15 September - sausage stew and an empty fridge

We're off on holiday early tomorrow morning, so today really is a case of trying to use up what's left in the fridge. Lunch involved a dish of boiled new potatoes mixed with some tomatoes and basil and a poached egg on the top. Not quite a proper meal, but it sort of worked!

There's still quite a bit of cavalo nero from yesterday, so I'm making it up into a version of a sausage and kale stew for dinner, together with the last few potatoes. Hopefully, that'll leave us with a nice empty fridge.

We're going to be off in Madagascar for a fortnight, so I won't be posting for a while. I don't think I'm going to keep a day-by-day record of what we eat, but I'll try and do a single holiday post when I get back to report on Malagasy cuisine!

14 September - pork with creamy chanterelle sauce

We're off on holiday at the end of the week, so I'm trying to make the most of the last few veg on the terrace. Lunch was another couscous salad, with some smoked salmon flakes and homegrown beans and tomatoes.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon, so in-between chores, I wandered up to a nice veg shop in Clifton that I'd spotted the other day had lots of wild mushrooms. I came home with a bag of yellow chanterelles and a tall spike of cavalo nero that poked out of the top of my backpack and raised a smile in Ruby & White on my way home getting some pork loin steaks.

I fried the pork steaks until nice and brown on each side, then popped them in the oven to finish off. I then used the same pan to gently fry a shallot, added the chanterelles, followed by a glug of white wine. I bubbled it down a bit, added some double cream, bubbled a bit more and poured the sauce over the pork. With some potatoes and the cavolo nero, it tasted wonderfully autumnal.

13 September - tapas @ the lounge

We were back at the Lounge this evening, meeting a friend for a drink. It was Tapas Tuesday and after the yummy tapas the other day, I went for minty peas with feta, sweetcorn fritters and five-spiced shredded pork, which had a nice kick to it. Perfect picky food with a couple of glasses of white wine and good company!

12 September - aubergine parmigiana

After a meaty few days, I fancied something veggie. With the wind and rain lashing down though, I wanted something warming and comforting, so I went for an old favourite based originally on an Elizabeth David recipe for parmigiana. I sliced, salted and fried an aubergine, then made up a basic tomato sauce with an onion, a bit of garlic, a tin of tomatoes and some chopped basil. Then I layered the aubergine slices with the tomato sauce and slices of mozzarella in an oven dish, topped it all with grated parmesan and baked for about half an hour. It came out gooey, bubbling and full of flavour and went down well on with a few simple boiled potatoes.

11 September - lamb chops with salsa verde

The parsley's still going strong so I thought I'd make a last salsa verde of the summer. I got a couple of lamb chops to go with it and some baby leeks. I think I dolloped rather too much mustard into the sauce and it came out a bit sharp for my taste. The lamb was nice though and the leeks were lovely and silky.

10 September - fresh figs and a lamb curry

I got some lovely big, fresh, Turkish figs in the supermarket this morning. So lunch involved some fresh bread from Hart's Bakery (@ Ruby & White) with the figs, some bresaola and a tomato and basil salad.

We fancied a curry, so I flicked through Madhur Jaffrey and cooked up some lamb do piaza with some spicy green beans and rice. As usual, the sauce rather curdled, but it was still tasty.

• Fry one and a half finely sliced onions until starting to brown. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.
• Put a cinnamon stick, 3 cardamom pods and 3 cloves in the same oil.
• Add about 250g cubed lamb to brown, then remove.
• Fry 1/2 finely chopped onion, then add some garlic and ginger paste (made from a couple of cloves of garlic and a lump of ginger, both grated and mixed with a little water).
• Add 1 tsp coriander and 1/2 tsp cumin and stir.
• Gradually add 2 tbsp yoghurt and stir to incorporate. I never manage this without it curdling, even taking the pan off the heat.
• Return the meat with a cup of water, a pinch of cayenne pepper and some salt. Then bubble away gently for an hour or so.
• Return the fried onions and half a tsp of garam masala.

9 September - the lounge and post-film noodles

I managed to eat out twice today. It was the end of my summer teaching stint, so we went for an end-of-course lunch at the Lounge. They did pretty well with a big group and mixed tapas starters came out really quickly and went down very well. Mains took a bit longer and came out in dribs and drabs, but as we were all nattering, it didn't really matter. I had a goats cheese salad - the actual goats cheese on toast was nice, but the salad was full of things I'm less keen on - my fault for being fussy rather than theirs!

We went out to the cinema in the evening and stopped off for some quick noodles on the way back at Tampopo, right next to the cinema at Cabot Circus. We just went in to grab a quick bite, but the noodles were actually really good - definitely a place to stop off after a film again.

8 September - couscous salad and spaghetti bolognese

Another great 'salad' for lunch - this time couscous with some roast squash and pepper, tomatoes, a few bits of bacon and a bit of the sauce left over from last night's chicken - really yummy!

