Properly ripe, wonderfully sweet tomatoes should simply be put on a pedestal and left to be enjoyed and admired. The second-best thing you can do with them is to make a salad. This one combines sweet, sour and salty notes, and is best served with warm bread to scoop up the tomatoes and soak up their juices

If you’ve never steamed aubergines before, please set aside any scepticism and give them a go – they have a notably silky texture and an incredible ability to soak up other flavours

A lemony lentil soup, a restorative chicken, pasta and parmesan bowlful, and a smoky aubergine broth thick with spicy goodness

This punchy dessert has everything – sweetness, acidity, saltiness and umami – which makes the creme fraiche essential for rounding out the flavours and mellowing them a little

From steaming soups to a buttery galette, these dishes feature seasonal ingredients that will keep you cozy all winter long

Here, I’ve applied the same technique used on aubergines when making baba ganoush to courgettes. It gives them a mellow smokiness and that distinctive flavour of the grill. You will be have some of the aromatic oil left over – keep it in a sealed jar and use it for dressing salads or roast vegetables. Serve with bread

Three ways of baking that allow room for error: a rice-flake and coconut flan, a chard and ricotta pie, and a honey yoghurt cornbread

There’s a bucketful of crisp textures in this salad, and one sharp, creamy dressing that brings everything together nicely. It was inspired by a dish I had at Aloette, a splendid restaurant in Toronto, Canada

This is my take on a German flatbread that’s typically topped with sour cream, bacon and onion. If you want to get ahead, make the dough and leave to prove overnight in the fridge

This echoes the flavours of southern Iran, with a few additions and tweaks. It works as a vegetarian main (serve it with fluffy white rice or flatbread) or as a side to all sorts of things: pan-fried tofu, say, or grilled prawns

Properly ripe, wonderfully sweet tomatoes should simply be put on a pedestal and left to be enjoyed and admired. The second-best thing you can do with them is to make a salad. This one combines sweet, sour and salty notes, and is best served with warm bread to scoop up the tomatoes and soak up their juices

This punchy dessert has everything – sweetness, acidity, saltiness and umami – which makes the creme fraiche essential for rounding out the flavours and mellowing them a little

The zingy dressing makes this a great side for the spicy vindaloo, but it’s also a wonderful standalone dish. If you’re short on time, use regular salted cashews or peanuts instead of the turmeric cashews. They are pretty special, though, so it won’t hurt to double the amounts here – they keep in a sealed container for up to a week

This punchy dessert has everything – sweetness, acidity, saltiness and umami – which makes the creme fraiche essential for rounding out the flavours and mellowing them a little

If you’ve never steamed aubergines before, please set aside any scepticism and give them a go – they have a notably silky texture and an incredible ability to soak up other flavours

This is a sort of vegan equivalent of steak and mash. The oil the mushrooms are cooked in turns into something similar to harissa, with a deep, umami flavour and a real kick, so leave out the red chilli if you prefer less heat

This is somewhere between a veggie loaf and a bread, as perfect for brunch as it is for afternoon tea. The chutney is pretty special, so make more of it than you need here, and keep in a jar in the fridge, where it will last for at least a week

This vegan platter is great served at room temperature, so you can get ahead and prepare the rice, roasted vegetables and dressing up to a few hours in advance, assembling everything to serve

The zingy dressing makes this a great side for the spicy vindaloo, but it’s also a wonderful standalone dish. If you’re short on time, use regular salted cashews or peanuts instead of the turmeric cashews. They are pretty special, though, so it won’t hurt to double the amounts here – they keep in a sealed container for up to a week

It might seem a bit much to roast grapes for a so-called “easy” salad, but in reality that only involves putting them on a tray and into the oven. You can roast them ahead of time, too: at room temperature, these little sweet flavour bombs will keep for a day, ready and waiting to take on the acidity of the dressing

Fresh, full of flavour and impossibly fluffy, meatballs don’t have to contain meat

The chaat masala gives these fries a distinctly sour flavour, but you could use garam masala or, indeed, any other spice you have to hand

It’s time we gave courgettes the praise they deserve

This display of the season’s best can double up as a light dessert or as a brunch centrepiece. You can make your own labneh, but it requires draining the yoghurt for a good 24 hours – you can also easily make everything on the day using shop-bought labneh or some Greek yoghurt mixed with a little double cream

Here, caponata (a sweet-and-sour Sicilian aubergine dish) meets mapo tofu (a spicy and aromatic Sichuan tofu dish) in a union so wrong, it’s right

Seasonal dishes to make good use of the apple harvest, including roast pork belly and a spiced galette

Roasting cherries is a great way to bring out their sweet, spicy and nutty notes that work so beautifully with black rice. It is worth investing in a bottle of white balsamic vinegar for this - it goes beautifully with any roast summer fruit – though sherry or moscatel vinegar would work just as well, if need be. And if you like, swap the black rice for black barley, if you can find it, and cook it according to the packet instructions

Four types of mushroom and two types of cheese give this lasagne the most satisfying, savoury intensity that makes it the most glorious meat-free lasagne you’ll ever have. To get ahead, build the lasagne one day, chill, then bake the next

Whether it’s raw, roasted, baked or stewed, it’s time to get with the beet

This tastes like a homemade version of the Heinz classic. The habanero adds a hot, fruity and smoky complexity that I love, but remove it entirely if you want to make the dish child-friendly, and use only half if you don’t like too much heat

The new vegetarian: Get your teeth into this cheesy, herby filo package that's incredibly moreish

Yotam Ottolenghi braises eggs with a sweet and savoury mixture of leeks, spinach, feta and za'atar in this alluring breakfast or brunch dish. This recipe was taken from SIMPLE by Yotam Ottolenghi, published by Ebury Press. Images by Jonathan Lovekin.

It’s 10 years since this column began, and I still love aubergine as much now as I did then

This makes a great standalone lunch, but it also works just as well alongside as a side dish. I prefer to use unsweetened and unsalted peanut butter, but if your brand has added sugar and salt, just reduce the amount of maple syrup and salt you add to the chickpeas. The crispy fried onions are great for a final layer of crunch, but don’t worry if you don’t have them: just increase the amount of peanuts to 200g and sprinkle some the extra 50g on top, before serving

Broccoli suits high-impact cooking (grilling, charring, frying), and pair with punchy, formidable and umami-rich ingredients, such as soy sauce, anchovy, mushrooms and infused oils and vinegars. All can match the wild spirit of broccoli, and help show it off in all its glory

If you’ve never steamed aubergines before, please set aside any scepticism and give them a go – they have a notably silky texture and an incredible ability to soak up other flavours

Start on this substantial dish the day before. Blitz the rice in batches in a spice grinder or food processor until it’s roughly broken, but not a powder, then soak

A tray bake retains much of the freshness and integrity of its components, particularly vegetables

a tasty Baking with walnut halves

The apple mustard and slaw also work with all sorts of other things, so play around with other proteins and sandwich fillings. The mustard keeps well in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to a week, but the slaw should be made just before serving, so it doesn’t go soggy

If you’re looking for more than strawberries and cream, try a watermelon and strawberry granita, a custard slice or a strawberry and tomato salad

This has all the wonderful qualities of classic fried rice, with those lovely crisp bits and salty bits, except here they’re paired with Mediterranean flavours. Don’t be tempted to stir the rice too much – you want it to build a crisp, tahdig-like layer at the bottom of the pan