This week's smoky chilli beef with black beans is lifted to a whole other level of winter comfort when it's served with a side or topping of just baked, home-made cornbread. It takes all of three minutes in the food processor to prepare

Any soup based on a proper chicken stock, made with free-range bones (feet included!) and vegies, is wonderfully homey and nourishing, whether it's a Jewish chicken noodle soup, Vietnamese pho, Greek avgolemono or this Chinese chicken and sweet corn soup. We have fond memories of this soup from childhood (oh, the Golden Fish restaurant in Rose Bay! How did they carve those carrot phoenixes?), where it would precede a 70s banquet of honey king prawns, beef and black bean and sweet and sour pork