If you’re in a new relationship, the aim is to appear interesting to your partner. One way to fake interesting is to cook exotic food. The Three Pee Curry is just your ticket. If you’re very desperate, get some leis and drape them around your living room and you could get some paper umbrellas and whip up some cocktails.

This is a fusion curry, it’s part Indian, part Thai and part Tropical (insert whichever tropical country takes your fancy - personally I always call it the Tropical Hawaiian Curry).

Ingredients
400gm raw green prawns, leave tails on
1/2 small pumpkin, skinned cut into 2cm cubes
1/2 pineapple or small tin of pineapple pieces
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic crushed
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp ground corinader
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp red curry paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp palm sugar
1 tsp lemongrass, chopped
1 can coconut cream
Jasmine rice
Coriander to serve

Heat roughly 1 tbsp of oil over low heat in a pan and add your onions. Cook until soft and starting to change colour. Add garlic and cook for one minute. Add all of the spices and red curry paste, stir and cook for another minute. Add the can of coconut cream then add the fish sauce, palm sugar and lemongrass and stir. Add in your pumpkin cubes and reduce heat to a simmer for roughly 10-15 mins. If your curry sauce starts to dry out at some water. Meanwhile you can get the rice ready by steaming or boiling or whatever method you use.

Test the pumpkin to see if it’s cooked. If it is add the prawns and pineapple with any pineapple juice and turn up the heat. You want to cook the prawns quickly, so mid- high heat is best. Stir and watch. When they have changed colour and curled up they are cooked - it should take around three minutes.

Serve the three pee curry on top of the jasmine rice and top with coriander. Sitting it next to your tropical Hawaiian punch and you’re exotic!

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This is my “Burgh…it’s really cold and I want to snuggle up to someone sexy when I’m finished”… Cheesy au gratin is dead sexy, it’s a warm and comforting dish that should put anyone at ease, especially those of you who think fennel is pretentious.

So on the menu tonight we have redfish, which I think is also known as red emporer in the UK, in a dill and fennel marinade with cauliflower and broccoli gratin and roast pumpkin and potatoes.

Ingredients
400g redfish fillets
bunch of dill, chopped
1 small fennel bulb, chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
roughly 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 heaped teaspoon dijionaise (spell!)
2 large potatoes peeled and cut into small chunks
1/4 whole pumpkin peeled and cut into chunks
1/4 head cauliflower
1/2 head broccoli
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup grated tasty cheddar

Method
Heat oven to 180. Put the potatoes on to boil in a pot of water, once boiling leave them for 5 mins then drain really well. Once drained shake the potatoes in the pot to “rough them up” - yes you want them to look disshelved. Heat an oven tray in your oven with a dash of olive oil for about 3 mins then add your roughed up potatoes and pumpkin.

Meanwhile boil some water in another pot for your cauliflower and broccoli and prepare your marinade for the fish. Mix fennel, dill, dijionaise, olive oil, lemon juice and a good bit of ground pepper and salt. Add fish fillets and put in the fridge. I know, you’re saying “lemon juice cooks fish” but the redfish seems to cope with it, and the olive oil does water it down. Just make sure you don’t leave it marinating longer than an hour.

OK, after that mouthful, your broccoli and cauliflower should now be cooked. They only take a few minutes after your water has started boiling. Drain and put into an oven dish. Melt butter in a small pot, add flour and stir like there is no tomorrow. I cheat and use a whisk. When these have made a nice roux, add the milk and keep whisking over heat (mid-heat). This will thicken after about 5 mins then add cheese until it melts. Pour over cauliflower and broccoli and add to the oven.

You should also add the marinated fish to the oven now too in its own tray…if you are so lucky to have an oven that can fit three shelves…give it all 10-15 mins and that’s it. A yummy hot cool night meal…since it’s a cold night I give you permission to serve with a nice bottle of red, even though it goes against the rules, something like a Merlot would be yummy, then you can cuddle your loved one in front of the fire…

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A super winter dinner, especially after a big lunch. We had ribs for lunch down at Hurricane’s today and whilst they are the best ribs in Sydney, they also make you feel lardy…so with with meat for lunch, it’s definitely time for vegetables for dinner.

Ingredients
3 kipfler pototoes, peeled and cut into chunks
2 skinny eggplants, sliced
1/4 pumpkin, skinned and cut into chunks
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
1 zucchini, cut in half
3 cloves garlic
olive oil
pepper
150g Halloumi, sliced

Method
Heat oven to 200. Heat olive oil in an oven tray (in the oven) for about 5 minutes. Add all of your vegetables and grind pepper over them. That’s it! Just wait for 40 minutes, check them once half way through and turn them over. Put the cheese over the top of the vegetables and move the tray up to the grill for about 5- 10 mins.

