a dip with savoury crackers or bread.

Apologies for the use of generic bread – ideally the bread should be a little bit dry (dry overnight) to be able to absorb more of your mixture before placing in the pan.

The French seem to love a bit of fat in their cooking – so use some butter to fry your bread on each side until it starts to brown and the mixture is cooked.

The taste is slightly sweet so you can serve this either for breakfast or as a side dish to almost anything. Believe it or not, I had mine with salmon and a slice of Pepato cheese. It was a very unusual combination!

You will need:

• 2 tubs of cream cheese
• about 50 g of stilton (more or less, depending on how strong you’d like the flavour to be)
• 2 handfuls of rocket / rucola with the thicker stems removed

I prefer to remove the stems from the rucola to avoid having a bitter taste; you will find that the rucola actually takes the edge off the strong taste of the stilton, so despite both the ingredients having strong flavours you will end up with a more subtle end result.

You can serve this with plain crackers or nachos or else on toasted bread like this:

Or perhaps use the mixture to fill ravioli… mmmm…

What is it about rucola that makes any slice of toasted bread taste more.. posh?

I made this with a generous helping of cholesterol-lowering butter, prosciutto crudo and fresh rucola. Accompanied by milky coffee. Yes, a good start to my day!

For two large glasses of smoothie (ignore the diminished volume in the photo, sometimes I forget to take a picture before tasting) you will need:

- 4 apples, peeled, cores and chopped
- 2 kiwis, peeled
- 3 oranges, peeled, pips removed
- juice of half a lemon
- 1/2 a cup of water
- 6 ice cubes

Add more water if you feel that the juice is too thick

Blend