We had a simple classic for dinner; spaghetti bolognese. This is something that's slightly different every time I make it and is inspired by a number of different recipes, including a classic Italian Elizabeth David recipe and a more recent one from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Tonight it was quite a fresh, tomatoey version with fresh basil.

• Gently fry a chopped onion in a mix of butter and olive oil until soft, adding some chopped garlic and a few bacon bits.
• Add minced beef and stir until browned.
• Add a glug of milk and bubble until almost gone - this was an idea from HFW and gives it a slightly creamy feel.
• Do the same with a glass of white wine.
• Stir in a tin of chopped tomatoes, salt, nutmeg and some chopped basil.
• Bubble away for as long as possible, at least an hour. Then serve with spaghetti (or tonight linguine actually) and a good pile of grated parmesan.

7 September - Moroccan chicken

I had a fantastically tasty salad for lunch today; new potatoes, fried chorizo, homegrown tomatoes and beans, some fresh cooked beetroot, a few strips of roasted pepper and a poached egg. The red chorizo-flavoured oil, mingled with the oozy egg yolk and the purple beetrooty juices all came together in a perfect, vivid puddle in the bottom of the dish to mash the potatoes into!

We had lemony Moroccan chicken for dinner with couscous and some cubes of roasted squash. Tasty, but again a bit rushed and it could've been cooked a bit longer.

6 September - stuffed vegetables

At a loss for ideas, I tried out a recipe for stuffed vegetables from For Every Season. You cook up some chopped onion and garlic, with some pine nuts, rice, dill and parsley, pour in some water, then when absorbed, stuff this mixture into big tomatoes and peppers. You put the vegetables into an oven dish, pour some tin tomatoes around the bottom and drizzle with olive oil, then bake for about 40 mins at 180C. I was rather late getting started and really hungry, so I gave up and took them out after barely half an hour, which was a bit of a mistake as the rice was still a bit crunchy and the pepper wasn't cooked as much as I'd have liked. It wasn't too bad though and the 'sauce' (the tinned toms whizzed up in a blender) was really nice. I might go with the suggestion of adding a bit of mince to the stuffing if I did it again though.

5 September - pasta with squash

A busy day and Tris was out this evening, so it was pasta again as a quick dinner for one. This time I had squash, with pine nuts, bacon, sage and goats cheese ... lots of my favourite flavours and I thought it might be a bit much altogether, but it was actually yummy!

4 September - brunch and venison sauce

An already-soft avocado was the starting point for a Tex-Mex brunch - my take on huevos rancheros. We had poached eggs on a toasted bagel with some tomato salsa (chopped onion, garlic and green chilli cooked up with some tinned tomatoes) and fresh guacamole. Great with a big pot of coffee.

Some venison in the butchers (Ruby & White across the road) had caught my eye, so today I made some rich slow-cooked venison sauce to go with pasta. Initially, as I fried up the diced venison, I was a bit disappointed as it looked a bit fatty and chewy, but actually, once it was cooked up, it was fine and made a really nice warming sauce.

• Fry c.300g diced venison to brown and set aside.
• Fry 1/2 a chopped onion and some chopped carrot for 5 mins.
• Add some chopped rosemary and 2 tbsp concentrated tomato puree.
• Return the meat to the pan, add 250ml red wine and 250ml chicken stock and bubble gently for a couple of hours.
• Serve with pasta.

3 September - steak and homegrown tomatoes

We grabbed a quick lunch on our way out to do stuff at Rocotillos, a great little diner nearby. We had a simple bacon sandwich and one of their fantastic milkshakes - banana, made with real bananas, of course!

The tomatoes from the terrace are coming thick and fast now and tasting really great, so dinner tonight was planned around a big warm tomato and basil salad. Served with fillet steak and rosemary roast new potatoes, the tomatoes were just perfect!

2 September - fast food

Today was spent whizzing around doing lots of things and food had to be fast. For lunch, I grabbed a baked potato from a local sandwich shop and took it home to eat with a bit of goats cheese and the rest of the beetroot dip.

I was out at the pub for drinks early evening and when I got home about 8.30, a couple of glasses of wine had gone right to my head! So a quick bowl of pasta with peas and pancetta was needed to soak it up!

1 September - chicken soup and soy baked salmon

For lunch I tried out a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe from the Guardian magazine from a couple of weeks ago for chicken and buttermilk soup. It was meant to be a cold soup, but did say you could heat it up if you were really careful not to let it curdle. Rather frustratingly though, after lots of messing about and then being super-careful, it still curdled and tasted rather nasty and sour ... still, if you don't try ...

