26 December - simple pasta

After a lunch of cold turkey and salad, we headed home this afternoon. Oddly, despite all the mounds of food on offer over the past couple of days, I didn't feel as if I'd actually eaten much and got back quite hungry and craving something simple and tasty. Pasta with a creamy mushroom and bacon sauce did the trick nicely!

25 December - turkey and the trimmings

More in-laws and another roast dinner - today it was turkey and the usual trimmings ...

24 December - roast goose and a spread

The first of two Christmas meals with the in-laws today was a bit full-on and over-indulgent for my tastes, so I'll hold back from commenting in detail. Let's just say that lunch involved roast goose and an excess of rich accompaniments.

Supper (as if we needed more food!) was a cold spread and a mountain of cheese!

23 December - tuna ceviche and venison with figs

With a weekend at the in-laws looming, I wanted to have a pre-Christmas meal that contained lots of nice flavours but without lots of rich stodge. I went for another couple of Nigel Slater recipes from Simple Cooking, both adapted a bit. I turned his sweet and sharp sea bass into a tuna ceviche - thin slices of fresh tuna marinated in citrus juices (passion fruit, lime and orange) with some red chilli and a scattering of coriander. I made it first thing and left it in the fridge to "cook". The whole lot nearly went in the bin after Tris texted early evening to say he was going to be late ... I was not amused! I gave him until 7.30 and he walked in the door just in the nick of time for a few sharp words, but the food still on the plate! The tuna was really good and the sharp and sweet juices worked really well. The slices could have perhaps been a bit thinner to make it a bit more delicate, but I'm not sure any of my knives would've been up to it!

To follow, I pan-fried some venison fillets with red onions, then threw in some halved fresh figs to caramelise right at the end and some port and balsamic vinegar to make a sauce. The Nigel Slater recipe called for 3 times as much vinegar as port, which I think could be a misprint. It came out very sharp and I ended up adding more port to balance it out. The final result was good though, the venison perfectly pink, the caramelised onions and figs piled on top and served with a big pile of spinach.

22 December - caprese salad and smoked haddock chowder

Although I love salads through the summer months, I generally want something warm at this time of year. Today, I compromised by combining a simple Caprese salad (tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil) with a little pile of saute potatoes. Chips and salad - mmm, can't beat it!

I was watching Nigel Slater's Simple Christmas last night and was quite inspired by several of the recipes. Tonight, I made up some smoked haddock chowder roughly based on his recipe. I missed out the swede, cauliflower and mussels and added some new potatoes and a bit of leftover sweetcorn. It came out as a very chunky stew rather than a soup, but tasty.

21 December - asian meatballs and ravioli

There was a very small amount of mince left in the fridge from the other night's Italian-style meatballs, so I made it up into some tiny Asian-inspired meatballs for my lunch. I mixed the minced beef with chopped garlic and a very finely sliced lime leaf. I fried them and plopped them into some broth (veg stock flavoured with a lime leaf and ginger) with some sliced leeks and pak choi. Fresh and tasty.

Tris was out this evening, so I went for some simple mushroom-filled ravioli from the supermarket, with creamy sauce poshed up with a dash of truffle oil - fantastic aftertaste all evening!

20 December - bristol brew and chicken stew

I stopped off at a new-ish tea shop in Clifton this morning - Lahloo. I'd tried their breakfast tea before, but this time I spotted they had a Bristol Brew blend, which is apparently designed specifically to suit the water in Bristol. It seemed too good an idea not to try so I bought myself a tin. I also picked up a savoury tart for my lunch while I was there.

I had in mind to cook a version of my sausage and kale stew this evening, but using chicken instead of sausages. When I got to Sainsbury's though, they were clean out of kale! Thus I ended up making sausage and kale stew without the sausages or the kale!!

• I fried chicken thigh fillets in some good olive oil to brown, then added some sliced garlic, chopped rosemary and a chopped red onion.
• Once the onion was soft, I added some sliced carrots, chunks of leek and a tin of flagelot beans, along with some chicken stock (c. 400ml).
• I bubbled it away for a good 20-25 mins, then stirred in a dash of cream at the end.

A nice warming bowl with plenty of flavour.

19 December - meatballs

There were some rather unripe, out-of-season tomatoes to be eaten up, so I whizzed them up and made them into a sauce to go with some meatballs. I used beef mince with some garlic, parsley, breadcrumbs, parmesan, pine nuts and egg - fried up then bubbled in the sauce and served with linguine.

18 December - omelette and roast veg

When I asked Tris what he fancied for lunch today, he suggested an omelette. It was a chunky, sort of Spanishy affair, with some cold boiled potatoes, red pepper and a couple of mushrooms, plus six eggs and a handful of parsley - still going on the terrace. I cooked it in a big frying pan then popped it under the grill to finish off and it came out looking good and went down nicely with a good dollop of homemade sweet chilli and tomato jam.

We were out socialising early evening, but after working all weekend, I was knackered, so I came home early. Having expected to eat out, I hadn't really got anything in, so supper was cobbled together from leftovers. I still had some rather sad-looking roasted squash and beetroot, which I heated up in the oven together with some fresh red onion and garlic. I piled the veg on top of some couscous and scattered over a few bits of goats cheese and fresh coriander and the result was really quite good.

