As I read it, I thought, “Gosh, that’s terrible, I could never live like that.” And then I glanced to my right and saw the corner of my kitchen which is overflowing with precarious stacks of old food magazines, pamphlets, leaflets, and recipes ripped from various sources, all chaotic and unusable in their disorganized state, and all ready to topple over at any moment and bury me in an avalanche of aspirational cooking.

It was at that point I had to admit I have a small hoarding problem myself: I hoard food publications. I have towers of recipe booklets, newspaper clippings and glossy food magazines collected from all over the place. Some of these actually get used for cooking—you can tell by the splattering on them—but the majority of them are in pristine condition, having been acquired, lovingly pored over once or twice, and then relegated to my “someday I’ll sort through all these and tear out the articles I want” pile.

I suspect I buy food magazines like other people buy fashion magazines; you might not ever have the opportunity to wear the fashions you see (or you might not even really want to), but it’s fun to look at the pretty pictures and daydream anyway. And food magazines give me so much to daydream over: the big, juicy “food porn” photos; the mouth-watering descriptions of succulent seafood fresh off the boat and air-dried hams caressed by cool mountain breezes; the travel features with enticing accounts of nibbling warm pastries, piquant olives or pungent local cheeses while sitting on a sunny veranda in some exotic location; and, of course, the recipes—oh, the recipes, the hundreds upon hundreds of dinner parties, elegant brunches, summer barbecues, fireside feasts and romantic meals for two…

There’s so much potential in food magazines, so much promise. There’s so much to aspire to, basically, and not just as regards the food itself. The magazines make you aspire to a certain type of life, one in which you and your friends habitually sit around big, rustic farmhouse tables and chow down on homemade waffles with freshly-picked berries, or bright salads with herbs from the garden, or hearty roasts from the friendly butcher whose shop happens to be right down the lane from your charming cottage, next door to the artisanal baker, on the square where the farmers’ market is held every morning. They encourage you to think that simply by cooking up a quiche for brunch, you will have moved a step closer to a fantasy life consisting solely of lavish meals, amazing kitchens, and witty banter exchanged over glasses of the finest wine, a life in which your only care in the world is whether or not the soufflé will rise.

The thing is, I buy into it on some level. Obviously I don’t think that just making brunch is going to change my life—and anyway, as much as like the concept of brunch, realistically I’m never to going voluntarily rise at 8 a.m. on a Sunday to start cracking eggs. But the magazines and recipes open up a world of possibilities: things I could possibly eat, places I could possibly travel to, lives I could possibly lead. I suppose it’s quite escapist, but not necessarily in a negative way. It doesn’t make me feel bad about not being in a particular place or living a particular life, but it does spark a certain pleasurable yearning of a type which could eventually be transformed into action—i.e., I can’t visit that incredible restaurant now, but maybe someday I’ll be able to.

So, back to the hoarding issue. I can’t and won’t swear off food magazines. I take great pleasure in them, and I see no harm in curling up on the couch with a foodie publication to coo over the pictures and drool over the tasty-sounding recipes. HOWEVER, I have vowed that when I am done cooing and drooling, I will promptly take what I need from the magazine, file it in an easily accessible place, and then discard the rest. After all, an article hidden in a magazine buried under a pile of other magazines is totally useless, and after the initial “ooh! aah!” is over, there’s no reason to hang on to an entire magazine when you only really want one recipe from it.

So here’s to a new era of non-hoarding—of magazines, anyway. Now cookbooks, that’s another story entirely…

I’m pretty neurotic when it comes to food safety. An article on botulism I read a few years ago (“It only takes a taste!”) instilled the fear of god of me—or at least, the fear of Clostridium botulinum and its cohorts. And I know from first-hand experience that even run-of-the-mill, non-life-threatening food poisoning is absolutely miserable, so rather than taking a chance on a suspicious bottle of chili sauce or an aging bag of frozen shrimp, I will generally toss it out.

The thing is, I know I throw away perfectly good food out of fear of poisoning myself with dodgy condiments or dubious leftovers. I just find it difficult to gauge precisely when something has passed its “eat me” or “drink me” date. Obviously, if something that shouldn’t be moldy is moldy (hey, it happens), then I’m not going to eat it. But what about the things that look fine but might actually harbor very unpleasant bacteria? What about the stuff I’ve forgotten about in my freezer? What about that bottle of oyster sauce?

