Butternut squash gnocchi with spinach and herb pesto

Until I made this, I’d never attempted gnocchi before, but I’d done quite a bit of reading up on how to make them super tender and light to avoid the out of the packet rubberiness. This article from Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks is fantastic. She talks about her best gnocchi recipe having no egg in at all, which I wasn’t quite ready for! However, I took her advice and I did use the bare minimum of egg to bind the dough. When you’ve made it up, it’ll be quite tacky (I think this is to do with the water content of the squash). At this point I was very scared – should I add more flour and risk them becoming chewy? But I pressed on, ignoring my instincts and worries, and the result was light and delicious.

I had quite a bit of spinach to use up so made some herb pesto warmed up with a hint of chilli, which paired perfectly with the squash. I used thyme and sage as I think they go really well with the nutty squash flavour, but you could use whatever herbs you’ve got.

Chopped with 2 peas soup (broccoli!)

When me and my sister were much younger, we used to go and stay with our mum's cousin and his wife for weekends, where we'd spend time cooking and crafting. The name of this soup came about when my sister was writing out the recipe - she was clearly a bit better at spelling than my auntie thought a primary school child should be - part of the recipe was 'broccoli chopped (with two p's)' which she wrote as 'chopped with 2 peas' and it's forever been known as that. Unfortunately that draft of the recipe had to be re-written and didn't make it home, but here's the re-written version. I made it tonight with cheddar rather than red lesiter (!) and it was just as yummy as I remembered.

Teriyaki smoked tofu, stir fried greens and udon

I really wanted to make something that felt wholesome and cleansing after eating way too much thai food the other night. This felt just right – it’s really low in fat, the smoked tofu adds a great flavour and the greens make you feel like you're really doing your body good! I used a ready-made teriyaki by clearspring - you could of course make your own too – which had a peppery bite to it. I added some honey to give a sweetness and slight stickiness. I’d also like to add some sliced root ginger to this, and perhaps some chilli oil. Serves two