17 December - singapore noodles

After a couple of days of eating out, we go for something simple and a bit lighter for dinner with some singapore noodles. Tonight's ingredients include; prawns, spring onions, a red pepper, a handful of mushrooms and some pak choi, along with ginger, chilli, turmeric, oyster sauce, soy sauce and rice vinegar ... oh yes, and the noodles. I find cooking with chilli a constant balancing act and today, I went a bit over-the-top and the heat rather drowned out all the other lovely flavours - d'oh!

16 December - waiting in and going out

Today I was waiting in for a delivery - which frustratingly, never arrived!! - and having been down in London yesterday, there was nothing much in the fridge for lunch. The best I could come up with was the old student cupboard standby - tuna and sweetcorn mayo with pasta.

Tris had managed to get us a rare Friday night booking at Prosecco, a great local Italian, with lovely food and a really nice atmosphere. We started, of course, with a glass of Italian bubbly and I had bruschetta with roasted wild mushrooms and parmesan - delicious! We both went for venison fillet for our main - and although it was quite good, it was a bit too peppered for me which meant I ended up leaving the sauce that came with it, which was a shame. It was served with polenta chips and the most fantastic crispy cavalo nero - I'm not sure exactly how it was cooked, but it was in whole long leaves, but had the kind of taste of Chinese "crispy seaweed" - salty and sweet and very moreish!

15 December - Blueprint cafe

I had a lovely day out in London today with my parents. We met at the Design Museum to go to the Terence Conran exhibition and had lunch in the Blueprint cafe. It's a great space with fantastic views up the river - Tower bridge and the gherkin in one direction and Canary Wharf the other way. The food was pretty good too - I started with a lovely smooth chicken liver pate, followed by more liver (!) - thin slices of calves liver cooked with shallots and sage - really delicious! It was great lunch and a grand day out.

14 December - a slow food day

I'm still full-on with work and we were heading down to London this evening, so lunch was a quick bit of leftover chilli and supper was half a chicken sandwich on the train.

13 December - squash salad and the Pump House

Last night, I roasted the whole squash, but only used half in the risotto. I also roasted some beetroot while the oven was on. So lunch today was squash and beetroot salad with a couple of slices of parma ham and few new potatoes. Great colours on the plate and really tasty too.

This evening, my creative writing group met up for meal at the Pump House. I went for hake - on the principle of choosing something I wouldn't cook at home. I wasn't totally convinced about it as a fish - a little bit chewy and not very flavoursome - but it came with a big pile of chard, smooth mash and creamy white beans, which made it still a very good meal. After we'd eaten, we read out our "homework" based around the theme of an office Christmas party. My piece was entitled "sprouts"!

12 December - leek and parsnip soup and squash risotto

I was going to make leek and potato soup for lunch, but then I found a parsnip at the bottom of the fridge, so decided to substitute it for the potato. The resulting leek and parsnip soup wasn't bad, but it was a bit too thick and rather like semolina again!

I've had a beautiful bluey-green crown prince squash that came in the vegbox weeks ago sitting on the windowsill looking decorative (they last for ages!) and finally cooked it up this evening. I made squash risotto based on a Jamie Oliver recipe where you roast the squash with a spice rub (salt, chilli and cinnamon), then add it in chunks to a basic risotto. Today, I stirred in a bit of soft goats cheese at the end and topped it with crispy sage leaves - always good.

11 December - eggs again and Tris's chilli

It was eggs again for lunch today, but this time poached on toast with a bit of spinach - kind of eggs Florentine, but without the hollandaise.

After huffing a bit this week about doing all the shopping and cooking, Tris made chilli for supper this evening with a bit of rice and guacamole. It's always good and all the better for not having to cook.

10 December - easy food

I was having to do a bit of weekend working today, so food was simple again. We had the bit of leftover leek tart with some salad (spinach, beetroot and roasted red pepper) with small jacket potatoes.

Then we were out to a friend's Christmas party in the evening, so inspired by the pasta my mum used to feed me before I went out drinking as a teenager, we had a bowl of pasta with bacon, mushrooms and cream.

9 December - boiled eggs and pie at the lounge

There's something very satisfying about the simplest of meals and today's couple of boiled eggs were no exception ...

Work's suddenly got busy this week and I'm still feeling sniffy and woolly-headed and I just generally couldn't be bothered to think about shopping and dinner, so we just headed out to the Lounge and grabbed some food. I had a great chicken and gammon pie with creamy leeks and chips - tasty and easy and just what was needed, along with a couple of glasses of wine.

8 December - a bacon sandwich and a leek and bacon tart

Lunch today was a good old bacon and avocado sandwich with some proper smoky bacon from Ruby & White - mmm!

Perhaps inspired by yesterday's successful baking, I decided to use the leeks still sitting in the vegbox in a tart. It was sort of a made up recipe, roughly as follows:

• I made up some basic pastry and lined a tart tin - chilled it for a bit, then baked it blind for about 15 mins @ 200C.
• I sweated a couple of chopped leeks, then mixed them in a bowl with c.100g soft goats cheese, c.50ml double cream, one whole egg and one egg yolk, plus a bit of chopped fried bacon.
• I poured the mixture in the pastry case and put the whole lot back in the oven for about half an hour at 180C.

We had the tart with a salad of spinach and beetroot - tasty and warming, but not too heavy.

7 December - baked salmon and rhubarb cakes

I picked up some rhubarb at the supermarket this afternoon and without much work on, I spent a bit of time pottering in the kitchen, making up a batch of rhubarb upside-down cakes. And now I know why my cakes always come out pointy - apparently, it's to do with cooking them in a fan oven.