StillTasty provides answers to questions about things like refreezing thawed foods (fine if you’ve thawed them in the fridge), rinsing raw chicken (apparently you shouldn’t do it), and using canned foods beyond their “best by” date (not a problem if the cans aren’t damaged). Even better, you can browse by ingredient for detailed information on how best to store specific foods and how long they can be kept in the pantry/fridge/freezer. As someone who is only now coming to terms with the idea of storing things in the freezer for later use (we only recently acquired our first proper freezer, so it was never possible before), I find this particularly helpful.

StillTasty seems very trustworthy; it’s a US site, so its sources of information include the Centers for Disease Control and the US Department of Agriculture. If anything, that probably means the site’s recommendations are on the conservative side; after all, I personally would never cook a good steak to the USDA’s recommended internal temperature of 145F, even if that’s technically the safest thing to do. Still, it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to the food you have hanging around your house, and it’s great to have a one-stop site for basic information on food storage and safety issues.

Incidentally, I wound up tossing the oyster sauce, even though I suspect it was still fine. In fact, I really hope it was still fine because I did try a tiny bit of it, and as the terrifying botulism article says, it only takes a taste…

Looking at supermarket shelves and restaurant menus, you’d be forgiven for thinking that chicken was the only poultry anyone ever consumed. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good roast chicken as much as the next person. But if you’re all chickened out and ready to take the next step into the wonderful world of fowl, then grab yourself a guinea hen.

I first discovered guinea hen (or guinea fowl, as it’s known here in the UK) several years ago in Bologna at the Trattoria Anna-Maria, where the bird was spit-roasted (as far as I could tell) and served with a generous smattering of ultra-crispy, ultra-salty pancetta. Though no guinea fowl I’ve had since has surpassed the one I consumed with gusto on that chilly night, it’s still one of my favorite birds to eat.

The joke about “tasting like chicken” is pretty accurate for guinea fowl—though guinea fowl tastes like what I imagine chickens used to taste like before they were raised on an industrial scale and bred for size, not flavor. Guinea fowl is leaner than chicken and has a slightly heartier flavor which makes it ideal for rich autumn and winter dishes featuring smoky bacon, earthy lentils and root vegetables, sweet chestnuts, bitter chicory, and herbs like sage and rosemary.

I prepare guinea fowl the same way I prepare chicken, generally by smearing herbed butter under the skin before roasting it to keep it moist. Guinea fowl can be a bit fiddly to spatchcock, but you can easily roast it whole and then cut it in half down the middle for serving (your average guinea fowl is smaller than your average chicken, so if you’re cooking for two, one guinea fowl is just right). I recently mashed butter with garlic, sage and rosemary, stuffed it under and rubbed it over the skin, and then roasted the guinea fowl on a bed of chunky carrots splashed with sherry, which was scrumptious. You wouldn’t go wrong by draping prosciutto, pancetta or bacon over a guinea fowl before roasting it with some nice spuds either. Cabbagy things are a great accompaniment, too; try roasting some Brussels sprouts or sauteing Savoy cabbage with onions to go alongside your roast guinea hen.

Guinea fowl also takes very well to braising. In fact, because of the bird’s lower fat content, braising is probably your best bet for really moist meat if you balk at all the butter and bacon mentioned in the paragraph above. I’ve used guinea fowl with great success in a Nigel Slater recipe for chicken braised with chicory and creme fraiche (which is an absolutely fabulous, restaurant-quality recipe that’s dead easy to prepare). Guinea fowl would work equally well in a classic coq au vin—for which, incidentally, Nigel Slater also has a good recipe. And since poultry, pulses and cured meats are always a winning combination, the next guinea fowl dishes I intend to try are sherry-roasted guinea fowl with chickpeas and chorizo and guinea fowl with smoked sausage and butter beans, two dishes which sound ideal for a damp autumn day.

