Recipe collections

How to cook spinach? Simply, with lots of butter and thinly sliced garlic. Buttered spinach is a perfect side dish, healthy and ready in minutes.

Buttermilk fried pork fillet cutlets seasoned with mustard and marjoram. Pork tenderloin brined in buttermilk and shallow fried in cornmeal coating.

Breakfast American-style buttermilk pancakes, with optional blueberries. I’ve been having a buttermilk week. It started off with these pancakes, proceeded to simply exquisite fried chicken marinated overnight in buttermilk; via salad dressing with lots of dill and garlic and finishing with buttermilk island cake.

Light and moist scones with buttermilk and raisin, cut into triangles. You can replace buttermilk with yoghurt – but I’d strongly encourage giving a go as it makes for a nice crust and very moist crumb. These are a bit more cakey than the ordinary scones.

Five-spice butternut squash in cheesy custard is precisely the treatment the squash needs to be a great dish. No surprise, it’s a recipe from Ottolenghi.

Vietnamese cabbage and prawn salad with nuoc mam dressing, layered on baked brown rice. The best salad bowls are a/ Asian and b/ contain cabbage.

Looking for a delicious and healthy vegetarian dish? Try my cabbage and walnut casserole recipe! Baked with a savoury mixture of onions, spices and herbs, this comfort food is perfect for any occasion.

Cabbage lasagne, a vegetarian dish of pasta layered with a filling of lightly cooked cabbage with tomatoes. Surprisingly flavourful and delicious!

Cabbage with bacon, tomatoes and mushrooms is a delicious main dish, served with plain pasta or potatoes. It can also be a hearty side dish, to go with fish or chicken.

Camembert en croute: baked Camembert wrapped in homemade shortcrust pastry. A divine cheese parcel in cornmeal shortcrust with Cheddar and thyme. Who doesn't love baked cheese?

Homemade candied mixed orange and lemon peel is so gorgeous you might want to nibble on it instead of putting it into a fruitcake. So make twice as much!

Caramelised courgettes with basil and garlic: is it a sauce, a condiment, a side dish? All of those and more.

Caramelised fennel slices sautéed in a pan with maple syrup and white balsamic vinegar. The best way of cooking fennel, it makes an exquisite side dish, or a lovely starter served with a chunk of crusty bread.

Caramelised leek and Cheddar tart on shortcrust pastry, homemade or shop bought, is a fabulous, easy dish, as good to serve warm as it is cold.

Caraway and parmesan pain de mie - soft crusted sandwich loaf with fantastic flavour. Pain de mie means a soft crust loaf, ideal for sandwiches, and it’s traditionally baked in a loaf tin closed with a lid.

Carbonara pasta bake, with bacon, Pecorino and egg yolks. No cream added and only a little cheese make the dish a little skinnier but just as delicious.

Cardamom cake with a crunchy almond bottom layer which turns into upside down topping, is a delicious, fragrant sponge lifted only with air beaten into the eggs and sugar mix.

Carne asada, a Mexican dish of marinated, grilled and thinly sliced beef. The fact is, marinade cooks things. It imparts flavour all right but we sometimes forget that’s not its only role – it tenderises tougher cuts.

Carrot and ginger cake, two of the best cake flavours together, with cream cheese frosting on top. Easy to make like all carrot cakes but the end result is stunning.

Carrot cake, simple and easy but unconventionally filled with apricot jam and decorated with chocolate ganache. Classic carrot cake with a zing!

Tom Kerridge’s carrot cake energy balls are no-bake, no sugar, no nonsense bites made from goodness itself. Sweet with no added sugar, satisfyingly filling and easier to make than mud cakes.

Carrot cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting. Best cupcakes ever – adopted for Halloween because carrot cake mix is a/ comforting, b/ easy to make with kids...

Carrot, orange and pistachio cake layered with lemon cream cheese frosting. Dan Lepard's recipe for moist, spiced carrot cake with a couple of unusual ingredients.

Cassoulet - the ultimate comfort dish, with duck and pork. Pork belly provided the fat, a little bacon a little smokiness; and I sprinkled breadcrumbs over the casserole as well as the serving bowls.