Tonight's dinner started off with the cavalo nero still left from Friday's vegbox. I went for some simple baked salmon fillets with a dollop of minty creme fraiche on the top, then I cooked the cavalo nero up with some bacon and we had it all with some new potatoes. Simple, but tasty for a midweek supper.

6 December - leftovers and no moussaka

Considering this cold seems to have killed my appetite, I'm not doing a bad job of "feeding" it! I decided to use up a few leftovers for lunch and somehow ended up with a huge plateful. There were a couple of sausages and some cold cooked cabbage that I made into bubble and squeak. It looked like it might be a bit dry, so a chucked in what I thought was just a small spoonful of leftover mushroom stew as a kind of "gravy". It was way more than I'd usually have for lunch, but very tasty and I managed to munch my way through the whole lot over my lunchtime crossword!

This afternoon I managed to talk the nice man at Ruby & White into doing me some lamb mince to make the moussaka which didn't get made at the weekend. I cooked up the meat sauce and left it to bubble, but then when I cut open the aubergines, both were brown and soggy inside.

They'd arrived in the vegbox on Friday and been in the fridge since, so not great. With organic veg, you expect the odd slug and blemish, but it's no good when it's completely inedible, especially when you're already halfway through a recipe! I added a bit more tomato to make the meat sauce a bit more "saucy" and we had it with some pasta instead.

5 December - a mushroom stew

A regular combination for lunch today of fresh beetroot (roast while cooking yesterday's pork) with goats cheese and a baked potato.

There were some huge Portobello mushrooms in Friday's vegbox, so I got some lovely wild mushrooms and a few chestnut mushrooms to go with them in a warming stew. The pale purple wild mushrooms looked so beautiful, it almost seemed criminal to cook them up!

The recipe is sort of a combination of Yotam Ottolenghi's warm mushroom salad and a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall mushroom stew - with most of the ingredients of the former, but the stock/sauce of the latter. We had it with mixed potato and parsnip mash for which I tried out the rather faffy HFW method (cooking the parsnips in milk which you then use in the final mash) - don't think the result's any better than my usual boil-it-all-together-and-mash-it technique. With a blob of creme fraiche on the top, it all tasted great though - a great winter warmer supper.

4 December - roast pork belly

We headed round to the Deco Lounge for brunch today - lounge eggs (poached eggs on toasted muffins with hollandaise) with smoked salmon for me.

I'd planned to make moussaka to use the aubergines that came in Friday's vegbox, but when I got to the butcher's, they didn't have any lamb mince. Lacking any other inspiration and not feeling up to trudging off to find it somewhere else (still very coldy), I had to come up with a quick change of plan. I got a piece of pork belly, which I slow-roast simply with some carrots and onions thrown in the roasting pan towards the end. We had it with some simple boiled cabbage and some gravy made from the pan juices. It wasn't bad, but although the pork was nice and tender on the inside, it was a bit too crunchy on the outside for my liking and just generally not really what I'd been in the mood for.

3 December - very spicy parsnip soup and sausage and kale stew

Still trying to blast through my cold, I made up a batch of spicy parsnip soup for lunch. I went a bit heavier than usual on the chilli, so it came out really very spicy! Also feeling a bit woolly-headed and not concentrating, the final result was rather thick and looked more like semolina than soup! I'm feeling so unfussed about food at the moment though, it actually went down okay.

Having got some lovely cavalo nero in the vegbox yesterday, I used it to make up some sausage and kale stew. Always good and great comfort food.

2 December - couscous salad and an orange supper

Cold's still in full force and tastebuds difficult to tempt. I tried to break through with a bit of chorizo in a warm couscous salad for lunch; giant couscous with chorizo, cherry tomatoes, beans and sweetcorn.

This morning's vegbox had a bit of a festive feel as I'd ordered a few bottles of bubbly along with the regular veg. They're all organic (a champagne, a prosecco and some rose sparkling) and have gone into the wine cellar ... okay the garage! ... ready for a bit of seasonal sparkle once my tastebuds are back. Will report back on what they're like ...

Tris was out this evening, so I bought myself a pork steak for supper. I simply fried it and made a bit of sauce to pour over (Marsala, parsley and butter) and had it with some braised cabbage with carraway seeds and mixed carrot and parsnip mash. It made a rather yellowy-orange plate of food, but lots of good, comforting flavours.

1 December - jerusalem artichoke soup and a thai curry

Today the cold is in full force and food is the last thing I feel like. I bought some Jerusalem artichokes yesterday though, so I went ahead and made the soup I'd got planned for lunch. I only discovered Jerusalem artichokes quite recently and I think they've got a lovely nutty, sweet flavour. They're also incredibly simple to make into soup. I just peel and chop them and sweat them in some oil with a chopped onion, a bay leaf and some fresh thyme for about 10 mins. Then I add some chicken stock and bubble for another 10-15 mins, before removing the herbs and blending the whole thing. I stir in a bit of cream at the end and then serve with a drizzle of truffle oil. And today it was that strong truffle flavour that just managed to break through the cold.

Keeping up the theme of strong flavours, for supper I made a Thai chicken curry with plenty of chilli and ginger. Looking for some veg to go in the curry, I made the mistake of getting some green beans from Africa. I usually avoid out-of-season veg imported across the world just on eco principles, but actually taste is a much greater motivation for avoiding it. The beans were rather pale, watery and completely tasteless - absolutely no comparison to the lovely green, silky, melt-in-the-mouth beans I was growing in the summer.