If you haven’t ever tried guinea fowl before, I’d urge you to give it go. Don’t be intimidated by the idea that it’s a “game bird”—it’s no more intimidating than chicken and not much gamier either. A lovely golden guinea hen will add a nice bit of flair to your Sunday supper table and remind you just how delectable the humble fowl can be.

My cooking options were limited by 1) my student budget and, more critically, 2) the fact that my apartment had a “stove” consisting of two metal hot plates and nothing else. Luckily, some of my favorite nostalgic foods were comforting one- or two-pot deals which were well within my financial and spatial constraints: spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce, Sloppy Joes, ham pilau, and red beans and rice.

As someone born on a Monday in New Orleans, red beans and rice is a dish particularly close to my heart. As with so many traditional dishes, there are as many different recipes for red beans and rice as there are cooks who make it. The recipe I have (by way of my mom, by way of family friends who also lived in New Orleans) is truly as simple as they come: six ingredients, most of which you’re likely to already have in your kitchen.

To head off any critics at the pass, I should say that this is not the canonical recipe for red beans and rice. If you have the time and inclination, then by all means use dried beans cooked for several hours and add celery and bell pepper, thyme and cayenne pepper, ham hocks, pickle meat or any of the other myriad ingredients that can go into red beans and rice. But if you want some Creole comfort in the space of just half an hour, then try this recipe.

For two really hungry people, you’ll need:

• Vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 or 2 fat cloves of garlic, chopped
• Smoked sausage, sliced or cubed, a cup or more (see note below)
• 2 dried bay leaves
• 2 cans of kidney beans, not drained (about 400g/14oz each)

Heat a splash of vegetable oil in a pot and saute the onion for a few minutes to soften it. Add the garlic, sausage and bay leaves and saute a few minutes more until the garlic is fragrant and the sausage begins to release its juices. Tip in the kidney beans with their liquid, give everything a stir, and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a splash of water or stock if it looks too dry (it should be quite juicy).

Cook some white rice while the beans simmer. When everything’s done, you can use a wooden spoon to mash some of the beans in the pot for a nice creamy consistency. You may need to season the beans with salt, but bear in mind that smoked sausage is generally quite salty as it is. Mound the rice in your bowls, spoon over the beans and sausage, spice it up with a dash of hot sauce (Tabasco works nicely), and serve the red beans and rice with a stack of buttery golden cornbread muffins on the side.

Sausage note: Despite England’s abundance of bangers, chipolatas and other sausages, I’ve had a devil of a time finding decent smoked sausage here. Some of the corner shops around me have recently begun stocking various smoked Polish sausages which aren’t top quality but which do seem to have the best smoky flavor and texture for red beans and rice. I’ve also been known to resort most inauthentically to Spanish chorizo. In Germany, I used to be able to buy packages of 2 thick, juicy cabanossi which were great for this dish. In Arizona, I think my mom generally uses smoked Polish-style sausage. Basically, depending on where you are, you’ll have to make do with what you can get. And if you happen to be able to get Andouille sausage—well, send me some, you lucky thing!

Pasta fagioli is a classic example of Italian “peasant” cooking. It involves taking a few simple ingredients—in this case, beans and pasta—and transforming them into something that nourishes both body and soul. My fast version of pasta fagioli is a soupy, tomato-less dish that I throw together from whatever ingredients I happen to have on hand. It’s a good way to use up odds and ends as well: those few handfuls of macaroni lingering in the cupboard, that last little celery stalk in the fridge. You can vary this soup endlessly, so the recipe below is just a rough outline. If you use what you’ve got and season it to taste, you really can’t go wrong.

For one hearty bowl of soup, you’ll need:

• olive oil
• a handful of finely chopped onion
• a handful of finely chopped carrot and/or celery
• a small bay leaf
• a small chopped clove of garlic
• some herbs, fresh or dried (sage, thyme, rosemary and oregano are all good)
• a small tin of beans (150g/5oz, ideally borlotti or cannellini)
• about 4 cups of water or stock
• a handful of small dried pasta (macaroni, for example)
• salt and pepper

Heat a splash of olive oil in a pot and sauté the onion, carrot and celery with the bay leaf until the vegetables are relatively soft (10 minutes should do it). Add the chopped garlic and sauté for another minute, then toss in the herbs and beans. Pour in the water or stock and bring the soup to a boil.

