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Shepherds pie;

Mashed potato and minced meat. Comfort/winter/good listener food. This takes time, so not very good if you're very hungry. Perfect, however, to prepare while listening, cook while comforting, and eat while watching a video.

Risotto;

Rice plus anything in cupboard. Shows you can rustle up anything; good for entertaining and impressing new friends. This, however, requires a lot of stirring so not good if you're planning on multi-tasking, or are prone to tennis elbow. Great if you have a guest that you need to keep still and can put to good use while you pour the wine, get ready and do the whole hostess thing.

Bangers and Mash;

Sauages and mashed potato, an English classic. Ideal for nights in front of the telling/slobbing out - the perfect 'not-trying-too-hard' dish. Adding a splash of milk or knob of butter while mashing generally improves things enormously. Remember: Lumpy mash potato is not good.

Toad in the hole;

No frogs! just ssausages and batter baked in the oven. Similar feel to above. Fear not, this is much easier than it sounds. Grease the dish, grill the sausages and while they are cooking make the batter (same as pancake mix). Then take the semi-cooked sausages, place them in the dish, pour over the batter and cook until batter browns and goescrispy. Note: Browns NOT burns, crispy NOT charcoal.

The 'All in omelette';

Eggs and anything in the fridge. This is similar, at the start, to scrambling; you beat the raw eggs in a bowl. For a plain omelette pour the mixture into a frying pan, and treat egg mixture as you would if you were cooking a pancake. Cookon medium to high as you need enough heat for it to cook. Either sprinkle toppings on once it is cooked, or you can add after one side is done. Note: ultimate omelette is Spanish.

Spag Bol;

Spaghetti and minced meat. Easy and impressive, shows you know your way round the kitchen, but are too busy to fuss. Fry some chopped onions, add the mince and once it's brown add tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and gravy. Stir and leave to simmer. Boil water and follow cooking instructions for spaghetti.

Spaghetti and Bacon;

You have someone over and you want to line your stomachs for evening ahead. Quick and cheap.

And as for the summer or healthy moments? Salad. Why make life complicated?

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