30 November - an omelette and tapas at the lido

I peeled and chopped too much potato for last night's curry, so I cooked the excess and used it for a lunchtime omelette along with some chorizo and cherry tomatoes.

A bit of a tickle in my throat yesterday has turned into a full-blown cold, but I still went out to meet a friend at the Lido for the evening. It perked me up no end to get out and have a bit of a chat and a giggle, but my tastebuds have gone on strike and I don't have much appetite, so picking on a bit of tapas was about as much as I could manage.

29 November - bakery closed!

Disaster this morning - I pottered down the lane to Hart's Bakery to get some bread for my lunch, only to be faced with a notice saying it was closed for relocation. It turns out that Laura's had to leave her current premises and hasn't got a new place to go to yet. Such a shame as it's such a great little business - fantastic products and clearly really popular - keeping fingers crossed she finds somewhere new soon (preferably nearby!) and normal yummy bread/custard tart service is resumed before too long!

With the bread plan scuppered, I ended up with a couple of small jacket potatoes (for speed) for lunch to go with my fresh figs and goats cheese.

After all the rich, meaty Roman fare over the weekend, I went for a tasty but fresh veggie curry this evening:

• Whizz together in a blender some chopped fresh chilli (usually green, but red today), half an onion, a couple of cloves of garlic and about the same amount of fresh ginger.
• Heat some oil in a large pan, add a tsp cumin seeds and half tsp turmeric, stir around then add the puree and fry for a minute or so.
• Add a chopped tomato, a squeeze of lemon juice, 3 cardamom pods, 3 cloves and about 150ml veg stock.
• To this add a small cauliflower broken into florets and a medium potato peeled and cubed - simmer for 20-25 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through.
• Either stir in a good splodge of natural yoghurt or drizzle it over the top, together with a good handful of fresh coriander.

28 November - a final pizza and fishcakes

We just had time for a trip across the river to explore the narrow streets of Trastevere this morning. We really needed to be on the train for the airport by 2pm, so went for an early lunch at Dar Poeta, another recommendation, this time for pizza. I don't generally eat pizza, but gave it a try anyway. I have to say, I wasn't converted, but Tris managed to get through his quite happily even though we were looking at our watches and had to cut our last Roman lunch rather short.

We got back to Bristol early evening and stopped off at Waitrose on the way back to grab some easy fishcakes for dinner. Not quite up to the weekend's culinary excellence, but with a big pile of fresh peas and leeks, not bad for a simple, pasta-free supper.

27 November - icecream and lamb alla romana

After a morning at the Roman Forum, we headed for another recommended restaurant nearby for lunch. Unfortunately, it was all booked up and I was desperate for a sit-down, so we just plumped for a tourist joint round the corner. The food was actually perfectly passable, but it did highlight just how good all the hotel's recommendations had been in steering us away from dull tourist fare.

In the afternoon, back on message, we headed to Giolitti's, an icecream parlour and apparently a bit of a Rome institution. It's down a little alley, but not difficult to find with the buzz of the crowd outside. I don't much like icecream, but Tris ventured in to brave the crowd. He came straight back out describing the five-deep scrum at the counter rather like a city pub on a Friday night! I assured him I was happy to wait and sent him back in. He finally emerged some time later with what I have to admit, even to non-icecream lover, was a great icecream, well worth the effort.

For our final evening in Rome, we went to Grappolo d'oro Zampano, more traditional Roman food, but with a bit of a younger, funkier feel. I went for lamb alla romana, really slow-cooked lamb on the bone which just fell apart, served on a pile of greens with some crunchy cubes of roast potato on the side - great again! Finishing off with tiramisu and a couple of glasses of grappa, we needed the walk back through the city to walk it off.

26 November - Armando's and slow-cooked veal

After a morning's sightseeing, we headed for Armando's, a small trattoria recommended by both the hotel and various websites. It's an unassuming little doorway, just a stone's throw from the Pantheon, and is apparently popular with politicians. We weren't too hopeful about our chances of getting a table on a Saturday lunchtime, but we seemed to arrive at just the right time and bagged the last unreserved table. It lived up to its billing, with a great atmosphere and people-watching and amongst the best pasta I've ever eaten. I had ravioli filled with ricotta in a creamy mushroom sauce, which sounds simple, but was just delicious.

By the end of the day, with aching feet, we opted for dinner right next door to where we were staying at Colline Emiliane, which does traditional Bolognese food. After antipasti of salami and a caprese salad, Tris went for the tagliatelle alla bolognese - well, you've got to give it a try! - which was good, but not remarkably different from mine, to be honest. I had slow-cooked veal with mashed potato, which was great, real melt-in-the-mouth stuff.

25 November - saltimbocca in Rome

Today, we arrived in Rome for a long weekend and started our culinary tourism with some traditional Roman fare at Hostaria Romana, a restaurant recommended and booked by the super-helpful staff at our hotel. It initially looked a bit like a conventional tourist haunt, but the food was great and as the queue, of both locals and tourists, grew outside the door, you could see why it was popular.

We started with a mixed antipasti del casa - a massive plate of cold meats, grilled vegetables, mozzarella and seafood. I then went for saltimbocca; veal escalopes with prosciutto and sage and a lovely sharp sauce. All washed down with a bottle of house white, it was a great start to the weekend.

