I love Christmas - the food is such a joy to prepare and eat, the meal such fun and so delicious, the leftovers an absolute treat. I think I might even prefer Boxing Day's meal to the main event itself - you get round two with bells on!

I do find though that once I've done all the visits, eaten all the meals and am finally back in my own kitchen I look to simpler fare - things I can knock up quickly without compromising on taste.

Quails are ideal for this kind of cooking as they are done in a flash and hot and smoky from the griddle are an absolute treat. Paired with some good sourdough toast and the warm, sultry flavours in a cinnamon-spiked tomato sauce dotted with plump sultanas they make a perfect wintry lunch for sunny January days.

Click here for the recipe for quail with spiced tomato and sultana sauce

Happy new year to you all! By now I imagine you have just about managed to clear out the fridges, polish off the last of the port and pry the remaining relatives off the sofa, away from the television and out of the door.

I always find there are a few little bits that hang around though - chocolates, nuts and quite often a few too many mince pies (if that's even possible, I've been known to make a batch in the middle of summer!).

This recipe is a delicious and enjoyable way to use up the last of the pies and a good excuse to make some more if you've run out. A chef's suggestion - get one of the kids to do the stirring, as there's quite a lot of it.

Click here to read the recipe for Mince pie and Armagnac ice cream

Christmas day is a day of food and celebration and so in the few days before I like to tuck into a few simpler meals. It also makes life much easier as most of us are running round like crazy buying presents and making sure we've got the fridge stocked with what seems like an army's worth of food!

I think we all go a little mad at this time of year but in a way that's part of the enjoyment. It seems like several weeks of hullaballoo just for a single day, but somehow the peace that descends (most of the time) once the turkey graces the table make it all worthwhile.

The Italians seem to have a far more relaxed view of things and take life a little more easily. This recipe comes from some friends who run a country farmhouse Il Masero in the north of Italy near the city of Piacenza. They eat this simple delicious pasta dish during the festive season.

Making pasta might seem a faff but it's actually incredibly simple and is a perfect way to wind down from the madness that is Christmas!

Click here to read the recipe for Tortelli Piacentini

The lamb shank lends itself wonderfully well to slow-cooking and this wintery time of year. This inexpensive cut of meat is perfect for stewing and roasting at low temps and is done so all over the globe, from Morocco to India.

It's great with good old British root vegetables, or for a Greek twist served with preserved lemons and olives and sprinkled with aromatic oregano before being roasted, or cooked in the tagine.

Lamb shanks are particularly delicious because of their fat content which when cooked slowly breaks down and flavours the meat. They absorb strong flavours very well and for National Curry Week I nipped down to my great friend's Indian restaurant, Roz Ana, where they do a stunning curry which is well worth trying at home.

Click here for the recipe for Roz Ana's Lamb Nalli

I made a new purchase this week - one I've been meaning to buy for ages and never got round to for some reason or other, usually getting distracted by slightly shinier, jazzier things - a sugar thermometer. It's an indispensable addition to the sweet toothed cook's armoury.

I've been experimenting and have become completely addicted to cinder toffee, or honeycomb as it's more widely known. You'll probably have eaten it hundreds of times as a Crunchie bar but a home-made version is well worth a go with a slightly more grown-up, darker, caramel edge.

It's delicious dipped in chocolate, as part of Rocky road (with home-made marshmallows!),  scrunched over ice cream, or even better used as a topping sprinkled over icing on a cupcake.

It's quite a fun thing to make in the kitchen too, a bit of chemistry in the reaction between hot sugar and bicarbonate of soda.

Give this one a go and you'll be a convert - both to the fun and the flavour!

Click here for the cinder toffee recipe

I'm a huge seafood fan - razor clams, cherry clams, oysters and the like. Scallops, however, are one of those ingredients whose pleasure utterly escaped me. I just didn't get it. To me they seemed rather like textured protein - without any redeeming factors!

Then, on two separate occasions these past two weeks, I've eaten such exceptional examples that my mind may have been changed. Scallops in a cep broth at Martin Wishart's fantastic Edinburgh restaurant were sweet and exquisitely cooked - a perfect golden sheen on the outside providing a welcome depth.

My second encounter was at Theo Randall's incredible Italian restaurant at The Intercontinental Park Lane, where the quality of ingredients is second to none.

Theo's cooking is wonderful in its simplicity - using the standard of produce they do, little is needed to let the food sing. For this recipe, try getting hold of the best scallops you can find - track down a local fishmonger if possible. The results will be worth it in the end.

Click here for Theo's recipe for Cape Sante - pan fried scallops served in the shell with chilli, parsley, datterini tomatoes, capers, lemon and lentils di Castelluccio and rocket

Katsu or Tonkatsu is a Japanese method of cooking cuts of meat by dipping them in flour, egg and Panko breadcrumbs and deep frying them.