Ideally, you should let it simmer like this for a bit before adding the pasta, but if you’re pressed for time or just really, really hungry, you can add the pasta with a good pinch of salt as soon as the water boils. Cook the soup until the pasta is tender, then season with salt and pepper. If you like, you can use a big spoon to mash some of the beans against the side of the pot; the smashed beans together with the starch from the pasta will thicken the soup pleasantly. Serve with a good drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and, if you’re feeling decadent, a smattering of grated parmesan cheese.

Note: Soft beans make all the difference here, so look for canned or jarred beans which haven’t been treated with calcium chloride, a firming agent that tends to make beans unpleasantly hard and grainy. I use Valfrutta steam-cooked beans, which are very soft indeed and come in convenient serving-size cans. Otherwise, organic tinned beans generally don’t have calcium chloride in them.

The winter sauce is an adaptation of my grandma’s tomato sauce for pasta, while the summer sauce was inspired by a variety of recipes for roasted tomatoes: a tomato confit with fennel seeds and lemon thyme by Sophie Grigson, a roasted cherry tomato sauce from the Amateur Gourmet, and a much-celebrated pomodori al forno recipe in Bon Appétit.

In the case of both sauces, the amounts given are just rough guidelines. You can use as much or as little garlic, onion, and herbs as you like. Even the cooking temperature and time for the summer sauce aren’t set in stone—I tend to just whack the oven on and roast the tomatoes until they look nice and squishy. Each of these recipes will make enough sauce for one large (36cm/14in) pizza, with extra sauce left over for dipping crusts or breadsticks.

Winter sauce

Purists may frown on the use of canned tomatoes, but I personally think that’s nonsense; good tinned tomatoes are far superior to bad “fresh” ones. Just look for good-quality chopped tomatoes in a thick juice. This is quite an American-style pizza sauce, rich and fairly sweet with a strong cooked-tomato taste. It’s the kind you can slather onto a pizza that will be topped with lots of gooey cheese.

• olive oil
• 1/2 of a small onion, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup)
• 1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 can (400g/14oz) chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste/purée
• 1 teaspoon or more of dried oregano
• pinch of sugar to taste
• pinch of salt and lots of freshly ground pepper

Heat a splash of olive oil in a saucepan and gently sauté the onions over medium heat until they’ve softened (about 10 minutes). Turn up the heat a bit, throw in the garlic and stir it around for about a minute, then stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste, and oregano. Add sugar, salt, and pepper to taste and simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes, until it has thickened up. You can use it immediately or set it aside until you’re ready to assemble your pizza. This sauce is great with toppings like sausage and mushroom, ham and gorgonzola, or anchovy, caper, and olive.

Summer sauce

The herbal pungency of the fennel seed really brings these tomatoes to life, but if you absolutely can’t stand fennel, just leave it out. Also, while really ripe tomatoes are obviously the best here, this recipe will work wonders even for tomatoes which are either not quite at or just past their peak.

• about 500g/1lb ripe tomatoes (ideally plum tomatoes, but any will do)
• olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• pinch of sugar
• small pinch of dried chili flakes (optional, but adds a nice heat)
• sea salt and ground pepper
• 1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 150C/300F. Cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out the seeds. Lightly coat the bottom of an oven-proof dish with olive oil, then arrange the tomatoes cut-side-up in a single layer. Sprinkle over the fennel, oregano, sugar, and chili and season generously with salt and pepper. Drizzle more olive oil over the tomatoes and then roast them in the oven until they have shriveled and softened, an hour or longer. When they’re done, take them out of the oven and sprinkle the garlic over them; the residual heat of the tomatoes will just warm the garlic through (if you find the raw garlic too strong, you can sprinkle the garlic over the tomatoes shortly before they’ve finished roasting).

The tomatoes will still be quite juicy and olive oily. I like to thin a few spoons of tomato paste with the olive oil from the tomatoes and spread this onto the pizza dough first before scattering the roasted tomatoes over the dough. I like to imagine this makes a moisture barrier to prevent the dough from getting soggy, but that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part. In any case, try to drain as much juice and olive oil from the tomatoes as possible before putting them on the pizza; you can use the leftover juices for dipping your crusts into. This sauce is perfect for toppings like (uncooked) arugula/rocket and Parma ham, or a plain old pizza margherita with fresh mozzarella and basil.