24 November - spicy beef and noodle salad

After a week of rather uninspired and disappointing food, tonight I definitely got my culinary mojo back. I still had a pomegranate in the fruit bowl and somehow fancied it in some kind of spicy salad. With some spicy beef noodles I had at a roadside cafe in Phnom Penh in mind, I got a fabulous piece of beef fillet from Ruby & White - probably a bit bigger than intended and definitely a bit more expensive - but it turned out to be well worth it. I made a noodle salad of rice noodles with carrot, cucumber and spinach and a spicy Thai dressing from Jamie Oliver (of olive oil, sesame oil, lime juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, red chilli and fresh coriander). I fried the beef fillet in one piece and served it sliced on top of the noodle salad with pomegranate seeds sprinkled over the top. The beef was spectacularly good, really tender and tasty and with the cool noodles, sweet pomegranate and spicy dressing, it was exactly the combination I was after ...

... in fact, it was plate-lickingly good!

23 November - cheesy leeks and chicken with sumac

To use up a couple of leeks I blanched them, mixed them with some cheese sauce and a few bits of bacon and popped them in the oven for a bit. Tasty and warming.

For dinner I tried out a recipe from last weekend's Observer magazine for roast chicken with sumac. I bought some sumac powder for a recipe a while ago and have hardly used it since, so I thought I'd give this simple chicken dish a go. It wasn't wildly exciting, but with some cabbage and carrots, it made an interesting twist on a midweek chicken supper.

22 November - uninspired

After spending an uninspired five minutes hovering in front of the supermarket fresh soup section trying to choose something for lunch, when I got my pot of soup home, I didn't really fancy it. I decided to fall back on tuna and sweetcorn mayo with pasta, but once the pasta was cooking and I'd opened the tin of tuna, I realised the jar of mayo I had in the fridge was one I'd decided I didn't really like because it was too vinegary and not very creamy... extra sweetcorn just about covered up the taste.

Equally uninspired about dinner, I went for fishfingers with mixed carrot and potato mash and some homemade beans (a tin of cannellini beans with some onion, garlic, tomato and herbs). All rather orange and okay, but it didn't really hit the spot.

21 November - mackerel salad and dahl

There was some mackerel left over from the kedgeree the other night and some roasted red pepper from last night, so today I made up a lovely bright mackerel salad with some new potatoes, cherry tomatoes and spinach, all in a mustardy dressing for lunch.

After last night's rich tagine, I went for a veggie dinner of dahl (a recipe from Floyd's India), spicy cabbage and rice. Dahl always looks a bit unappetising splodged on the plate, but with lots of lovely spices and just the right amount of heat, it was all much tastier than it looked.

20 November - lamb tagine with pomegranate

I got a couple of pomegranates in Friday's vegbox, so today I made a lamb tagine (using my usual recipe) and instead of figs or dates, added the final sweet touch with a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds. It was a bit messy getting the seeds out - and I ended up with bright red stains all over my white t-shirt! - but the final result looked great and tasted pretty good too.

I remembered to put the tagine on well ahead of time and let it bubble for almost two hours, so the result was meltingly tender and with some roasted squash and peppers and a pile of couscous, it was a great way to end the weekend.

19 November - a bad food day

I was feeling particularly uninspired and woolly-headed today and some disappointing food did nothing to lift my mood. We had bacon and avocado sandwiches for lunch, but although the bacon was good, the bread was a bit dry and the avocado not really ripe. Then I fell back on kedgeree for supper, but put in too large a pinch of cayenne to give it a bit of kick and ended up overpowering all the other nice comforting flavours ...

18 November - Culinara

There was some of the roast tomato sauce from earlier in the week in the fridge, so lunch was a quick dish of orecchiette pasta with the sauce and a bit of added bacon.

There aren't many Bristol eateries that we haven't tried, but until now we hadn't got round to visiting Culinaria - just 10 mins walk away. It's a small bistro with a short menu of carefully chosen food and interestingly, is only open over the weekend (Thu-Sun). It has a lovely atmosphere with friendly, interested staff, which was a great start. We both went for the fillet of brill with leek and saffron sauce, served with spinach, beans and new potatoes and it was, well, brill! To go with it we had an English wine by Limney - one we hadn't tried before but comes from Horsmonden, a village in Kent not far from where I grew up. Much like Chapel Down (from the same area), it was a lovely light wine with quite an elderflowery feel. I don't often go for a dessert, but having skipped a starter I finished off tonight with a lovely rich chocolate mousse. Culinara will definitely be added to the list of regular haunts.

17 November - fishcakes and lamb with pesto

I used the bits of leftover cod from last night to make a couple of simple fishcakes for my lunch today with the rest of the (out-of-season!) peas on the side. While I was out on the terrace snipping some chives to go in the fishcakes, I was looking at the few carrots I tried to grow back in the summer that never really came to anything. I pulled up what was left and came back in with a handful of the most miniature carrots you've ever seen to add to my peas!

I was totally uninspired about dinner and as I wandered down the veg aisle in Sainsbury's, the only thing that caught my eye was some baby leeks - must be a thing for small veg today! Anyway, they seemed like something to go in a meat and two veg kind of supper, so I went for a favourite standby of lamb steaks with fresh, homemade pesto (I knew there was still some basil in the fridge). I was still a bit unconvinced when it came to supper time, but there is something quite therapeutic about making pesto and as soon as I'd dipped my finger in it, my tastebuds perked up. In the end, lamb and pesto with baby leeks and a blob of mashed parsnip turned out to be spot-on and exactly what I wanted after all!

