I was cooking fish with boiled spuds from the garden, French beans and parsley sauce last night, so at the same time I thought I'd crack tonight's grub as well so as to avoid another spell of kitchen swelter. I made a big pan of peperonata, following, more or less, Rachel Roddy's recipe in the Guardian. It's ridiculously easy to do and it's healthy and delicious.

It's a large onion, one clove of garlic peeled and squashed but left whole, two red peppers, two yellow peppers, six large tomatoes, a splash of red wine vinegar and a teaspoon of sugar (you can leave that out if you want). And extra virgin olive oil. A big, heavy pan with a lid would be good.

You slice up the onion and fry it gently with the garlic in about six tablespoons of olive oil and a good pinch of salt for a few minutes. Cut the peppers up into thick strips and add them to the pan. Stir, then put the lid on and cook them gently for about 15 minutes. When they're going soft, chop up the tomatoes roughly (if you're fussy you can skin them first, but I see absolutely no need for this dish) and throw them in. Let all that lot bubble away with the lid off (crucial) for about 45 minutes, adding the red wine vinegar and sugar and stirring occasionally. Just check the seasoning and that's it.

We do what Rachel says and have it with sausages. I cook the bangers completely first, cut them into bite size, add them to the caponata, bingo. You could just have the caponata with crusty bread instead. Chips even. You can just leave the sausages whole and let them finish off in the caponata for a few minutes, but chopping them up first means that the flavours blend nicely AND that you can eat it with a fork out of a bowl in front of the telly. And why not. It's Friday night and a nice glass or two of red will wash it down in epic Italian fashion.