This year’s Christmas dinner will have at its heart a great golden pumpkin, full to the brim with long noodles, lentils and a saffron-coloured sauce of spices and sour cream. There will be a crisp salad, sweet with ripe pears and sour with crunchy pickles; a jewel-like salad of rice, herbs and pomegranates.

The soup-stew can be made in advance and finished at the last minute. Its serving dish – a butter roasted pumpkin – can be eaten too. The pickles can, indeed must, be made a few weeks ahead and can be served as an accompaniment but I have also included them in a salad with ice-crisped sprouts and comice pears.

Nothing will stop me eating the traditional plum pudding, for me the best bit of the feast, but I see every reason to have a few alternatives in store. Which is how I will end up with three desserts this year. A fruit laden pudding; a hot puff pastry tart filled with apples and mincemeat and a festive ice-cream of crimson berries and honeyed nuts. In all, a glittering festive feast.

Pumpkin, noodles, lentils and sour cream
A large pumpkin is a splendid sight on the Christmas table, but if that proves impossible then serve the glowing golden soup-stew in a big tureen or deep bowl, ladling it out into bowls. I find the easiest way to deal with the noodles is either to cut them into short lengths before adding them to the stew or to leave them long and lift them out with a pair of kitchen tongs.

Peel the onions. Roughly chop two of them. Thinly slice the others. Warm the olive oil in a large pan set over a moderate heat, add the chopped onions and fry them for 15-20 minutes till soft and pale gold. Peel and thinly slice the garlic, then stir into the onions with the turmeric and continue cooking for a couple of minutes.

Drain the chickpeas and haricots and stir into the fried onions together with the lentils and stock. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and leave to simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Melt 40g of the butter in a shallow pan, then add the reserved sliced onions and let them cook slowly, with the occasional stir, until they are a rich toffee brown. This will take a good half an hour, maybe longer.

Cut a lid from the top of the pumpkin, then remove any seeds and fibres from within. Scrape away about a kilo of the flesh using a spoon, taking great care not to tear the skin and leaving plenty of flesh in place so the walls of the pumpkin are thick enough to hold the stew.

Place the pumpkin on a baking tray, put the remaining 50g of butter into the hollow and bake for 30-40 minutes until the flesh is soft and tender. Occasionally baste the inside of the pumpkin with the pool of melted butter.

Cut the reserved raw pumpkin flesh from the pumpkin into large, spoon-sized pieces and add to the simmering stew. As soon as the pumpkin turns translucent, (a matter of eight or 10 minutes) add the noodles. Wash the spinach, put it in a pan set over a medium heat, cover with a lid and leave it for three or four minutes until it has wilted. Turn occasionally with tongs. Remove the spinach and put it in a colander under cold running water until cool. Wring the moisture from the spinach then stir into the simmering stew. Roughly chop the parsley, coriander and mint leaves and stir most of them into the onions and beans.

Carefully ladle the stew into the roasted pumpkin shell, trickle in the soured cream and add the remaining herbs and the fried sliced onions, then ladle into bowls.

Crisp salad of radishes and pickles
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I like to make a jar or two of crisp, bright pickles to slice through the richness of Christmas cooking. Not content for them to appear as an accompaniment, I often include them in a salad, tossing them with sweet fruit such as ripe pears and crisp greens such as shredded cabbage or brussels sprouts. This time I have used them with radishes to produce a salad that is hot, sweet, sour and crisp.

Peel the shallots and cut them in half. Peel and trim the beetroot and cut into quarters. Now do the same with turnips, cutting them into similar size pieces as the beetroot. Put them all into a glass storage jar. Pour the hot pickling liquor over the vegetables then seal. Keep in a cool place for a week or so before using.

To make the salad, trim and quarter the sprouts then leave them to soak for 20 minutes in iced water. Peel the pears, core them and cut into thin slices. Put them in a serving dish and splash with some of the pickling liquor to prevent the fruit discolouring. Trim and thinly slice the radishes and mooli. Toss the sprouts, radishes, mooli, pears and pickles together and serve.

Basmati, pistachio and pomegranate
A substantial salad, especially one that can be made a few hours in advance, is an incredibly useful thing to have to hand at this time of year. To a pan of aromatic steamed basmati I have added some seasonal treasures, including pistachios and pomegranate seeds. I could have used toasted pine kernels and parsley, or toasted cashews and coriander leaves. The point is to use an equal volume of rice and fresh herbs, nuts and fruits as you might for a tabbouleh – so the salad is vibrant and fresh. You can make this an hour or two in advance but I would be tempted not to introduce the pomegranate until the last minute.