Closer to home, one of my favorite places to eat in Brighton is E-Kagen, an unassuming Japanese café up a slightly shabby flight of stairs which serves the most delicate gyoza and soothing bowls of soba noodles in town. Running a close second for my affections is Unithai, an unassuming Thai café at the back of a crowded Asian food shop which serves the most lip-tingling curries and satisfying bowls of Thai noodle soup in Brighton.

The Unithai shop/café isn’t far from where we live, and I must have passed it a thousand times before ever stepping foot inside. It’s not obvious from the outside that there’s a café at the back, so I was surprised and delighted to walk in one day and see a small collection of tables and a menu featuring treats like green curry with sweet basil or rice noodles in soup—dishes I fell in love with on our trip to Thailand in 2008.

Since our first visit to Unithai last year, Jeremy and I have been going there regularly for lunch every Saturday. One of us will invariably order a soupy noodle dish: either item “6b” on the menu, also known as kuay-tiew rua (noodles and pork in a broth with a deeply aromatic 5-spice flavor), “6c” (a tangy, creamy seafood soup with tender fish dumplings), or the latest addition to the menu, suki, a celery-infused noodle soup with green beans, pork and seafood, topped with a spicy chili sauce. All of the soups are accompanied by the usual Thai condiments—chili flakes, sugar, fish sauce, and chilies in vinegar—so you can adjust the seasoning to taste (I usually use a little bit of each thing, but I once saw a fellow diner dump what looked like several tablespoons of hot chili flakes into her soup—most impressive).

The non-soupy noodle dishes are a hit as well. They have the ubiquitous pad thai, of course, but for a spicier and more interesting meal, I highly recommend the pad kee mao or “drinker’s style” noodles (so called either because it’s good when you’ve been drinking or because it’s so spicy that it makes you want to drink), or the aptly named mee hot noodles, which are mixed with onions, long beans, and pieces of cabbage. A side dish of stir-fried pak choy or Chinese leaves goes nicely with these.

If rice is more your thing, then try a traditional Thai red or green curry, both of which are rich, creamy, and just hot enough to give your tongue a little thrill. The normal curries come with chicken, prawns, or tofu, but you can also get a decadent red curry with roasted duck. Alternatively, there’s the tongue-twisting, tongue-searing kao rad pad kra-pao, which is minced chicken or pork with fresh chilies and basil, served on rice and ideally topped with a fried egg; this is probably the spiciest thing on the menu, but the egg really tames the heat of the chilies.

Regarding those chilies, a word of caution: when the menu says spicy, it means spicy. However, most of the dishes on the menu are completely mild, and you can ask for things to be made less spicy if you’re not one for the chili sweats. I just happen to like that post-chili euphoria you get after eating something deliciously spicy (pro tip: avoid drinking hot tea with your spicy meal—sweet coconut juice cools the fire beautifully).

One of the best things about Unithai is that once you’ve finished your fabulous Thai meal in the café, you can pick up all the ingredients in the shop to try your hand at cooking authentic Thai food at home. Unithai is the only shop I know of in Brighton that consistently has the green papaya and long beans you need for making som tam, the small Thai eggplants/aubergines and even smaller cherry eggplants used in curries, and the full range of holy basil, Thai basil, coriander/cilantro, chilies, lemongrass, lime leaves, and galangal—not to mention good miso, fresh pak choy and Chinese broccoli, frozen edamame and gyoza wrappers, rice, noodles, spices, dried fishy snacks, and cooking implements (I picked up my giant Thai mortar and pestle there).

To top it all off, like at E-Kagen, the owners of Unithai are friendly and welcoming, making you feel like a regular even if you’ve never eaten there before in your life. And now that we really are regulars, one of the highlights of my week is when we walk into Unithai on a busy Saturday and are greeted with the delectable scent of coconut curry and a warm “Sawadee kha!”

