Smoky fish with spinach, gnocchi, cream and mustard

A super-easy, delicious, midweek supper from Gill Meller's latest book Outside which you could, as he says, cook indoors or outdoors.

"Most of the things we cook inside on the hob can be cooked outside over a hot fire. That’s the case with this recipe, anyway. I’m not barbecuing any of the ingredients as such – I’m simply setting a pan down over the hot embers and cooking in a rather conventional way – although in this instance, I’ve replaced the ceiling with the sky and the walls with a view.

What’s particularly nice about this recipe is that it all comes together in the one pan. It’s rich, creamy and autumnal, and one of the tastiest things I’ve eaten in ages."

SERVES 2

100ml (3½fl oz) double (heavy) cream

a small colander of tender spinach leaves, roughly chopped

200g (7oz) skinless smoked fish fillet, cut into bitesize chunks

200g (7oz) gnocchi

1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard

25g (1oz) mature cheddar, grated

freshly ground black pepper

a handful of flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped, to serve

Set a large, deep frying pan over a medium–hot fire. Pour in the cream along with a few tablespoons of water.

Add the spinach and fish to the simmering cream and cook for a minute or so. Add the gnocchi, mustard and cheese and give everything a gentle stir. If the sauce seems a bit thick, add a dash more water.

After a minute or so, the gnocchi will be ready, so you can take the pan off the fire. Add a good twist of black pepper, and sprinkle in the chopped parsley before serving.

Extracted from OUTSIDE by Gill Meller £30 Quadrille. Photography: Andrew Montgomery

What to drink: I'd go for a smooth dry Italian white wine like a Soave or Gavi di Gavi with this but a subtly oaked chardonnay or chenin blanc would work well too. Or a dry cider or perry

Roast crown prince squash, ricotta and caramelised chilli sage butter

One of the most evocative cookbooks to have been published recently is Lori de Mori and Laura Jackson's Towpath, a series of recipes and reminiscences from the charmingly quirky Towpath Café. It's divided up month by month and this is in fact a September recipe but as squash is still in season and wonderful warming at this time of year it works equally well now.

Lori writes: This dish to me epitomises this time of year. The combination of the sweetness and earthiness of the squash with the crispy warmness of the sage work wonderfully as a pair. Add in a blob of rich, creamy and savoury ricotta and some caramelised sage and chilli butter and it warms the soul."

Serves 4

1 large or 2 medium crown prince squash, weighing around 2kg/41/2lb

2 tablespoons olive oil

Caramelised Sage and Chilli Butter (see below)

150g/51/2oz ricotta

salt and pepper

Notes

Any type of pumpkin or squash could be used here. You will just need a robust variety that is happy to be roasted and doesn’t have a high water content like spaghetti squash.

Preheat the oven to 210°C fan/450°F/gas mark 8.

Cut the squash into four. If you have one big squash, be very careful as the skin is super tough – I put a tea towel between my hand and the tip of the knife to prevent my hand going through the top of the blade. Remove the seeds and discard. Remove the skin. I find using a serrated knife the best option and if you get slightly further under the skin, it’s much easier to remove – you want to remove the green colour under the skin.

Cut into big wedges – I normally cut each quarter into three or four wedges lengthways.

Toss in the olive oil. Season and place on a large baking tray with the wedges standing up. Cook for about 25–35 minutes until the squash has browned and is fully cooked. This stage can be done in advance and kept in the fridge for 2–3 days and you can reheat without affecting the squash.

Make the Caramelised Sage and Chilli Butter (see below).

Plate up using one large platter or four individual plates. Place a bit of ricotta on the bottom so that it can secure the squash wedges, then layer up a few of the squash wedges and scatter some blobs of ricotta around. Layer up the rest of the squash and blob more ricotta over and around.

To finish, generously drizzle over the caramelised sage and chilli butter with lots of sage and lots of the butter. Season.

For the sage and chilli butter

bunch of sage

150g/ 5 ½ oz butter, cut into pieces

½ lemon, juiced

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ –1 teaspoon chilli flakes

salt and pepper

Pick the sage, saving the stalks for a stock. In a medium-sized frying pan, place the butter in the pan with the sage leaves. Melt over a medium-low heat. Continue cooking until the sage leaves start crisping. Turn the heat to low to prevent the butter and sage from burning. Once the leaves are crispy, turn off the heat. Add the lemon juice to prevent the sage and butter from cooking further. It will sizzle loudly! Add the garlic and chilli flakes. Stir well and season to taste. Pour into an appropriate container and leave in a warm place until needed.

