Summer food is all about simplicity. Forgotten are the dark, damp days of investing energy in root vegetables; peeling, chopping and roasting. The plop and bubble of a simmering stew is now a faded memory. Epic, steaming bowls of pasta are not needed to provide extra insulation. That’s a lie – I’m still eating those; pasta binges are necessary all year round. It is perfectly possible for a person to go completely insane without them.

Mostly though it’s about flash-grilling, plenty of herbs, zesty salads, crisp white wines and ice cold beers. Sardines are perfect for slapping on the BBQ. Well, not so much slapping as gently lowering in a fish kettle; their flesh bruises easily and their skin will stick to the grill without protection.

My favourite garnish is a classic one – gremolata. It’s a zippy mix of parsley, garlic and lemon zest which I also use to lighten heavier, winter dishes like beef ragu. Here it contrasts well with the oily fish and really, it couldn’t be simpler.

Sardines with Gremolata

Sardines, heads removed, scaled, gutted and cleaned (3 or 4 per person)
Zest of 1 large lemon
1 handful parsley leaves
2 cloves garlic

For the gremolata, just chop everything very finely and mix together.

For the sardines, there are a few options. Either rub them with oil, season and grill on a hot BBQ (ideally using a fish rack to prevent sticking) for a few minutes each side until cooked through and slightly charred on the outside. If you don’t have a fish kettle then it is perfectly possible to cook them on the BBQ but they will probably break and stick a little.

To cook inside: either oil, season and grill, or pan fry. To do the latter, open your fillets out then smear lightly with oil and dip each one into seasoned flour (both sides) before frying in a couple of tablespoons of oil in a hot pan – skin first. They will need a few minutes each side.

I’m getting nervous now. I blinked two months ago and here I am with just two weeks left to organise a lunch for 40 of my neighbours. Most of us have never even met and yet we’ve been living as close as rats. I know things about them just from listening. The guy downstairs loves to play boogie woogie on his piano, particularly on Sundays; I’ve spent many an afternoon cooking while he tinkles away in the background. I can’t wait to tell him that his playing has improved a lot. I want to ask the man upstairs if he has an indoor golf-putting machine, because we’ve spent the past two years trying to work out what that noise is and I really think we’ve nailed it this time. I’m looking forward to chatting more with the guy from No. 2, who has a brilliant dry sense of humour; he once asked me, completely deadpan, if I thought it was a weird idea to get everyone in the block to take a photo of themselves and stick it on a sheet so we know who is supposed to be here and who isn’t. Hilarious. I can’t wait to break bread with these people.

If I’m not stressed out of my mind that is. I was going to show you what I’ve been doing the past few days, including a little demo, if you could call it that, of how to make the feta and spinach spanakopita thingies you see below but seriously, I am cursed in the ‘vlogging’ department. Somehow, between us, Chris and I managed to repeatedly fail to press the record button properly and I’ve wound up with four very short clips of footage which bear pretty much no relation to each other. I’ve stuck them together into one big fail. I do hope you didn’t expect any improvement in the quality of this video compared to the last one. You did? Oh.

Yep. Sorry.

So here’s the recipe I was talking about. Warning: very addictive. It’s hard enough to stop yourself eating the filling while making them, let alone once you’ve crammed all that healthy spinach up against some cheese and wrapped it in pastry.

Mini Spanakopita (makes about 20)

1 pack filo pastry or 1 ‘samosa pad’, which you can buy in Asian grocers. They usually come frozen and are exactly the right width.
Olive oil
3 large bunches of spinach (see vid)
1 pack feta cheese (200g)
1 large onion, finely chopped
Seeds for the edges (optional). I’ve used sesame seeds, poppy seeds or sometimes I add some onion seeds inside the parcels themselves.

Preheat your oven to 200C

Gently soften the onion in a little olive oil until translucent (sometimes I add a few onion seeds). Set aside in a bowl.

Meanwhile, trim any tough stalks from the spinach and wash in several changes of cold water. Plunge the spinach into boiling water for 3 minutes, then drain and refresh under cold water until it is cool. Pick up the spinach in your hands and squeeze as much water as possible out of it, then chop it roughly and add to the onion. Crumble the feta into the bowl too and season with black pepper. Taste the mixture – it may not need any salt because of the cheese.

Take either your filo or your samosa pad and lay on a flat surface. If you are using filo, trim the sheets lengthways into 3 then begin each samosa with 1 sheet, brush it with oil and lay another sheet on top, then brush again and add another. If you are using a samosa pad, the sheets are generally thick enough already and you will only need to brush once around the edges.