Unithai Oriental Market, 10 Church Road, Hove BN3 2FL, England, +44 (0) 1273 733 246

The very first recipe I wrote about on Principia Gastronomica was for an easy, no-knead wheat bread that promised success even for novice bakers. That recipe is perfectly fine, but with a little more time and effort, you can turn out a “proper” loaf of bread with a good springy texture and a superior taste. You don’t need any special equipment or expert baking skills, just a bit of patience and elbow grease.

Bread is a surprisingly forgiving food—it may be magical, but you don’t have to be a magician to make it. The cardinal sin is probably adding too much flour, which leads to a heavy, tough loaf. A good rule of thumb is one part water to three parts flour, though this will vary depending on the type of flour you use and even, to a lesser extent, on the weather.

For the following recipe, you can use pretty much any flour you like; wholemeal, white, spelt, rye, and flour with grains or seeds in it will all work well. I generally use 2 cups wholemeal spelt flour and 1 cup white flour, but you can change those proportions as you like (just be aware that an all-wholemeal bread may be denser and less springy than a bread containing some white flour—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing).

For one large loaf of bread, you’ll need:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon fast-acting/instant yeast (the kind you mix right into the flour)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons honey (optional but tasty)
• about 1 cup warm water

Mix the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Pour in the warm water and honey and stir everything with a wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If your mixture is way too sticky and runny, gradually add a bit more flour until the dough holds together in a loose ball.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead it for as long as you have the energy (ideally about ten minutes, though I usually only make it to five). Add as little extra flour as possible; the dough should be slightly sticky but still kneadable. The dough will become smoother and easier to handle after you’ve kneaded it for a while.

When you can knead no more, form the dough into a ball and let it rise in an oiled, covered bowl for an hour or longer. After the dough has risen, gently press the air out of it, shape it into a nicely rounded loaf, and let it rise again on an oiled baking tray, covered with oiled plastic wrap, for as long as it takes to get the oven good and hot (200C for a convection oven; about 220C/425F for a non-convection oven).

Uncover the dough, slash the top with a sharp knife if you like (it will look pretty and prevent the crust from splitting in the oven), and bake the bread for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is browned and the loaf sounds hollow when you tap the bottom—or, to be more accurate, when the bread’s internal temperature reaches roughly 95C/200F (stick an instant-read thermometer in the bottom of the loaf to check).

The cooking process continues even after you’ve taken the loaf out of the oven, so let the bread cool completely on a wire rack before you cut into it. Okay, okay, you can cut off a bit of the edge, slather it with butter, and devour it immediately if you must, but let the rest of the loaf cool all the way. Then use it to make a chunky ham and cheddar sandwich, or dunk slices of it into a thick vegetable soup, or—best of all—toast it and serve it with lots of butter and your breakfast condiment of choice: honey, jam, peanut butter, cinnamon sugar, marmalade, Marmite, Nutella… A day that starts with toasted homemade bread is bound to be a good day indeed.

The affable host of the BBC’s What to Eat Now program is a gastronome after my own heart, a man clearly in love not just with food but with the very act of eating, a man who is unashamed to have juice dribble down his chin as he devours a plum and who can laugh easily at his own culinary mishaps—even the televised ones.

As semi-locavores (in that we do our best to eat seasonally and locally but occasionally break down and buy zucchini from Spain in the middle of winter), Jeremy and I were excited by the prospect of a TV show telling us how to make the most of what England has to offer each season. And we were not disappointed; each time What to Eat Now aired, we would sit on the couch shouting “Yes, yes!” as Valentine (yes, we’re on a first-name basis) threw hunks of butter into frying pans and chowed down on game, wild mushrooms, pumpkin soup, pear tarts, and mackerel on toast.

I got the What to Eat Now book for Christmas, and of all the dishes I’ve since cooked from it, each has turned out perfectly, with no tweaking necessary, and several of them—like the roast shoulder of lamb with herbs and honey and the lentil and chicory salad with mustard dressing—have become firm favorites in my kitchen. To top it off, the cookbook is sprinkled with charming drawings done by the author himself, and it’s also very funny to read (“Serve immediately while trying to get more of the caramel than anyone else”—-or, “If you are not a fan of anchovies, simply remove them from the recipe and send them to me”).

