Slow-cooked vegetables and spices combine to create a warm, mellow and aromatic stew. Despite being paid to cook and write about food, working at home surrounded by cook books and exposed to more than enough reels, I quite often find myself with absolutely no idea what to cook. This might be coupled with the feeling of not actually being able to cook – like not being able to run in a nightmare – and that I have lost the ability, or never had it. This existential crisis is fine for a couple of days, but I do then need to snap out of it.

In these moments, I really ought to call my sister, who is completely unsympathetic to my salaried food writer anxiety, and makes me laugh. Alternatively, I can make myself a cup of tea and open Margaret Costa’s Four Seasons Cookery Book and Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat at the same time, and allow myself to get lost in their charming, never lofty and always contagious communication of cooking. When I do this, it is quite often the case that I don’t make a specific recipe from either writer, but rather they provide a compassionate shove.

This was exactly the case a few weeks ago, when Costa’s description of comforting casseroles – “the heady smells when the lid is taken off are consoling in themselves” – met Nigella’s description of aubergine moussaka and made me think of Paola Bacchia’s mushroom and pepper goulash, into which I introduced pumpkin and potato. Now, after reading food writer Carolyn Bánfalvi, I have learned that the dish is actually closer to Hungary’s pörkölt and paprikás, which are both names for slow-cooked, paprika-spiced stews, rather than a goulash, which is a hearty soup made with lots of paprika and onions. Thanks to all four women and various national dishes, I made the best thing I had cooked in ages.

In the presence of absorbent vegetables and helped by the heat, a paste of garlic, caraway seeds and both sweet and hot paprikas converge (or, as Nigella describes it, “dovetail”) and transform the contents of the pan into a warm, mellow, aromatic whole. You want 1.2kg mushrooms (ideally a mixture of small button and chestnut mushrooms and larger field mushrooms, oyster and/or porcini), cutting the larger ones into nice, thick slices and quartering the smaller ones.

The combination of mushrooms, potato, pumpkin and breadcrumbs makes this substantial enough that it doesn’t need to be served with anything else, except perhaps a bit of bread to mop up those juices. That said, it is also wonderful with buttered rice or couscous, which also makes it go even further; a blob of soured cream is also nice. Serves 4. 6 tbsp olive oil. 2 medium onions, peeled and sliced. 1 large red pepper, stalk, pith and seeds discarded, flesh sliced into strips.

1.2kg mixed mushrooms, ideally a mix of small button, chestnut and field, oyster and/or porcini, the larger ones cut into thick slices and smaller ones quartered. Salt and black pepper. 2 garlic cloves. 1 tsp caraway seeds. 1 tbsp sweet paprika. 2 tsp hot paprika. 4 small potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges. 400g pumpkin, peeled and cut into large chunks. 400g tin plum tomatoes, crushed with your hands. A squirt of tomato concentrate.

400ml light vegetables stock or water. 2 bay leaves. 2 tbsp soft white breadcrumbs. 1 handful chopped parsley, to finish. Warm the oil in a large, heavy-based pan, then add the onions and peppers, and cook, stirring, over a moderate heat, until they start to soften. Add the mushrooms and a generous pinch each of salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, until shrunk and slightly browned. Working on a plate and using a fork or the flat of a knife, squash the garlic to a paste with the caraway seeds and a pinch of salt, then scrape into the pot and stir in both paprikas.

Add the potatoes and pumpkin, stir well, then add the crushed plum tomatoes and tomato concentrate. Add the broth (or water) and bay leaves, season with salt and pepper, and bring almost to a boil. Turn down to a simmer, cover and leave to cook gently for an hour. Add the breadcrumbs, stir for a few minutes, so the sauce thickens, then finish with a handful of parsley. Serve with rice and soured cream, if you wish.