Take a tablespoon of the spinach feta mix and put it on one corner of the pastry, then carefully fold over into a triangle, pressing down the seams and brushing as you go. Keep folding over into triangles until there is no pastry left. Brush the outside with olive oil. You can now dip the edges into seeds if you wish. Just scatter them on a plate and dip the edges in.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown.

It’s probably wrong to eat baby octopus isn’t it? I haven’t looked it up because I may not like what I find. I mean, they’re all small or whatever and we all know that’s supposed to be wrong. Tasty though, perfect for BBQ’s and CHEAP:  £1.99 for a bag of 25 odd (frozen) from the Asian supermarket. Billy bargain. We skewered and char-grilled them on the BBQ.

I thought they deserved a good send off, so I lay them to rest on a comfortable Thai-style bedding of shredded things: practically seedless baby cucumbers, spring onions and herbs dressed with plenty of chilli, lime and fish sauce. I wondered if the sweetness of a seriously ripe mango might be pushing things but the flavour worked even though the texture wasn’t perfect.

There is something quite challenging about eating octopus. I remember well the fear I faced when tackling my first, full-size beasty; he also arrived frozen and went from mysterious, solid and portable to formless and slippery as hell. After I’d manned up though, all I had were thoughts of bite-size chunks scattered amongst just-cooked potatoes dusted with paprika and parsley and slugged with good olive oil. Oh I want it again.

Small octopus are a good starting point if you’re squeamish about these things. Our neighbour stuck his head over the balcony to take a look while we were cooking them and he seemed quite interested; I’ve only ever seen the man grill a sausage or burger.  He let himself down shortly afterwards with the admission that he uses a gas BBQ. We berated him appropriately and moved on.

You want to cook your octopus fast so get the BBQ very hot – the coals need to be white before you start grilling. It helps with tentacles (be it squid or octopus) to try and drape them across the grill to stop them falling between the rungs and burning.  A few minutes each side will do it. The resulting flesh should be tender, the tentacles lightly charred.

Someone once told me that it’s wrong to eat octopus because they are intelligent, as animals go. I’m not sure how that even makes any sense but I believe I answered the argument with one word: pig. Surely swine are a case for us to favour eating beasts with more intellectual capacity? I bet a dolphin would taste amazing. Not right though is it. I’m also not a fan of brains – the equivalent of eating the whole of an animals’ intelligence in one fell swoop. The creamy texture weirds me out. This argument is going nowhere but I am clear on one point: I couldn’t give a flying cephalopod’s arse how the octopus would score on the WAIS-R, fact is they make damn good eating.

Char-grilled baby octopus salad
(The octopuses need a bit of time in the marinade (a few hours) so bear this in mind).

Approximately 25 baby octopuses. You are most likely to find these frozen in Asian supermarkets but if you can’t, just substitute with squid or full size octopus. Defrost them thoroughly before using.
4 baby cucumbers or 1 full-size large cucumber, de-seeded and cut into thin strips
1 handful mint leaves, shredded
1 handful coriander leaves, picked from the stalks and left whole
1 large mango, cut into strips. I find the easiest way to do this is to cut around the stone so you have two cheesk (or use a totally unnecessary but brilliant ‘mango stoner‘ to get the same effect. Then score the cheeks into strips before cutting underneath away from the skin.
4 large or 6 small spring onions, cut into strips. You can make them curly if you are having people over or feeling enthusiastic like I was by plunging them into iced water for 20 minutes or so.
1/2 iceberg lettuce, finely shredded

For the marinade/dressing

1 mild red chilli, finely diced
Juice of 1-2 limes
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
5 limes leaves, shredded (optional)
1 smallish (3cm square) cube ginger, peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon oil, for cooking the octopus

Begin by making the marinade/dressing. (I make my dressings using a pestle and mortar but if you don’t have one then use a small blender or just crush your non-liquid ingredients then shake everything up in an empty jam jar). Pound your garlic and ginger with the merest pinch of salt (fish sauce is salty) until they resemble a paste. Add the lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, lime leaves and chilli and mix well. Taste and adjust the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar as you see fit.

Use a third of this mixture to marinade the octopus, plus the tablespoon of oil. Rub it all over them and refrigerate for about 3-4 hours.

Light the BBQ about 30 minutes before you’re ready to cook them. When you’re ready thread them onto skewers (soaked in cold water for an hour if they are wooden) and grill for a few minutes each side until tender and slightly charred.

Mix the lettuce, spring onions, mango, herbs and cucumber together in a bowl and dress them with another third of the dressing. Arrange on a plate then scatter the octopus on top and drizzle the remaining third of the dressing over the top.