I find it odd, however, that the stand-out recipe from the show—the one which got Jeremy and me through the cold winter, the recipe we repeatedly made for fast mid-week meals and lazy weekend ones as well—doesn’t even appear in the book. It’s a recipe known in my house simply as “Valentine’s Pork Chops”, and it was jotted down hastily on a scrap of paper while watching a re-run of What to Eat Now online before the BBC took it away forever.

Like Valentine’s other recipes, this one is packed with bold flavors: anchovies, capers, garlic, and lemon, all drizzled over a sizzling pork chop. It’s salty, tangy, garlicky, and not the type of recipe you’d want to make with a super-lean cut of pork. You want a big, bone-in chop for this, ideally with a nice strip of fat around the edge for extra flavor and juiciness. Okay, so it’s not exactly health food—but man, is it good.

For two people, you’ll need:

• 2 pork chops
• a handful of flour seasoned with salt and pepper
• olive oil for cooking
• 6 chopped anchovies
• a large knob of butter
• a handful of capers
• 1 chopped clove of garlic
• the juice of half a lemon

Heat a bit of olive oil in a frying pan, then dust the chops with the seasoned flour and fry them until they’re nicely browned on both sides and cooked through. The time it takes will depend on the thickness of your chops and whether there’s a bone in them or not—just cut into them to check. Also, if you have a good rind of fat on the chops, you can cook that part first by holding the chops vertically in the pan so the fat gets gorgeously crispy.

When the chops are finished, put them on plates and set them aside, then add the chopped anchovies and knob of butter to the hot pan. Swish them around until the butter fizzes and the anchovies have softened and started to disintegrate. Throw in a handful of capers and the chopped garlic and stir them for a minute before squeezing in the lemon juice. When everything has melded together and heated through, pour the sauce over the chops. Serve them with a heap of creamy mashed potato, a smattering of sauteed greens (kale or cavolo nero is particularly tasty), and a warming glass of red wine to chase the winter blues away.

Spicy Chicken Thighs with Cucumber and Cashew Salad from Every Day by Bill Granger

I was led to this recipe through my desperate inability to decide what to cook for dinner.

It had been a beautiful, sunny day. Jeremy was away so I hit the town, treating myself to lunch in a nice café and a spot of shopping. As the afternoon pushed on towards evening, I resigned myself to the fact that I had to go grocery shopping, even though I had no clue what I wanted to eat.

The weather was warm, so I craved something light and fresh, but I couldn’t face yet another lettuce-based salad. None of my usual solitary-meal fallbacks (lentils and their assorted leguminous brethren) really appealed, so I just wandered up and down the supermarket aisles, aimlessly picking things up and putting them down again.

I eventually made my way to a small display of cookbooks to look for inspiration, and I found it in the form of Australia’s Bill Granger. I have a soft spot for Bill Granger because he reminds me of the fabulous time I had in Australia (and of the drool-worthy ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter that I scoffed at one of his cafés in Sydney). Besides that, I think his cookbooks are gorgeous—they’re total food-porn/lifestyle-porn tomes à la Jamie Oliver. And besides that, Bill had pulled through for me once before with his caramel salmon recipe, which is dead easy and dead tasty.

So I flipped through his Every Day cookbook and came across the recipe for Spicy Chicken Thighs with Cucumber and Cashew Salad, which perfectly suited my needs. I had a bit of a dilemma then: should I buy the cookbook (which I wanted, but which was also on the pricey side), or should I just try to remember the recipe and work it out on my own at home? Opting for the latter, I bought the ingredients and headed for the homestead.

Once I got home, I did a little online research and found that a fellow food blogger had cooked the recipe and posted it to her own site—it was my lucky day! At the time of writing, the recipe can also be found on Google’s Book Search, and there’s a nice-looking variation on the Kitchen Wench blog as well.

My only variation was to throw in some beansprouts, which added a fresh crunch. But the recipe is terrific as written, with a lovely balance of sweet, salty, spicy and tangy flavors and a good proportion of chicken to noodles. It’s tasty, healthy and filling—perfect for a warm day in Sydney or wherever you happen to be.