Thankfully, dinner was rather more successful. I was wandering round Sainsburys at a complete loss for ideas and was so uninspired, I ended up in the ready meals section ... yes, I know! I did spy some crispy seaweed (actually crispy shredded greens) though which gave me an idea. I got some salmon fillets and pulled out a really old recipe for soy-baked salmon. You marinate the salmon in c.100ml mirin, 80ml soy sauce, a good chunk of grated ginger and a couple of star anise, in the fridge. The original recipe said for 6 hours, but I only had a couple of hours today, which still did the trick. Then you bake the whole lot (the salmon in the marinade in an ovenproof dish) for about 15 mins at 200C. Served with the crispy seaweed (yes, I did succumb), some purple sprouting broccoli and a bit of boiled rice, it came out great, with just a bit of the sauce drizzled over the top.

31 August - a meze selection

Tonight's meal was partly inspired by an article I read by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in the Saturday Guardian magazine. He was writing about how he'd gone over to eating largely veg, but for me one of the most interesting ideas was the influence this had had on the way he planned meals. He wrote that rather than trying to recreate a typical meat-based meal, he'd started to eat in a more 'meze' style, with various different dishes that everyone picked at and didn't necessarily go together to make a set planned meal-on-a-plate. I'd like to cook more vegetable-based meals, but I do often struggle to come up with ideas that will conform to that idea of a "proper" meal. As I think I've mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of cold food, so I don't think I could shift to his suggestions of humus, salad and bread type meals, but the idea of something more Mediterranean in style did quite appeal. I used to live in Greece and there when you ate out, you just ordered a selection of stuff and everyone tucked in.

As I had rather an odd selection of stuff in the fridge, it seemed like a good chance to put the idea into action. Perhaps ironically, the main ingredient was cold leftover chicken (!), but rather than trying to put it into some kind of dish, I just dished some out onto the plates, then put out some broad beans with chorizo:

Some wonderfully vivid beetroot dip (a couple of fresh, cooked beetroots whizzed up with some Greek yoghurt, spices - a teaspoon each of toasted and crushed cumin and coriander - and a squeeze of lemon juice) and some warm pitta bread.

Perhaps not something I'd do every night, but certainly really nice for a change.

30 August - chilli and guacamole

Tuesday again, so Tris was cooking - this time a chilli con carne (to a Jamie Oliver recipe) made the night before. Nice and tasty, with just the right amount of heat and served with fresh guacamole and sweetcorn fritters (my contribution). Can't go wrong!

29 August - lunch out and chicken risotto

We went out for a Bank Holiday lunch down by the harbourside. Riverstation has been a favourite for a long time, partly for it's location overlooking the water with it's lovely big windows and also for the usually reliable food. We don't seem to be having much luck eating out lately though. It was quite busy when we arrived, but no more than on a usual weekend. I ordered eggs Florentine and Tris ordered savoury tart. We happened to be right next to the kitchen, which is partially on view, so as time ticked by and I was feeling more and more hungry, I was watching the orders as they came out with an eye open for ours. I spotted what looked like our order appear and was waiting expectantly for a waitress to bring it over. There seemed to be some confusion about orders though and she kept taking other dishes, leaving ours sitting there.

If I don't eat regularly, I tend to get quite wobbly and irritable, so the longer things went on, the more annoyed I was getting. Then one of the chefs picked up the eggs from the top of the eggs florentine, dumped them somewhere out of sight, then a couple of minutes later, dumped another couple back on top (I really hope not the same ones just dunked back in boiling water to reheat them!) and drizzled more hollandaise sauce over the top. I was a bit taken aback, but by this point, I just needed something to eat asap. The plates sat there for another 10 minutes, before I finally managed to grab a waitress and she brought our order over -that had been sitting on the counter for around 20 mins by this point!

I did complain about the wait and what I'd seen, but was so hungry, I tucked into the eggs anyway. My hands were shaking so much by now, I could hardly even hold my knife and fork and the food went down so quickly, it hardly touched the sides! The eggs were pretty solid, the spinach was cold and the bread pretty soggy - all round, not up to the usual standard.

Unlike on Friday night at Cote though, the manager did come over to apologise. He immediately said that they'd take my meal off the bill and offered coffees. He was apologetic without being over-the-top and just generally dealt with the whole situation really well. He took the problem seriously, but was friendly and smiley so we didn't go away feeling negative. I'm happy to take it as a one-off and won't be put off going back.

At least we managed to get some fantastic coffee cake from Papadeli on the way back to go with an afternoon cup of tea!

Dinner was a simple, and to be honest not wildly tasty, chicken and pea risotto made from some of the leftover cold chicken. So all round not a great culinary day, only just saved by the cake!

28 August - baked mushrooms and supermarket salmon

We got more nice big mushrooms in the vegbox on Friday, so for lunch I cooked them up Jamie Oliver style, baked with garlic, thyme, oil and lemon. It's always a good recipe but today somehow the balance of flavours was just perfect. With a bit of parma ham and some saute potatoes, they made a yummy lunch.

After lunch though, I spent the rest of my Sunday working, so Tris cooked dinner again - a simple, supermarket "cheat" - salmon en croute from Waitrose. Despite getting stuck together in the packaging and being cooked upside-down, they didn't come out too badly.