Wednesday was a scorcher in Cape Town. The thermometer on my car read 30 degrees and I saw people dressed in bikinis heading for the beach. The beach – in June! In celebration of the sunshine and warmth I made a suitably cheery salad for lunch. Guavas have just come into season, and my other winter favourite, avocado, is so plentiful at the moment. Combined with sweet roast butternut, feta, rocket and basil from my flourishing herb garden they make such a flavourful, interesting salad.

Serves one

• 2 guavas, cut into eighths
• 500 g roasted butternut (I roasted mine in a 190 C oven for about 40 minutes with a sprinkling of chilli flakes)
• A handful of rocket
• A small handful of fresh basil leaves
• Half a wheel of feta
• 150 g of rosa tomatoes, sliced
• A handful of mixed sprouts
• Half an avocado, sliced

It’s pretty easy to assemble – leaves on the bottom, and everything piled on top. I think it’s nicer if you let the butternut cool down a bit, so it’s not too hot. Crumble the feta on top and dress with something sharp – lemon juice or balsamic vinegar.

I’ve had a craving for Moroccan-spiced food recently. It probably has something to do with this wintry weather in Cape Town. Moroccan spices are deliciously warming and fragrant – perfect for autumnal suppers. I made up this pie recipe on the hop, and (if I do say so myself) it’s rather good. I served it with crispy sweet potato wedges sprinkled with chilli flakes.

Serves 8

500g peeled butternut, cut into small cubes
400g courgettes, grated
100g spinach
2 tins of brown lentils, rinsed and drained
2 free-range eggs
200g feta, crumbled
2 T toasted pine nuts
2 T slivered almonds
2 T each of chopped flat-leaf parsley and coriander
20 raisins
1 onion, finely chopped
2 dried apricots, finely chopped
2 heaped tsp harissa paste
1 tsp crushed garlic
Whole cumin seeds, paprika and whole coriander seeds
1 tsp honey
250g filo pastry
Melted butter

Heat the oven to 180 C. Put the butternut in a roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with cumin seeds and paprika. Roast until the butternut is cooked, about 40 minutes.

In the meantime, put the grated courgette into a colander and sprinkle with some salt. Leave over the sink for about 20 minutes and then squeeze to drain the excess water.

Fry the onion in some olive oil until it starts to soften and then add the harissa paste, garlic and a pinch each of cumin and coriander seeds. If you like heat, add a good pinch of dried chilli flakes. Fry for a minute or two and then add the courgette. Fry until the courgette is softened, and then add the lentils. Turn up the heat at this point to burn off all the water. Cook the lentils for a few minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the spinach until it’s wilted.

Combine the eggs, honey, apricots, raisins, feta, almonds, pine nuts and herbs and mix together with the lentils.

Brush a bit of melted butter on the bottom of a large casserole dish and lay down a sheet of filo pastry. Brush a bit of melted butter on top of the sheet and put another one on top. Repeat until you have four sheets on top of each other. Pour in the butternut cubes and spread across the base of the pie. On top of this pour in the lentil mixture and spread evenly. Now comes the fun part – scrunch up sheets of filo and cover up the top of the pie to make the ‘crust’. Brush the sheets with melted butter. Place in the oven and bake for about 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

This is a classic sweet-and-sour Sicilian dish served with bread, pasta or as a condiment. It’s really flavourful – I love the sour tang, puckering saltiness and hints of sweetness. It’s also a really quick dish to make, and it makes for great leftovers, as it tastes even better the next day, when the flavours have deepened. I took my inspiration for this from a Yottam Ottolenghi recipe, but I’ve adapted mine to make it much healthier (he deep-fries all his veggies). I ate this with spinach pappardelle, but it’s also delicious on toasted ciabatta.

Serves 3 as a pasta sauce

1 large aubergine, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp crushed garlic
120 g celery, sliced
1 red pepper, diced
1 tsp harissa paste
1 tin of tomatoes
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
20 g capers
30 g green olives, pitted and halved
1 1/2 tsp caster sugar
30 g raisins
1/2 a lemon
4 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
a handful of toasted pine nuts

Fry the onion in a glug of olive oil until it softens. Add the aubergine, garlic and harissa paste and fry on a medium heat until the aubergine starts to soften (about 5 minutes). You may need to add a touch more oil, as aubergine soaks oil up really quickly. Then add the celery and red pepper and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and red wine vinegar and turn the heat up a bit. When the sauce starts to get a bit thicker, add the sugar, olives and capers and turn the heat up. Cook until the sauce is the right consistency for pasta – thick but not dry. Add the raisins and pine nuts and take the pan off the heat. Let it cool down to room temperature and then squeeze in the lemon juice and add the parsley. Serve at room temperature or warm up slightly. This seems odd, but for some reason this sauce is much tastier when you’ve let it cool down.

People seem to think that risottos are complicated and difficult to make. They really aren’t. There’s a lot of stirring involved, and it’s pretty involved cooking in that you can’t just let the risotto simmer away while you go and do something else, but it’s not difficult cooking. Mushroom risotto is my favourite kind of risotto and the pinnacle of comfort food. Now that the weather’s turned autumnal and the nights are getting cooler, it’s a perfect time to start cooking warming, starchy, cheesy food.

Serves 5

500 g arborio (risotto) rice
500 g mushrooms (use chestnut or brown mushrooms – anything other than white button), chopped into big chunks
150 ml dry white wine
25 g butter
125 g parmesan, grated
2 l vegetable stock
3 leeks or one small onion, chopped finely
A handful of Italian parsley
Balsamic vinegar

Heat the veg stock and the white wine in a pot with the lid on and keep on a low simmer while cooking your leeks and mushrooms.

Fry the leeks or onion in the butter and two tablespoons of olive oil on a low heat until golden. Add the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes before adding the rice for a minute or two. This is where the real stirring starts – add a ladleful of the stock and wine mixture and stir until it’s completely absorbed. Keep doing this until the risotto rice is cooked (no longer crunchy but has a slight bite) – this will take about 30 minutes. Turn the heat off, add the grated parmesan and stir until it’s melted in. Stir in the parsley and serve with a drizzle of balsamic and a crisp rocket salad.

I love figs, and I try to eat as many of them as I can during their short season. I always plan to make something really yummy with them, but I just end up eating them as they are or squished on toast with lots of butter and a drizzle of honey. We’re almost at the end of fig season and this may be my last chance at a fig recipe for the year. It’s ridiculously simple and easy, but really quite delicious. I’m coming to the realisation that the moreish chocolate-chilli combo goes with just about anything, but it’s really superb with baked figs. Serve this late summer/early autumn dessert with Greek yoghurt, marscapone or vanilla bean ice-cream.

Serves four

12 fresh figs
50 g dark chilli chocolate (I like Lindt)
1 tbsp of butter

Cut off the stalks, and make a criss-cross cut in each fig. Break up the chocolate and put a shard inside each fig. Top off the figs with a tiny blob of butter. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, until the chocolate has melted and the figs are releasing their juices.