Under 30 minutes

Naturally creamy and slightly bitter in flavour, walnuts are the wrinkly, brain-like fruit of the walnut tree and a versatile storecupboard ingredient in both sweet and savoury cooking. Here, they contrast sweet leeks in a creamy blue cheese sauce for pasta – a quick and comforting dish for a cold winter night

Use up any offcuts and leftovers from your Boxing Day ham in this quick dish with tropical flavour. No ham left? It’s just as delicious with cooked prawns or leftover turkey

Roasting grapes intensifies their sweetness, which works well with the creamy Stilton and sharp pickled walnuts in this salad. Heap it on the garlicky toasts for a sofa supper

A Dutch baby is an oven-baked pancake. Blitzing the batter in a blender gives it a lofty rise – even better if you can let the batter rest for 20 minutes

This quick Italian-inspired dish uses a cheat ingredient for a result that tastes like it’s been simmering on the stove for hours

Keema-style curry is packed with flavour and makes a great stuffing for fluffy jacket potatoes. Swap the frozen jackets for sweet potatoes for an extra portion of your five-a-day

These subtly spiced crumpets have all the flavours of kedgeree but are much quicker to make; ideal for brunch on Christmas morning

The perfect antidote to the rich, festive fare we all find ourselves indulging in at this time of year. It really brings the best out of simple seasonal ingredients.

Recipes with minimal ingredients get a great boost from miso, which lends lots of flavour with minimum effort here