The wife and I developed an addiction to romesco sauce & calçots at Barrafina Soho a few years back. Romesco is one of the most delicious things to come out of Spain; a balance of roasted peppers, nuts, olive oil and vinegar that is just pure umami.

Calçots, a special Spanish not-leek, not-onion scallion that only appears for a 6 month window in the year, have eluded us at home for a long time.

Thankfully this year Brindisa are were selling them online.

There are 100s of romesco sauce recipes out there on the Internet, but the instructions below make the sauce how I remember it tasting the first time I had it.

Warning: anyone who eats it will be back for more. So hide it.

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees C.

If you're going to barbecue the calçots and have it burning already, then roast your romano peppers on the grill until they're black all over. If not, and you have a gas hob, then use one of the rings to do it. You could also use a blow torch - but the barbecue is best if you can.

When they look nice and black, take them off the heat, place in a heatproof bowl and cover with cling film. Let them stand for 10 minutes to sweat.

Spread the hazelnuts and almonds over a tray and put in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

When 10 minutes are up, take the tray out of the oven and set aside. Place the peppers on a chopping board. Scrape off the blackened skin, slice the top off, then slice in half and remove the seeds. Chop each pepper into smaller chunks.

Heat a tablespoon of the olive oil in a pan over a medium-high heat, then slice your garlic thinly and add that to the pan along with the roasted peppers and a pinch of chilli flakes. Cook for about 2 minutes or until the garlic has softened, then throw in your sourdough and cook for another 5 minutes.

Pour this into your food processor, and add the tomato puree, vinegar, parsley, paprika, and a pinch of salt. Blend until roughly chopped. At this point, start pouring in the olive oil with the processor's blade running. I like a more chunky consistency that is wet but still has some nutty texture - the more traditional way is to have it more smooth. The remaining olive oil (around 95g) is about what I'd suggest, but ease back on it if you think it's getting too wet.

Try the romesco and season until you're happy with the flavour. Use it on the calçots below, or have it as a side with salad, cheese or cold meats. You'll start finding excuses to have it.

Will last up to 5 days if refrigerated.


Calçots

The traditional Spanish way is to griddle them on your open barbecue, then wrap in newspaper to steam.

Place your calçots on the grill of a hot barbecue (some flames are fine) for 10 minutes. Turn them once every couple of minutes to make sure they cook all over. When they look blackened, remove and place on a plate. Cover with cling film to help the insides steam for 5 minutes.

When ready, peel off the outer blackened layer to find a soft onion centre. Dip in the romesco sauce and enjoy.

While not quite as exciting to post about, running or exercising well requires a certain diet. I've been pounding the streets of Mill Hill for over 20 years now, since the day I accidentally "auditioned" for the cross country team at school back in the 90s. For the last 10 years, the wife (who is also a runner) and I have stuck to a pretty simple set of rules - no alcohol during the week and eat healthy, lower calorie (but not low calorie) balanced food for exercise fuel Monday to Thursday ... then the weekend is ours to bathe in butter, bread and wine.

It's not about a super low cal diet for us. This suits a lot of people, but when you're out running for miles or working at high intensity in the gym it's simply not good for you to have zero fuel in the tank. You need some extra carbohydrates to power you if you're working hard, and protein to assist muscle gain and recovery.

This recipe is for a traditional Armenian dish, tweaked to be more healthy. My dad (one of those old school pure-blood Armenian types), says in his experience Lahmajun is made with lamb and fried onions. That sounds like a recipe for keeping our Kim Kardashian sized backsides up to standard Armenian XL size.

So, instead, I use beef fillet to keep things lean and bake the onions with the mince to cut another portion of oil out. Served with the apple salad, it makes a great dinner for days when you're exercising hard during the week.

For the dough

Mix the water, olive oil, sugar and yeast in a jug and let it activate for 5 minutes. Mix the flour, diax and salt together then combine with the wet ingredients and knead (by hand or in a machine with dough hook) for 10 minutes.

Place the dough in a lightly floured bowl and cover with cling film. Keep in a warm place until doubled in size.


For the topping

Freezing the meat makes it much easier to mince. Fillet can be soft to mince, so the low temperature allow it to pass through the blades without turning to mush. You can also used shop bought lean beef mince if you don't want to make your own.

Mince it, then grind a decent lot of pepper on top and set aside.

Take put your food processor. Slice an onion and remove the skin, then add that, the parsley and mint to the mixer bowl. Blend until roughly chopped - don't go too far, you don't want a puree. The photo here should give an indication.

Now weigh the spices and salt, then add to the onion mix with the tomato puree, canned tomato and pomegranate molasses. Blend again, being careful not to over puree it. Taste the mixture then add a squeeze of lemon juice to taste and more salt if required.

Leave this mix in the bowl of the processor for about 10 minutes - we want any of the excess liquid from both the onions and the tomato to come out. When you can see that has happened, use a spoon to hold the mixture back and carefully pour off the water into your sink.


Putting it together

Turn your oven on to 230c to pre heat, and put a big non stick pan over your hottest stove top burner or element. If you have 2 pizza stones, put them in the oven.

We left the food processor mix and beef separate so that the meat doesn't start to cook from the salt and lemon. When your oven is up to temperature and you're nearly ready to cook, combine the food processor mix with the mince. Don't overwork this - it should be quite loose. The photo here it what you should end up with.

Knock the dough back and split into 4 balls.

Flour the work surface and rolling pin, then roll out one ball to a round disc about 3mm thick. Place this into the scorching hot pan and centre it. Take 1/4 of the meat mixture and spread this on top. After 1 to 2 minutes, slide out the Lahmajun onto your work surface and repeat with the other three balls.

What we've done is seal the base and give it a crisp underside. Now all 4 are done, use your peel to slide them all onto the pizza stones on your oven. If you don't have stones, put a heavy tray into the oven to heat up instead.

Bake for 8 minutes.

While this is happening, finish the top and make the salad.

Core the apple but don't peel it. Roughly chop the parsley the dress with the olive oil and pomegranate molasses. Season the use your hands to toss the salad. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Finally, heat a pan and toast the pine nuts and cumin until they start to smoke.

Put a tablespoon of this into the salad and mix. When the Lahmajun are finished, take them out and scatter the rest of the nuts over each one.

Place a quarter of lemon on each one, a sprig of parsley and serve with the salad immediately.