Made it up before I knew it had a name. Not authentic but it went down well

I couldn't anything I fancied in the Mexican cookbook - seems like all the veg had cheese and/or bread of some sort so I thought about ratatouille with Mexican flavours instead. The Spanish do something called Pisto but it's very tomato-ey and I wanted it a bit less gloopy

Holy Guacamole, Batman! (As Robin never said)

This is basically Tomato Salsa with mashed avocado mixed in. Don't buy it, there's no comparison to the real stuff

Fish on toast is the best thing in the world

Well, you know...but this is fabulous!

Crazy, mixed-up squid

Yep, you normally cook squid for a short amount of time and when you go over it's like an inner-tube. Squid is like a lot of other ingredients; lots of people don't like it but that's because a lot of people including restaurants don't know how to cook it.

I love Massive Attack's Karmacoma.

I think of it when I cook this: Keemakorma (“What? Jamaica and Roma”). No? Just me then

Tomayto-Tomarto

I’ve written about Sofrito before, but I didn’t realise that both the Italians and Spanish use the same word. Well, actually I did know that, but didn’t realise it was for slightly different things.

Anything but plain - you've got to love them Mexicans!

This is the same principle as Plain Rice where you measure the rice and liquid beforehand and cook it until the liquid is gone.

Everyone thinks their recipe is the best.

But they’re wrong. This is.

It's not exactly cooking

Well, this is predominantly a food site, even if I am using it to blog about spending a couple of months in Spain.

Sunny Sunday in Frigiliana

This is a nice bean stew that may or may not be “authentic” but uses Spanish flavours and since I’m in Spain cooking it with things I bought here, I’m claiming its authenticity.

Salsa, chatni, it's all the same; fruit, veg, acid and herbs.

This could pas for Asian as well as American but either way it's really lovely

“We don’t have this in Mexico, it’s an American thing. But if we did it would be like this . . ."

This is a briliant recipe based on a recipe by Lourdes Nicholls who says something along the lines of “We don’t have this in Mexico, it’s an American thing. But if we did it would be like this . . .

Not that yellow stuff, this is much, much better

Don't get me wrong, I love standard paella; the yellow one with seafood, saffron, chorizo and tomatoes. It tastes of sun, sangria and sex

Any excuse to use nuoc cham and rare beef

Use any salad you like - we are weird in Europe in that we make a salad from veg and variations on lettuce and then add a few herbs whereas in other parts of the world herbs are the salad. Tabouleh in the Middle East for example isn't parsley in salad, it's parsley as salad.

This is probably the most important thing you need to know how to cook

There are ways of doing it; fresh tomatoes, passata, tinned tomatoes, in my view it doesn’t really matter but let’s face it, most British tomatoes don’t really taste of much; they’re not like the ones you eat on Holiday where the sun shines more predictably so I think it’s always better to use tinned tomatoes or passata.

Yum Yum! This is a beautiful thing

This is a very beautiful hot and sour soup from Thailand. You can just about make it vegetarian, but the fish sauce is important in my view.

The best soup in the world

This is inspired by a Rick Stein recipe that is absolutely lovely.

This is a version of Puttanesca.

A puttana is a sex worker in Italian and it is thought to have been named because it was quick and easy for people with a "busy schedule" to cook and eat between appointments.