A cheat summer menu

Warm Lentil Salad with Walnuts and Goat's Cheese

We should all be eating more pulses, so the more recipes that include them the better. In this warm salad, I've chosen the little tiny black-grey Puy lentils, but the green or brown variety will work just as well, given slightly less cooking time

Wild Salmon and caper fishcakes with watercress hollandaise (recipe x 2)

Although dedicated cooks have long recognised that tinned salmon makes better fish cakes than fresh, the packaging of tinned salmon has not hitherto been very inspirational. Not so now. Marks & Spencer have been very clever here and given us a classy product – wild salmon from Canada, beautifully packaged in a stylish-looking tin. Add to that some ready-to-go mashed potatoes and even more brilliant, a fresh Hollandaise sauce, and this recipe turns out to be quite a quick and wacky little number coming from someone who might not be deep into cooking.  

Cheat's Eton mess (Serves 6 so should be enough for seconds!)

Last year we used what we think are the best ready-made meringues around. They come from Marks & Spencer and are made from just sugar and egg white – nothing else - which is precisely how they would be if they were home made. So these are a must-have for cheats in the summer, with a whole season of soft fruit ahead. This year’s recipe is, quite simply, wonderful; meringue, whipped cream and strawberries are blended into clouds of lusciousness.