All year

This is a super way to serve asparagus as finger food. It also makes a lovely starter, especially with some ripe figs on the side. If you want to take it up a notch, you can put a small slice of fontina cheese under the prosciutto, and quickly pan fry to melt the cheese before serving.

These traditional Parisian delicacies are named after a palm tree because, when baked, they resemble palm fronds. Palmiers were probably invented as a way to make use of puff pastry scraps; quick and easy, they're great for afternoon tea.

Gyoza are Japanese dumplings, usually pork but sometimes vegetable, that are steamed and then fried, before being dunked in sauce, in this case our delicious soy vinegar sauce.

Tender, marinated cubes of beef on a skewer with crunchy peanut sauce, beef satay sticks are an ever popular party dish.

The thing about rock cakes is that they should look like little rocks, not taste or bite like one. Our simple rock cake recipe makes for little golden nuggets with a scone-like interior studded with sultanas.

For a taste of China, make your own sang choy bow, a traditional lettuce-wrapped stir-fry. You can serve it as a starter to share, or as a light meal on its own.

This frittata, loaded with bacon and potato, makes a great weekend lunch dish, or a light dinner with a green salad and some crusty bread on the side.

You can dip just about any fruit that takes your fancy into chocolate fondue, bananas would be a good addition, as would marshmallows.

Perfect served on salad leaves as a light lunch, if there are any left over you can pop these lentil patties in a wrap, drizzle with the yoghurt mint sauce and pack in a lunchbox.

Capsicum, carrot and peanuts add crunch and snap to these tasty herbed chicken rice paper rolls with a ginger soy dipping sauce.