What to drink: Given the spicy butter I'd go for a viognier with this but you could also drink a good Soave.

The best wines to pair with squash and pumpkin

Extracted from Towpath Recipes and Stories by Lori de Mori & Laura Jackson published by Chelsea Green at £27. Photograph © Joe Woodhouse

Penne in walnut sauce

If you've run through your pasta sauce repertoire several times during lockdown try this delicious penne in salsa di noci (penne in walnut sauce) from Christine Smallwood's lovely new book Italy: The World Vegetarian. It's really simple - as she says basically a walnut pesto.

Christine writes: Walnuts are found throughout Italy, as are beautiful bowls and other wooden objects made from their tree’s wood. The nuts are found in various dishes and the first pasta I came across with a walnut sauce was a ricotta-filled ravioli, but linguine, spaghetti and penne (as here) are all good choices, too.

A walnut sauce is often made with cream, but I like it as more of a pesto, albeit with walnuts and parsley instead of pine nuts and basil. Some people blanch their walnuts to remove the papery skin, but it is not essential.

Penne in Salsa di Noci

SERVES 4

NOTE: THIS RECIPE CONTAINS NUTS

300g shelled walnuts, roughly chopped

30g vegetarian Italian hard cheese, finely grated

20g parsley

½ garlic clove

1 teaspoon salt, plus extra to season

a pinch of black pepper, plus extra to season

about 8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve

350g penne pasta

Reserve a small quantity of the chopped walnuts for garnish. Put the remainder, along with the cheese, parsley, garlic and salt and pepper in a blender or food processor. Blitz to combine. Add enough oil to make quite a loose sauce. Transfer the sauce to a pan large enough to hold the cooked pasta and set aside.

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add the penne. Cook according to the packet instructions until just al dente. Reserve a few spoonfuls of the cooking water, then drain. (I found I needed quite a bit to loosen the sauce so keep back at least half a cup (about 125ml)

Loosen the walnut sauce with a little of the reserved pasta cooking water and adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Add the pasta to the pan with the sauce and stir to coat. Serve immediately sprinkled with an extra drizzle of olive oil and a few sprinkled chopped walnuts.

What to drink: You don't want anything too obviously fruity for this dish - a dry Italian white like a Soave, Orvieto or Vernaccia di San Gimignano would be ideal and, having tasted it, it would also go with an orange or skin contact wine) I also like the idea of drinking a savagnin or Jura chardonnay with it but haven't tried it

Extracted from Italy: The World Vegetarian by Christine Smallwood (Bloomsbury Absolute, £20). Photography by Mike Cooper.

Carrot pie with apple and goat cheese

This unusual recipe from Dutch cookery writer Yvette van Boven's lovely Home Made Summer is a great way to kick off National Vegetarian Week.

It's well worth getting the book for the other recipes too - including an imaginative range of drinks.

Carrot pie with apple and goat cheese

for 6 to 8 servings

8 carrots, peeled

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed

1 onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

1 fresh, tart apple, peeled, cored, and sliced as thinly as possible

4 oz (100 g) soft goat cheese

½ cup (100 g) crème fraîche

½ cup plus 2 tbsp (150 ml) carrot juice

3 large eggs

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Boil the carrots in salted water for 8 minutes, until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold running water. Halve them lengthwise and set them aside.

Grease a 9-inch (24-cm) tart pan with a removable bottom with a little butter.

On a well-floured counter, roll out the puff pastry into a nice round slab the size of the pie plate. Press the dough firmly into the plate and trim the edges neatly. With a fork, stab some holes in the bottom, then cover the dough and place the pie plate in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Arrange the onion and apple over the bottom of the pastry in the pie plate and place the halved carrots on top in a spoke pattern. Crumble the goat cheese over the pie, somewhat in between the carrots.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the crème fraîche, carrot juice, and eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the mixture over the carrots and sprinkle everything generously with pepper.

Bake the pie on the lower rack of the oven for about 35 minutes, until golden brown.

What to drink: Almost any crisp fresh white or rosé would work with this. I'd probably go for a smooth Italian white like a Soave, an unoaked Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc or a Provencal rosé. Verdelho would be nice too. Or cider . . . yes, cider would be lovely.