16 November - a mexican-inspired lunch and cod with roast tomato risotto

Lunch today started off with the packet of corn tortillas I bought earlier in the week. I had a small tin of refried beans in the cupboard, so it was a Mexican-inspired lunch of warm tortilla with the refried beans, a couple of poached eggs and a blob of soured cream.

When I'd asked Tris last night what he fancied for dinner today, he'd said "fish", so I headed to Fishminster this afternoon to see what they'd got. I'd started off thinking of scallops with pea risotto, but they didn't have any, so I went for a big piece of cod instead and changed the accompaniment to roasted tomato risotto - inspired by a HFW recipe I saw a little while ago. I roasted a whole pile of halved tomatoes with a drizzle of olive oil, some chopped garlic and fresh rosemary for nearly an hour. When they were done I whizzed them up in a blender and stirred about half the resulting sauce into a plain risotto with some whole basil leaves. I trimmed the messy edges off the cod (and cooked them up in a bit of milk to use tomorrow), then popped the two resulting neat pieces in an oven dish with a little drizzle of oil and a squeeze of lemon and popped them in a hot oven for about 15 mins. The final combination was warm and tasty, but still quite light and fresh, definitely one to repeat.

15 November - a baked potato and a massive chunk of pork belly

There were still some cooked beetroot in the fridge from last week. They were a bit shrivelled-looking, but once peeled and chopped and mixed with a bit of oil vinegar and mint, they made quite nice a little pile of lunchtime salad. A jacket potato with a dollop of soured cream and some bacon bits made the whole thing into a proper meal.

This evening, we were out for dinner with some friends at Aqua. I was drawn to the porchetta on the menu, so forewent a starter in anticipation of a big meaty main. It's a good job I did, because the piece of pork belly that arrived almost filled the plate and served on a pile of very rich beans, it proved to be incredibly filling. The meat was delicious and tender, but I rather wished afterwards I hadn't eaten it all as I ended up feeling overfull and slightly nauseous! A good strong espresso was definitely needed afterwards.

14 November - pasta and baked squash

I picked up some out-of-season fresh peas in Waitrose this morning for a lunch of pasta with bacon, peas and cream - a bit against my usual seasonal principles, but sometimes you've just got to go with what you fancy!

Lacking inspiration, I was flicking through my folder of old recipes I've collected over the years and plumped for baked squash and corn with goats cheese by Jane Baxter from Riverford (who I get my vegbox from) I think cut it out from an old Guardian magazine. The baked squash is quite straightforward - just roasted cubes of butternut squash mixed with sweetcorn, garlic, chopped chilli and some goats cheese - but it's the pumpkin seed dressing that makes it worth digging out the recipe. You blend together:

• 40g toasted pumpkin seeds
• 1 clove garlic
• a chopped tomato
• a handful coriander leaves
• a chopped green chilli
• a splash of good olive oil

Served with corn tortillas, with the dressing drizzled over the veg mix, it's a really different, tasty supper with quite a kick.

13 November - leek and potato soup and beef goulash

There were a couple of leeks hanging around in the fridge, so I made up some simple leek and potato soup for lunch. I gently sweated the chopped leeks in butter with a couple of whole cloves of garlic, then added a finely diced potato and some chicken stock and let it simmer for about 15 mins. I whizzed up about half the soup, returned it to the pan, added a splodge of cream and seasoned with salt and nutmeg. I served it with a bit of crispy streaky bacon and chives on top and some lovely toast rubbed with garlic and a drizzle of olive oil. The soup was good and the garlicky toast even better!

With a fancy for something warming, I made some goulash for dinner. I used a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe from the Guardian, adding a bit of parsnip as well as the potato, which worked really well, absorbing all those lovely flavours. I was a bit late putting it on and rather skimped on the timing, so the meat wasn't quite as tender as it could have been, still really tasty though with a dollop of soured cream on the top mingling with the sauce to make it rich and creamy.

As we'd only had a smallish dish of goulash without lots of carbs, there was room for some rhubarb crumble with fresh vanilla custard - an excuse to use some more of the vanilla we brought back from Madagascar. As is often the case, a quickly knocked up crumble turned out to be spot-on and the pale creamy custard was so much better than shop-bought stuff.

12 November - tapas and a huge pork steak

It was Saturday lunchtime tapas at the Lido again today - humus, squash and feta salad and some posh ham - a great relaxed start to the weekend.

For dinner I got some pork steaks from Ruby & White, which turned out to be absolutely huge. I did some cream and tarragon sauce and we had them with a small splodge of potato and parsnip mash and some spinach. As I was cooking them, and struggling to squeeze them both in a large frying pan, there was talk of leaving some meat to have cold tomorrow, but somehow we managed to clear our plates after all!

11 November - eggs florentine and dinner with friends

I quite like eggs Florentine for lunch, but it's such a faff to make fresh hollandaise sauce and there's always too much for one. I usually just end up having spinach and poached eggs on toast. Today I thought I'd try a dollop of hollandaise from a jar as an easy cheat. I suppose it did just add a bit of something to the eggs, but it was a bit sharp and vinegary tasting, so not completely convinced.

