Add the onion and sauté over gentle heat, stirring occasionally, until translucent (4-5 min).

Add the pumpkin, apple and sugar, mix and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the sugar melts.

Add the curry, orange zest, and 3/4 of the chicken stock. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes or until pumpkin is tender.

Purée the soup until smooth and add some of the orange juice to taste (my children have a fine balance here, the soup must be orangy but not too much, so I keep the juice to adjust at the end) and the remaining stock until you reach the desired consistency. Stir the cream in if using (I usually don’t).

Serve topped with crumbed roasted chestnuts or roasted pumpkin seeds, and feta or parmesan cheese.

Place a sprig of rosemary on top of each chicken breast and wrap with a slice of parma ham or pancetta. Brush the top with olive oil and place on baking paper or aluminum foil on a tray in the oven.

Cook for about 20-25 minutes or until no blood comes out of the chicken when cut.

Wash the sweet potatoes (do not peel them), do not dry them off. Puncture a few times with a fork. Place on a paper towel in the microwave and cook for about for about 10 minutes. Do this in two 5 min stages, turning over the potatoes halfway through. Add a few minutes if needed at the end, the potatoes must be cooked through.

Remove the skins and mash with the back of a fork, adding a bit of warm milk and a generous dollop of butter. Add the ground coriander if using. The puree can be a bit fibrous, which I actually quite like. My children however are not so keen on this texture so I give it a quick whizz with my hand blender to obtain a smooth consistency.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the chicken on top of the puree.

Dip the tomatoes for 2 mins in boiling water, this will allow you to peel them effortlessly. Rinse them under cold water and peel their skin off. Deseed and cut into chunks.

Peel and cut the apple into small pieces, discard the core. Peel and cut the aubergine and mix both with the juice of the lemon to prevent oxidation.

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and sauté the aubergine, tomatoes and apple until they start getting some colour. Add the apple juice, Espelette pepper or chili powder, a pinch of salt and simmer until the aubergines are tender. If all the juice evaporates during simmering and the pan gets too sticky, add a bit more apple juice.

When ready, whizz the vegetables into a smooth puree. Pour into a jar, cover with a bit of olive oil and allow to cool down.

Cook the fish

Preheat the grill of your oven.

Peel and crush the garlic cloves and mix with the olive oil.

With a sharp knife score the skin of each fish in criss cross marks on both sides, making sure you pierce the skin through (see picture above).

With your fingers or a brush, cover each fish with the garlic and oil mixture, making sure you rub some inside the criss cross marks to flavour the flesh. Insert any remaining garlic inside the fish, along with 2 whole stems of dill. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Grill the fish in the oven for about 10 mins (a bit longer if your sea breams are larger), or until the flesh nicely separates from the bone when a knife is inserted, and the skin is brown and crispy.

Serve the fish with the cold caviar and rocket salad, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and a bit of oil.

Meanwhile, cook the onion in a saucepan with a little of the stock until the onion has softened and the stock has evaporated; this will take about 15 minutes.

Remove the peppers and tomatoes from the oven and toss them into a bag – paper or a plastic freezing bag will do. Close it tightly and leave until the vegetables are cool enough to handle (about 8-10 minutes). The steam produced by the vegetables inside the bag will loosen their skin, making the peeling easy. Peel both peppers and tomatoes, keeping as much juice as you can.

Toss the lot into the pan with the onion and the peeled roasted garlic. Add the remaining stock and seasoning, bring to the boil and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes. Liquidise and taste for seasoning, add a few drops of tabasco if you want to give the soup a bit of bite.

Serve hot or chilled (best in my view) with plenty of torn fresh basil, a drizzle of olive oil, fresh goat’s cheese and croutons.

In a small grinder or using a mortar and a pestle, grind the garlic, paprika, salt, rosemary and pepper into a paste. Transfer the paste to a small bowl and dilute it with the lemon juice, worcestershire sauce, oil and water.

If you did not ask your butcher to do it for you, cut the guinea fowl into two halves lengthways with a butcher’s knife. Score the skin and flesh on both sides of the bird’s halves, place them in a dish and pour the marinade over them. Rub both pieces thoroughly with it to ensure it coats all sides. Leave in the fridge overnight or for at least 4 hours, turning the guinea fowl halves over and rubbing them again with the marinade halfway through.

Preheat the barbecue at high temperature and oil the grid. Place the two bird halves, skin side down, close to the heat on the barbecue. Grill for 10 minutes, checking the meat is not being exposed to high flames and brushing it with the rest of the marinade.

Turn the pieces over and grill for another 15 minutes, then place the bird halves to a higher grid and keep cooking on low heat for another 25 minutes or until cooked through. To know whether the guinea fowl is cooked, cut the flesh on the inside of a leg. The flesh should not have any pink marks at the bone.

Aubergines (10 min busy+cooking):

Wash the aubergines, trim off their ends, and cut them into disks one inch thick. Chop the garlic into fine slivers and slice the parmesan into 1mm slices. Chop parmesan slices into squareish pieces.

