Try this for lunch: Pasta Puttanesca

Get these:

500g fresh wholewheat spaghetti (enough for five people; I’d make the sauce for five, and refrigerate what I didn’t use in one sitting)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 tin anchovy fillets in olive oil

1-2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 400g tins of chopped tomatoes

A pinch of salt

3 tablespoons of capers (I like them whole but you could chop them)

8-10 black olives, chopped

Half a teaspoon of dried oregano

Now do this:

1. Put the anchovies in a saucepan or saute pan with the oil from the tin and a tablespoon of the olive oil. Stir on a lowish heat until the anchovies disintegrate into the oil.

2. Add the chopped garlic and cook for fifteen seconds - you don’t want it to brown.

3. Add the two tins of tomatoes and their juice together with the pinch of salt. Bring to the boil.

4. Turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer for ten minutes. Don’t put the lid on. You want to get rid of some of the water.

5. Turn the heat up to medium and add the capers, the olives and the oregano. Simmer for another 5-10 minutes until the sauce is satisfyingly gloopy and concentrated without being dry.

6. Take the pan off the heat and put the lid on. Prepare the pasta according to the packet.

7. Drain the pasta, put the sauce back on a low heat and tip the pasta into the sauce. Mix them together. Add some of the pasta water or a little olive oil if you think the spaghetti needs lubrication (IT IS NOT A DIRTY WORD).

8. Eat, making small squeaky noises.

9. Realise at 6pm that you have only just got hungry. Decide to wait for supper instead of having a snack.

Fishphobes take note: this is not a fishy-tasting dish. The anchovies provide a nice meaty/salty background flavour but you wouldn’t actually know they were in there. I know people can be funny about anchovies and I very nearly didn’t mention them but then I remembered that you can’t not mention them in the recipe, although if you were in my house I’d serve you this and swear blind there weren’t any anchovies in it and you know what? You’d believe me because you CAN’T TASTE THEM. I thank you. But yes, okay, you could make this dish without them if you had to. Fish hater.