This evening, we went to visit some friends for dinner. Hannah always comes up with really good, tasty home cooking and tonight was no exception with a great dish of Catalan chicken (cooked with tomatoes beans, peppers and olives), followed by apple cake and custard - yum! And of course, a few glasses of wine and lots of good chat.

10 November - chicken and leek pie

I got some lovely fresh beetroot yesterday, both regular purple and golden, so I roasted them to have warm on some bruschetta for lunch with some soft goats cheese and sprinkling of mint - looked great and tasted lovely.

I cooked up the remains of the roast chicken with some leeks in a creamy tarragon sauce and made some pastry to make a pie for dinner. It was a bit of struggle to find the right size pie dish, so it ended up in rather a deep oven dish which looked great when it came out the oven, but was a bit of a struggle to get out! Half a pie on each plate looked a bit comical, but tasted great.

9 November - warm mushroom salad

Waiting in for a plumber today who was due to be coming between 1 and 2, so rather than get caught in the middle of cooking, lunch was just a quick bit of toast and the rest of the pate.

It was Book Club tonight with an autumnal food theme, so I made a warm mushroom salad with lemon ricotta; a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe I cut out of an old Guardian magazine. I got a couple of huge portobello mushrooms, which I sliced, some chestnut mushrooms and a handful of wild mushrooms, which together with shallots, garlic and a big pile of herbs came out really tasty and went down well with the girls.

8 November - couscous salad and chicken noodle soup

Lunch recently seems to have alternated between something toast-based and pasta, so today I went for some couscous to mix things up. Yesterday I picked up a pack of little mini peppers in the supermarket, mostly because they looked neat. I roasted them this morning to mix in with the couscous and rather wished I'd just gone for a normal pepper because they were a bit too thin and tricky to peel. Mixed in with a bit of fried chopped chorizo and all it's nice paprika juices, they tasted fine though.

This morning I also cooked up the chicken carcass to make some stock, then used some of it this evening to make chicken noodle soup - dead quick and easy after being out early evening. What I chuck in the 'soup' varies, but today I used a chopped red chilli, which gave it quite a punch, some lemongrass, ginger and a star anise, together with some of the leftover chicken, some pak choi and the noodles, it was really tasty and warming, but fresh and light too.

7 November - pate on toast and roast chicken

Since we had some really yummy pate as a starter at the Kensington the other day, I've had a bit of a fancy for pate, so today I picked some up for a simple lunch. To go with it I made up some very quick red onion marmalade; gently fried up half a sliced red onion in some butter until it softened (about 10 mins), then stirred in a teaspoon of dark brown sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar. It worked quite well, although I think I let the onion crisp a bit more than I should have done. With some toast and a few vegetable crisps, it made a nice lunch.

Knowing that it was going to be a bit of a busy week this week, I did a roast chicken this evening, so I can quickly cook up the leftovers without having to plan and shop too much over the next few days. To go with it, I combined some leftovers from last week - some cabbage still looking good after a fortnight in the fridge (!) and the rest of the packet of chestnuts I bought for the stuffed mushrooms. I briefly blanched the shredded cabbage, then fried up a few bits of pancetta in a pan, added the chopped chestnuts and the drained cabbage, just long enough to combine all the flavours. It all sounds a bit much for a week night, but with no spuds, the chicken and cabbage made a lovely Monday night supper.

6 November - a sunday pub lunch

Today, we all went for a proper Sunday lunch in a pub; the Red Lion in Histon, just outside Cambridge. I went for roast beef, which arrived pleasantly pink in the middle with great crunchy roast potatoes, gravy, Yorkshire pudding and a nice big dish of fresh veg to share - what more can you ask for?!

Then it was the long drive home and more service station snacks to keep us going - although we did do a bit of celeb-spotting at Reading Services - Mark Cawardine (wildlife photographer) and then Gareth Bale (Spurs footballer) - it was clearly the place to be on a Sunday evening!

5 November - a thai curry at the wrestlers

The day was spent catching up with old friends in Cambridge, culminating in fireworks on Midsummer Common and then a Thai curry at the Wrestlers. It's an old haunt that was just as good as ever. I had a really good Penang pork curry - just the right amount of spice, although a bit too much raw onion and pepper for my taste. A great evening though with great company!

Tris and Clive trying to choose their curry.

4 November - pasta and a service station sandwich

We were driving over to Cambridge this evening, so it was substantial bowl of pasta for lunch. I chopped up a leftover portabello mushroom from last night and cooked it up with a bit of bacon and cream - can't go wrong!

Dinner was less exciting - a sandwich and a packet of crisps from a motorway services.

3 November - pasta and stuffed mushrooms

There was some roast tomato puree leftover from last night's curry, so I cooked it up with a bit of chopped bacon and a spoon of mascarpone to make a really delicious pasta sauce for lunch.

Inspiration for dinner came from another TV cookery programme, this time, Nigel Slater's Simple Cooking. I'm usually a big Nigel Slater fan and his style fits very much with my taste and style of cooking, so it's unusual that I don't get on with one of his recipes, but tonight I tried out his chestnut stuffed mushrooms and I can only say, they were horrible! As I was going along, it didn't seem to be working out well - the mushrooms I found were a bit too flat to really stuff and the stuffing came out very dry and crumbly, so just sort of got piled on the top like 'rubble'. The recipe said to cook it for an hour, but after about 30 mins, it was looking so dry and burnt, I couldn't face leaving it any longer. Maybe it was the 'too-flat' mushrooms and maybe it was the sausages I used that somehow had the wrong consistency, but the final result was very dry and unpleasant. Won't be doing that one again!

