Need a holiday on a plate? Here you go! This salad is nothing short of an utterly delicious serve of sunshine that will go great with your next barbecue or chillaxed, Med-themed dinner party. And look, maybe it’s too early for tomatoes? We couldn’t wait for when they are at their sun-ripened best, but if you’re more restrained than we are...

There’s a new way to cook lamb shanks in town; trussed up in paper. The idea is, the baking paper packaging traps all the juices and steam inside, keeping the shanks super-succulent and tasty as they cook. We don’t think you could possibly over-cook these as there is no way they can possibly dry out...

Some ingredients just have a natural affinity which shouldn’t be monkeyed with. Lentils. Bacon. Vinegar. Spinach. No amount of yuzu/tahini/maple syrup/pickle juice/smoked paprika/bee pollen/hot honey/Reece’s cups or whatever other flavours are currently smashing it on Reels, can possible be an improvement. Full stop, end of story, no arguing…

There’s something lovely about slow-cooker cooking. It makes meat juicy and really concentrates flavours. It’s pretty much impossible to overcook meat using a slow-cooker and unless you leave the lid off yours and go walkabout for a few days, nothing ever burns in one either…

Bloody autocorrect. Ours has a field day with ingredient names we’d think it should jolly well know better. We’ve ‘butthurt’ our corn when it should have been buttered. We added ‘shitpotle’ not chipotle to our chilli, although this one was arguably more of a straight typo…

Potato salad. Just yum. We love us a classic version, complete with mayo, chopped boiled egg, a hint of powdered mustard and chopped chives/parsley – we don’t even mind if a smidge of very finely chopped celery finds its way in…

1982 called and wants its chicken back… Chicken Marbella, to be exact. If you kids ever wondered how your forebears dinner-partied hard, look no further than this tasty relic from the beloved classic, The Silver Palate Cookbook…

Use whatever sausages you darn well like here, although some are definitely better than others. The ones to avoid are the sort with super-smooth interiors, that cook to disappointing hardness and don’t really taste like much except maybe over-seasoned pureed meat. They’re full of fillers…

Now here’s a combo I’ll bet you never saw coming. But jeebus, is it delicious or what? And we don’t have much more to say than that... and nor is there really a recipe. It’s more a concept. You know, the vibe of the thing. “In summing up, Your Honour, it’s melon, it’s tomato, it’s feta, it’s rightness, it works, it’s the vibe..

Platter up! Grab the nicest of what’s in season, cook it simply, hurl it on a big plate, then do the ‘come help yourselves’ holler’ like a fishwife. We love a salad Nicoise and, while salmon might not be a traditional inclusion, it’s perfect with everything else. The recipe here is all about the emulsified vinaigrette…