Spicy eggs for a lazy weekend brunch

Here's a spicy, flavour-packed brunch for a lazy weekend morning. Or it could equally be a lunch or supper, if you're not keen on spices too early in the day.

This recipe is from Sunshine on a Plate by Masterchef winner Shelina Permalloo (£20; Ebury Press). It's a dish from Mauritius, whose global melting pot of flavours can be seen in the mixture of ginger and coriander with parsley and thyme, plus plenty of heat from the chilli.

A salad of broccoli, beans, cheese and almonds

Here's a salad that has everything you could possibly need. Bright green broccoli with a bit of bite, crisp broad beans, chunks of creamy yet piquant cheese, plus chopped fresh dill for flavour and toasted flaked almonds for flavour and crunch.

Runner beans with mustard and a poached egg

Here's one for people who grow runner beans, or who are lucky enough to have friends or family who grow them.

It turns some runner beans (and an egg) into a light lunch, and it's so easy it doesn't really need a recipe. I always think of runner beans as a home-grown vegetable. While you can pick them up in a supermarket, they're definitely best freshly picked.

Spinach with rice and eggs

It's surprising how many dishes can be improved by a poached egg (toasted cheese sandwiches, spicy tomato sauce, various soups, most dishes involving pasta and pesto...). Spinach and eggs are one of those classic combinations which just seems right, whether it's in a salad, omelette, souffle or quiche. And if you add some cheese too, then you really have a match made in heaven.

I'm a big fan of spinach, with its mild but distinctive flavour and slight tang of iron. The frozen stuff is a handy ingredient to have in your freezer (and avoids the disappointment of watching fresh spinach shrink so dramatically) but sometimes only fresh will do. Having bought a couple of bunches of vivid green spinach from Brixton Farmers' Market, this dish is how I decided to celebrate.

A triple allium risotto

You realise you must be getting older when the highlight of your Friday evening is making an oozing, creamy risotto.

This one was born of a desire to use up some over-ripe Brie. I was at a farmers' market last weekend at the end of the hot day, and picked up a load of soft, almost molten Somerset Brie for not very much money. Slathered onto fresh bread that evening, it was almost buttery and we wolfed it down with glee. A few days later, however, it was noticeably stronger, and frankly at the point where it was better for cooking with than eating on its own.