Dishes that pack a punch (part one)

One of the reasons I've always dreaded going on a diet is that the recipes in most diet books are so bland. The prospect of nibbling on rice cakes, lunching on cottage cheese and dining on steamed chicken and veggies for a week horrifies me. The thought of eating beige food for several months, a year even, just doesn't bear contemplating.

But over the past few weeks I've stumbled upon a secret. For me, the key to dieting lies not only in eating little and often but also in making sure that the food I eat is really and truly tasty. Most of the meals I've really enjoyed over the past month have been packed with taste – some of them have been spicy while others have just featured strong flavours.

There's one particular dish that's becoming a bit of a regular round here: sweet potato and feta. Quick to prepare on a weekday evening, but full of punchy flavours, this combination of sweet, savoury and salt is something that appeals to both Mark and I. Mark's portion is almost double the size of mine and we both fill the rest of the plate up with a zesty salad (try a bag of rocket and watercress or herb and green leaf salad, slice up half an avocado and add a handful of roughly chopped walnuts, then dress it with a small amount of simple vinaigrette – I usually use some walnut oil to enhance the walnuts in the salad, plus a tarragon or white wine vinegar and a dash of Dijon mustard in my dressing).

Sweet potato and feta for one

1 x 200g sweet potato 50g feta, cut into small cubes 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted in a frying pan 1-2 spring onions, sliced 1 tsp orange juice
1 tsp olive oil fresh coriander, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
Heat the oven to 200C, then roast the sweet potato for about 40 minutes (it's done when a knife will cut through to the middle easily).
While the sweet potato is cooking, mix the other ingredients together (you can add a pinch of salt, if you want, but taste the mixture first as the feta can be quite salty anyway).
Once the sweet potato is cooked, slice it lengthways, then pour the feta mixture over it. Serve with the salad.

Another dish I find I'm enjoying at lunchtime is inspired by Japanese cuisine. A mixture of rice, fish and vegetables, it's very simple to prepare, but its salty/smoky/umami flavours leave me feeling really satisfied for a long time.

Japanese rice and fish for one

50g brown rice
100g sprouting broccoli or broccoli florets
50 smoked eel
1-2 tsp light or Japanese soy sauce
furikake seasoning (available from Asian food stores)

Cook the rice and set aside to cool.
Cook the veg and set aside to cool.
Place the cold rice in a bowl. Slice the broccoli and eel and stir into the rice.
Season with soy sauce and sprinkle with furikake.
That's it. What could be simpler?