If you’re sick of having a plain lamb roast dinner of a Sunday but don’t know how to spice things up a bit, why not try a lamb kleftiko recipe?

This Greek-inspired dish is both delicious and easy to cook; it produces lamb that is so tender that it literally falls off the bone.

Recipes for lamb kleftiko can be found all over the internet, but the best we’ve come across involve a few common ingredients:

• Lamb on the bone (leg, shoulder, shank)
• Shallots
• Greek feta cheese
• Broad beans (optional but a nice touch)

These and a number of other ingredients are all wrapped up in a foil or baking paper parcel, then slow-cooked to perfection.

So many of us throw away a small fortune on convenience lunches, like sandwiches and pre-packaged mini meals, during the working week. This seems like the easy option, but it’s actually costing you more money and could be bad for your health due to the excess of salt and sugar in these foods.

This is why you should consider making your own lunches to take in; try it for a week and just see how much money you save.

As well as making your own sandwiches, wraps and salads, another quick and easy way to make your lunch is to use the surplus from last night’s meal. Make slightly more for tea than usual, and what you don’t eat in a Tupperware container for the next day.

If your chocolate dessert arrives in front of you in a restaurant and it’s a teeny-tiny portion, you may feel ripped off or tempted to demand a larger pud.

However, if this tiny portion is rich and intense in flavour, this small portion can actually be the perfect way to round off a meal. Large slabs of chocolate cake, however delicious, will only make you feel over-full and bloated at the end of a meal, spoiling that enjoyably satisfied feeling.

This is why I’m a firm fan of potent, petite puddings. Try the following and you’ll join me:

• White chocolate mousse
• Bailey’s chocolate mousse
• Chocolate fondant cake
• Chocolate torte (the best example of a tiny, intensely flavoured tempting treat)
• Dark chocolate truffle with raspberry accompaniment

The great thing about banana bread – apart from the exceptional taste – is that it uses up overripe bananas that have started to blacken or attract fruit flies. Rather than chucking them out, why not make banana bread with them using the normal baking ingredients you have in your cupboards?

My favourite recipe so far is the Nigella Lawson one, which you can find on her website. It basically uses:

• Plain flour
• Sugar
• Melted butter
• Baking powder
• Vanilla essence
• Mashed-up, overripe bananas
• A pinch of salt

What’s more, you can mix things up a little by adding a shot of dark rum, sultanas soaked in bourbon before cooking, or even some fruit or chocolate chips.