It's as good as it sounds, and the Japanese serve it either with Miso soup or cut into slices in a sandwich made with the fluffiest white bread, pointed cabbage, mustard mayonnaise and a Japanese version of brown sauce (normally labelled Tonkatsu sauce) - perfect food for a TV dinner.

I have various spots in London that I head to for my favourite dishes, and Tsuru Sushi in Southwark - near the city's famous foodie spot Borough Market - is high up on the list. They have perfected the art of Katsu and I recently managed to wangle their method.

The Katsu sandwich

Step 1
Choose your meat - pork shoulder or loin, chicken thigh or breast (or vegetables) - and cut to 1.5cm thickness. If using a chicken thigh simply remove the skin and bone.

Step 2
Coat the meat in flour (remove excess by slapping gently), then egg, then dip into panko breadcrumbs and coat evenly. The bigger the breadcrumbs, the crisper the katsu.

Step 3
Heat oil until a cube of bread browns in about 30 seconds to a minute. Fry the meat 2 minutes. Take out and rest for 1 minute. Fry for further 2 minutes. This resting ensures a crispy coating and perfectly cooked, juicy meat.

Step 4
Slice the katsu diagonally and arrange evenly on a slice of thick, fluffy white bread (the lighter the bread, the bigger the contrast in texture with the katsu, the better the sandwich).

Then drizzle tonkatsu sauce over the katsu, add a big handful of very thinly sliced pointed cabbage on top and then drizzle with mustard mayonnaise (recipe below) and make the sandwich.

Tsuru Mustard Mayo
•    100ml Japanese mayo (use normal mayo if you can't find this)
•    20ml good English mustard
•    5ml lemon juice

Method

Combine ingredients.

Some of my favourite cooking moments involve using very few ingredients to create something delicious. A handful of this or a splash of that - pure flavours, dealt with simply and easily. Fuss free suppers are the way forward.

There are days when I do happily spend several hours preparing a meal - a labour of love - but often I'll won't have a lot of advance warning to whip something up when people arrive. This is a perfect meal for those times - an easy-as-pie dinner using just four ingredients.

Caramelised onion and anchovy tart

Ingredients

• 1 packet ready rolled puff pastry
• 100g Grana Padano cheese or parmesan, grated
• 1 tin of anchovies or half a jar
• 3 onions

Method

Finely slice the onions and cook them in a pan with a splash of oil on a very, very low heat for around an hour until they are a deep golden colour.

Pre-heat your oven to 220°C.

Score a line around the edge of the pastry about one centimetre in. Spread the onions over the centre of the tart evenly, then scatter the cheese over and place the anchovies on top.

Put the tart into the pre-heated oven and cook for around 15-20 mins until puffed up and golden.

Serve with a green or tomato salad.

So it's goodbye summer and hello autumn; and although it's a tragedy waving goodbye to the two warm, long, hazy summer nights we had, I'm really looking forward to the next six months of eating.

Game is about to come into its prime and with it all the flavours that marry so well - autumnal fruits, pears, apples, chestnuts, quinces, parsnips, cabbages, cavolo nero and beetroots.

Dare I even mention Christmas yet? Although I'm already looking forward to that, quite possibly my favourite meal of the year.

Our menu at the restaurant changes now quite significantly with the change in the seasons. Partridge replace pork and earthy, deep soups take the place of light, fresh salads.

We put on things like cock-a-leekie, a perfect example of the warming, flavourful fare we should be devouring at this time of year.

It's a time for crumble, for risotto flavoured with pumpkin and pancetta, for stews and braises. Having said that, the sun will probably come out again tomorrow... 

Beans and pulses and I have this strange relationship - I've never been able to eat them - not even the baked kind. It's not about the taste, but completely about the texture; sometimes they can have that rather powdery mouth-feel that I find a bit, well, odd.

Sticking to my rule though I found that one good experience can switch it all around - a dish of channa masala, spicy curried chickpeas, was the problem solver.

Somehow the textures just worked and even though the first few mouthfuls of whole chickpea were a bit of a - erm - mouthful, after that I was a convert, taking in lentils, gigantes, kidney beans and everything in between. Although, embarrassingly, I'm not quite into baked beans yet.

This recipe comes from Arch One restaurant right next to London's Waterloo station. They also do very, very good chips. It makes a great starter for a dinner party.

Mixed Seafood on borlotti beans with rocket and red onion salad 

Ingredients (Serves 4)

• 50 grams of cooked borlotti beans
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 scallops
• 2 cleaned baby squid
• 3 tiger prawns
• 25 grams butter
• 1/4 sliced red onion
• Small bunch rocket leaves

 

To garnish

• lemon wedge
• 4 cherry tomatoes

 

Method

Melt the butter in a pan and add garlic, cook over a gentle heat for 1 minute.

Add prawns, squid and scallops. Turn seafood for approx 2 minutes until almost cooked and season

Add the beans and cook for a further minute.

Serve on a plate, topped with rocket leaves mixed with thinly sliced red onion.

Serve garnished with a lemon wedge and several halves of cherry tomatoes.