Yes, there are some mushrooms under there somewhere!

2 November - veg soup and aubergine curry

I made up a pan of chunky vegetable soup for lunch to use up some of the veg still in the fridge from last week's vegbox plus a few borlotti beans from Monday's chilli. I cooked up some red onion, carrot, courgette, garlic, chopped bacon, diced potatoes, borlotti beans and shredded cabbage and covered it all with chicken stock. I simmered it for 10-15 mins until everything was tender, then blended about a third of the soup and returned it to the pan - just enough to make it thick and creamy. It came out more of a vegetable stew, perhaps a bit saltier than it could be from the combination of the bacon and some rather salty chicken stock, but still tasty and warming with slice of toasted sourdough.

In the evening, I tried out another recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Veg - this time for aubergine and green bean curry. It took a bit of time to make, but was definitely well worth it. It ended up cooking a bit longer than it should, but that meant the aubergine came out wonderfully soft and silky - really delicious and definitely one to try again.

1 November - mackerel and bacon salad

Lunch on the run today was a rather dull M&S prawn sandwich. For dinner, we had a big bowl each of mackerel and bacon salad; new potatoes, smoked mackerel, bacon, spinach and French beans - still a nice combo.

With the dark evenings, it's getting more and more difficult to get good food shots, without lots of faff (and cold dinner!) to find the right light. Will have to try and figure something out over the winter.

Salad for dinner justified pudding - Nigel Slater's plum crunch with cream.

31 October - cheese on toast and beef chilli

With fresh Turkish figs still in season, I bought a lovely crusty sourdough loaf from Hart's this morning to make some goats cheese on toast with figs on the side for lunch.

There was a chunk of beef from yesterday in the fridge which I somehow fancied slow cooking. I stopped in Smith's on my way to the supermarket to flick through Thomasina Miers' Mexican Food Made Simple. I really ought to buy a copy, but for today, I settled for just memorising a recipe for beef chilli. It's a pretty long list of ingredients, but I think I managed to get home with them all still in my head it more or less the right proportions and order!

• Blend an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic.
• Brown a chunk of beef on all sides in a pan- I used about 150g topside - and remove.
• Fry some chopped cooking chorizo in the same pan, then add the onion and garlic mix.
• Add a tsp cumin and a tsp allspice, a few cloves, a cinnamon stick and a bay leaf.
• Stir in a couple of chopped red chillis, a few bits of jalapeno (from a jar), a splash of balsamic vinegar, a squirt of tomato ketchup, some dried oregano and half a tin of tomatoes. Stir it all around to cook for a while, then return the beef and top up with about 150ml water.
• I transferred the whole lot to a casserole, covered it with foil and popped it in a low oven (150C) for a couple of hours.
• Towards the end, stir in half a tin of borlotti beans.
• When you take it out, break up the beef with a fork into shreds.

The result wasn't particularly photogenic, but it tasted absolutely fantastic! All the flavours came together wonderfully to create a real 'surround-sound' kind of taste that lingered long after the last mouthful! Rather than rice or tortillas, I served it with some cubes of roast sweet potato and a blob of guacamole.

30 October - thai beef curry

I think dinner tonight was unconsciously inspired by a bottle of Gruner Veltliner that Tris bought from our local wine shop, Corks of Cotham, when he was stocking up the other day. It's quite a sharp, 'green' tasting wine, but it goes fantastically with Thai food. Mulling over the thought of a Thai curry, I somehow didn't fancy the usual chicken or prawn, so decided to try out a less conventional beef version instead. I went into the Ruby & White asking for some really lean beef that I could slice up into thin strips. The butcher came up with a piece of topside which once he'd cut the fat off the outside was perfect for the job.

I made up a version of my usual Thai curry paste (with red chillis instead of green), fried it up with some spring onions and sliced mushrooms, then added some vegetable stock and coconut milk. Once that had come up to the boil, I dropped in some julienned courgette and finally the beef. I let it bubble for a couple of minutes added a splash of fish sauce, some lime juice and some more fresh coriander. Served with Thai sticky rice, it made a really nice combination, one I'd probably try again, possibly adding the beef really right at the end when I had everything else ready to go (I probably spent a good five minutes faffing today after the beef was already cooked) so that it came out even more tender.

29 October - lunch in Bath, slow-baked sausages & new plates

It was another Saturday lunch out, this week in Bath. We went to check out the recently reopened Holbourne Museum - a funky bit of architecture, but not wildly excited inside. It's got a nice-looking cafe, but it was a bit full of kids, so we decided to head back to town for lunch. Just as we left though, it decided to tip with rain, so we just dived into the nearest place we could think of; the Riverside Cafe, a tiny little place tucked away under Pulteney Bridge that always does good, simple cafe food. I was still feeling a bit coldy and didn't have much appetite, so I went for some plain fried calamari and fries, just what I needed, and Tris had some really nice falafels with salad.

When we got home after a hard afternoon's shopping, I tried out a Nigel Slater recipe from an old OFM magazine for slow-baked sausages, with lots of onions and a sauce including dark beer. Came out quite nice served with some mash and cabbage. The evening's real culinary excitment though was all in the crockery, with beautiful new plates from Toast. It's not the most photogenic of dishes or the best light to show them off, but I'm sure they'll feature again soon ...