Sharing steak cooked in the oven on a cast iron pan, served with Roquefort butter. I can’t quite work out what makes this cooking method so effective but it is that.

Cauliflower cheese with spices, garlic and creamy sauce. Interesting thing about comfort foods is that they usually tend to be quite bland. I guess when it's cold outside or you're feeling a bit down you don't fancy stimulating senses too much.

Roasted cauliflower parmigiana, cauliflower slices, parmesan and mozzarella layered with simple tomato sauce. A good veggie dish which actually tastes much better than you’d think.

Celeriac gratin - thinly sliced celeriac baked in cream, garlic and Gruyère cheese sauce. Adding cheesy sauce to most veg transforms them into something delishhh so celeriac gratin will work even for people not that keen on the knobbly brute.

Vegetarian Wellington, with mushroom and spinach layer around baked celeriac centre. Easy to make ahead, even easier to make it vegan: just use vegan pastry and skip the butter.

Celeriac, carrot and apple remoulade with creme fraiche and wholegrain mustard dressing is a seasonal winter salad and a great side dish for seafood.

Oven roasted celeriac steak with sweet potato chips, vegetarian bliss with no meat substitutes in sight. And it’s made vegan with a simple tweak. Who needs Quorn?

Celery salad with furikake, Japanese sesame and dried seaweed seasoning, is the best way to use that bunch of celery that looks at you reproachfully from the vegetable drawer.

Challah - rich with eggs, glazed with egg wash plaited festive bread. It is traditionally baked for the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, commemorating the manna from heaven to the children of Israel during the Exodus from Egypt.

Fresh chanterelles sautéed in a little butter, piled on thick slices of toasted bread, make lunch, starter or a snack fit for gods. Scottish or French chanterelles, sunny yellow wild mushrooms, are autumn’s best.

Charleston red rice is a wonderful Cajun dish of oven baked rice with bacon and tomato purée. A descendant of West African jollof rice, this dish is older than the United States!

Cheats sourdough or how to get close to sourdough taste in 24 hours. Crusty on the outside, chewy crumb, you might be easily fooled into thinking it’s the real thing.

Cheddar cheese and chive scones, delightful warm from the oven, are made with wholemeal flour and diced Cheddar. The go-to savoury scone option.

Best beer and Cheddar bread rolls, and this recipe is truly easy. Turning water into wine? Naah, beer into bread! That bottle of ale no one is keen on can be put to good use.

Cheddar and spring onion torpedo rolls. So we’re talking here about a cheese sandwich ready baked – cheesy bread. I dare you not to devour one of those torpedoes straight from the oven. I dare you to keep them in the house longer than a couple of days.

Cheese and black pepper buttons, easy and delightful savoury shortbread biscuits. Crunchy and peppery, with a hint of garlic, these are very addictively moreish.

Cheese and mushroom omelette is a quick and easy breakfast or lunch dish. Beat the eggs well and work quickly for a perfectly fluffy omelette.

The best cheese biscuits with flaky, shortcrust pastry made from scratch, swirled around copious quantity of grated cheese. Much better with cream cheese pastry than puff pastry and not nearly as greasy.

Cheese bites made with rugelach pastry, with grated cheddar. Rugelach is the pastry base and it’s the easiest and nicest pastry in the world – just three ingredients, kneaded together by hand or in a mixer in no time at all and can be used in all kinds of products.

The best cheese fondue, smooth as velvet and comforting as a blanket. This tastes absolutely fantastic. And so it should – it’s Heston’s recipe from the book ‘Heston Blumenthal at home’.

Crispy cheesy chicken nuggets triple coated with yoghurt, cheese and cornmeal are a treat not just for kids.

Sweet potato tray bake with a lively topping of peppers, tomatoes, bacon and cheese. A one tray dish ready in under an hour.

Cheesy sweetcorn tart on a crusty base of pizza dough. It's vegetarian and gorgeous, as a snack, for lunch or dinner. Use leftover frozen pizza dough or a shop bought dough portion or base.

Cheesy turkey patties are the easiest turkey burgers, with no shaping of the mince necessary. Unlike what you might expect, that makes for the juiciest, most succulent patties.