Halloumi doesn’t melt - it still, according the geek - tastes like rubber. However I love it. This is a great recipe for you vego’s and people wanting to detox from meat.

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This is one of the best inventions I’ve made this year. The feta melts slowly and beautifully with the heat of the asparagus and pumpkin.

You must use that special “top shelf” olive oil for this recipe. Something along the lines of this White Truffle Olive Oil. Mmm…truffles…

Ingredients
Bunch asparagus
half pumpkin cut into small cubes (about 2cm)
200g feta cheese, thinly sliced and cut into squares
handful of pine nuts
tablespoon butter
your best olive oil (like truffle oil)
regular olive oil
salt
pepper

Method
Heat your oven to 210. In an ovenproof tray heat some regular olive oil by placing it in the tray in the oven for about two minutes, then add pumpkin to tray, give the tray a good shake to coat the pumpkin in olive oil and put in the oven for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare your asparagus. Jamie Oliver showed me how to prepare asparagus. You don’t cut the ugly tips off, you break them by letting the asparagus tell you were - this may sound odd, but if you hold the asparagus in two hands close to the tip and snap it - it will snap in the right spot. Anyway, moving on…steam your asparagus for three minutes over boiling water.

While the asparagus is cooking, melt your butter in another saucepan over low heat and add the pine nuts. It’s a bit of a catch-22 here as you want high heat for the pine nuts, but butter burns at high heat, so I usually turn the butter up to mid heat as it will only need about 2 minutes to work with the pine nuts.

OK, now your pumpkin should be ready from the oven, remove from the tray and place in a bowl with asparagus, feta cheese and pine nuts in butter. Drizzle with your best olive oil and then mix really well so the heat from the asparagus and pumpkin starts to melt the feta.

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This is a really easy dish to make, and super delicious to serve as a light meal or on the side for a bbq or somewhere else where meat is involved. The only thing you have to promise to do is use really good quality olive oil.

I have two kinds of olive oil, a giant tin that I cook with and a tiny ‘gourmet’ bottle that I dress with. I don’t mean I wear it, I mean I use it to dress salads, dip bread into etc, because it tastes a lot different to the other oil (and costs about the same for about 1/10th of the size!). So if you want to impress your friends, or today, your Valentine, go and get some really expensive olive oil, like this Frescobaldi Laudemio…

Ingredients
1/2 pumpkin chopped into small cubes (no bigger than 2cm)
Roughly 4 big handful’s of rocket
2 kinds of olive oil
Handful of pinenuts
Slice of feta cheese cut into cubes

Method
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Heat some regular (cheap) olive oil in a baking tray for a minute. Add your chopped pumpkin and cook for roughly 30 minutes, turning at least once.

Heat a little regular oil in a fry pan on low heat, add pinenuts and move around for no more than a minute. Don’t walk away or leave these nuts otherwise they will burn quickly.

Put the rocket into your favorite salad bowl, throw in the sliced feta and top with the pinenuts, try not to include much of the oil. When your pumpkin is ready add that and then drizzle over the good (expensive) olive oil. Mix everything for a minute, you want the heat from the pumpkin and pine nuts to start working on the feta and even the rocket. Season well with salt and pepper.

Impress your loved one, maybe with some oysters (I know, it’s a cliché) and some champagne…

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It’s summer and as I live near the beach I often feel a bit tropical and Hawaiian. As my moods are reflected in my cooking and today was a beautiful Bondi day, I felt the urge to create a tropical curry with the fruit of the moment, mango.

Ingredients
200g red snapper, cut into bite sizes
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
oil
half pumpkin cut into little bite size pieces
1 can 400ml coconut milk
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons fish sauce
4 lime leaves, cut into slivers
1 mango cut into slices
coriander
1 1/2 cups jasmine rice

Instructions
Put a bit of oil in a heavy based pan, add the curry paste and fry for roughly a minute until the paste has released it’s fragrance. Add turmeric and ground coriander, stir for a few seconds to release more fragrance. Add coconut milk and stir for a minute. Add water, fish sauce, lime leaves, mango and pumpkin. Slowly bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 mins until pumpkin is cooked through.

At this time start to cook some rice in boiling water. The rice should only take you 10 mins if the water is already boiling. A tip I learned from the geek is to wash the rice in boiling water (or hot water from the tap) in a sieve once it’s finished cooked. It always delivers great rice.

When pumpkin is cooked, add fish and cook for under 5 minutes.

Serve on rice with coriander sprinkled over the top.

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