With a small pairing knife, cut a pocket inside each aubergine slice (think you are making a purse with a 5 cm opening slit on the skin). Slide inside each slice 3 parmesan square, one rosemary leaf, 2 garlic slivers and a few cumin seeds.

Now you can cook them in either of two ways: on the barbecue or the cooker. If grilling on the barbecue, lightly brush both sides of the slices with olive oil. Grill for 3-4 minutes of each side to get a nice colour then finish the cooking further from the heat for about 20 minutes, or until the aubergines are tender to the core. If using the cooker, DO NOT oil the aubergines. Place them flat in a large ungreased pan and cook on medium- low heat for about 30 minutes, turning them over halfway through. If some cheese were to escape, wipe it away with a paper towel to keep the pan spotless clean. Check regularly to make sure the aubergines do not burn.

Once the aubergines are cooked, drizzle with good quality olive oil and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and salt flakes.

Couscous (5 min busy):

Cook the couscous according to packet instructions.

Meanwhile, Place the raisins in a microwave-safe bowl and cover them with water so that they sit about 2cm under the water surface. Add a pinch of salt, the olive oil, curry and cumin and cook in the microwave for 10-12 minutes, until the raisins are soft and have absorbed most of the liquid. The water will bubble away so make sure your bowl is tall enough to avoid making a big mess in your microwave. If you don’t have a microwave, soften the raisins in the spiced water in a small saucepan.

When the raisins are ready, fluff the couscous with a fork and pour over it the raisins and their remaining cooking liquid. Mix well and adjust the seasoning if needed.

Prepare the pesto: blitz all ingredients in a blender until obtaining a homogenous yet grainy texture; reserve.

Chop the roots and leaves off the radishes, keeping a few mms green stems on the radishes. Discard the roots and keep the leaves. Wash both radishes and leaves separately and reserve.

Steam the radishes for 10 minutes, adding the fine beans to the steamer half way through.

Meanwhile, sauté the onions gently in hot olive oil in the frying pan. When translucent, add the vegetable broth. Bring to the boil and add the pasta. Simmer for 2 minutes, then toss the peas into the soup. Simmer two more minutes and add the mangetout and radish leaves. Simmer one last minute and take off the heat. Mix in gently the radishes and beans and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

Serve the soup with a dollop of pesto in each bowl.

Dice the chicken breasts into even sized chunks and toss them into the marinade. Mix well to coat the chicken, and marinate for 10 minutes (30 min if you have time).

In the meantime, wash and dry the watercress, bean sprouts and radishes. Slice the radishes finely and mix the three ingredients into a salad. Prepare a vinaigrette by mixing the lime juice with the olive oil, mustard, salt and pepper and pour it over the salad. Mix well and reserve.

Peel off the lemongrass sticks the stronger leaves ending with a hard, sprig-like top . You will need eight of these. them to a length of about 15 cms (4 inches). Thread the chicken onto the lemongrass leaves, starting from their hard end.

Transfer the marinade to a frying pan and heat over medium heat. Add the skewers and sauté on all sides for 5-6 minutes or until cooked through.

Serve the skewers on top of the salad and enjoy!

Peel and grate the carrots using the small holes of your grater.

Peel and core the apple and grate it using the larger holes of the grater.

Mix the carrots and apples with the juice and oil mix and the coriander.

Peel the second orange so as to remove the outer membrane covering the segments along with the skin. Separate the segments, removing their skin.

Serve the carrot salad  immediately with one or two orange segments on top, or reserve in the fridge until serving.

With a rolling pin, flatten the chicken fillets. If they become too large, cut them in half.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

Coat the chicken generously with the spice mix. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and sauté the chicken 1 to 2 minutes on each side.

Transfer the chicken to a lightly oiled dish (or simply place on a greaseproof paper on the tray of your oven) and bake for 10 minutes.

Prepare the sauce: mix the yogurt, oil and lemon juice and season to taste.

Serve the chicken with the sauce and lightly steamed vegetables. On the picture I steamed broccoli (steamed for 10 min) and mangetout beans (added in the last 2 minutes), and mixed them with fresh cress salad. It was a pure délice.

Chop the chestnuts coarsely.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Cut 4 large squares of greaseproof paper and spread evenly across the centres of the four squares the turnips, potatoes and chestnuts.

Place the fish fillets on top, sprinkle with sea salt flakes, freshly ground pepper, a drizzle of olive oil and finish with the juice of the lemon.

Close the papillotes by first joining and folding together a couple of times the paper sides alongside the longer end of the fish, and then by twisting tightly the opposite ends like a candy wrapper.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the fish is cooked (after 15 min open one papillote and check that the fish is cooked through. If not, replace in the oven and cook for a few more minutes).

Serve the papillotes on a plate, slightly open and with the fish sprinkled with coarsely chopped coriander.