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 ...

28 October - pasta and fish @ the Kensington

To eat up the last bit of smoked salmon, I made up a quick pasta lunch with a sauce made of leek, the smoked salmon and mascarpone.

I was feeling a bit woolly-headed and achy all day as if I was coming down with a cold, so I didn't feel much like going out, but Tris had booked a table at the Kensington Arms for dinner (another website not working!). I didn't really have much of an appetite, so we shared a starter - a fantastically smooth chicken liver parfait with toast and onion jam - then I chose fish as a lighter main. I had pan-fried sea bream with crushed potatoes and carrots - simple but delicious and well worth the effort of going out.

27 October - scrambled eggs and dinner at jamie's

There wasn't much in for lunch today and I had a fancy for eggs, so I nipped out and got some smoked salmon to make scrambled eggs into lunch. Lovely on some toast with some garlic chives snipped over the top.

This evening I was meeting up with a friend, but the place we planned to meet was closed for a private do, so we ended up in Jamie's Italian again. I went for chicken liver tortellini, which was quite nice, if a little dry, but my friend had Osso Bucco, which was so fatty and horrible, it actually made her feel physically sick! It's a shame that the food's so hit and miss (especially the meat so it seems), because otherwise it's a really nice place to hang out. With plenty of other good spots in Bristol with much better food though, I don't think I'll bother again.

26 October - more bruschetta and pasta with pesto

It was another HFW-inspired bruschetta recipe again for lunch today, this time broad beans boiled, podded then swooshed around with some melted butter and garlic before being blended to a paste. I spread the paste on toast, crumbled over a bit more goats cheese and this time a sprinkling of fresh mint. Another great combination and a great colour!

I was going to do just simple pasta with fresh pesto this evening, but decided to add some gently fried red pepper and courgette to make something a bit more substantial. It seemed to work and the pesto was spot-on - leaving that fabulous rounded taste in your mouth long after you've cleared your plate ... mmmm!

25 October - squash bruschetta and chicken with cider

Inspired by Hugh and his veg the other night, lunch today is butternut squash and goats cheese bruschetta. While I was cooking up the veg last night, I popped the rest of the squash and half a red pepper in the oven to roast. Today I warmed both through in a pan with a bit of melted butter, tipped them onto a couple of slices of nice toasted bread (from Hart's), added some crumbled goats cheese, a few chopped walnuts and popped it all under the grill to melt the cheese a bit. Well, worth a bit of forward planning!

There were still some mushrooms from Friday's vegbox in the fridge that needed eating, so I made up some chicken cooked in cider with mushrooms, potatoes and cream - based on a Nigel Slater recipe that's a regular favourite. Served with some plain boiled cabbage, the sauce is both creamy and tangy.

24 October - five vegetable couscous

I used up the rest of the vegbox spinach for lunch with some pasta, plus some bacon and a generous splodge of cream - great combo.

After Hugh F-W on TV again last night with his River Cottage Veg, I decided to go for something veggie for dinner. I made a variation on a recipe from For Every Season for seven vegetable couscous - although mine only included five!

• Fry a sliced red onion in a little oil to soften, then add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic and about the same amount of chopped fresh ginger.
• Toast and then crush 1/2tsp cumin seeds and 1 tsp coriander seeds and add to the onions with a pinch of saffron and a few chilli flakes.
• Add the following vegetables to the pan, all chopped into roughly similar sized chunks: a red pepper, a courgette, a carrot and a bit of butternut squash.
• Stir around to coat the veg in the spices, then cover with about 400ml veg stock and leave to simmer gently until tender - about 20 mins.
• Serve on pile of couscous with some of the broth spooned over the top and a sprinking of chopped coriander.

A tasty way to get lots of veg that gets yummier as you get towards the bottom and all the nice garlicy-gingery bits!

23 October - Sunday lunch and a ramble

Anticipating more nice weather, we'd booked a table for Sunday lunch at the Bear & Swan pub in Chew Magna (no link as their website doesn't seem to be working) - it's just over half an hour's drive south of Bristol. I'd been there before a couple of years ago and remembered it as being good. And it didn't disappoint - I had overnight roast belly of pork with apricot stuffing. The meat was meltingly tender and there was a nice chunk of crispy crackling and there were nice crunchy roast potatoes, a dollop of apple sauce, rich gravy and a dish of fresh veg. A yummy modern version of a classic Sunday lunch. We didn't have any space to go for pudding, but coffee came with a couple of elegant chocolate truffles. Now that's my idea of how to end a good meal!

To walk our lunch off, we went for a walk through the fields down to Chew Valley Lake. It wasn't quite as a sunny as the day before, but the sun did break through occasionally and it was nice just to be out in the fresh air. At the lake, we managed a mid-afternoon tea stop - not quite as sophisticated, but a good cup of tea and a great view across the lake.

After such a meaty lunch, I made some vegetable noodles for supper; mushrooms, spring onions, garlic, red chilli, sweetcorn, cabbage, chicken stock, lemongrass, a splash of soy sauce and some noodles. It could've done with a bit more chilli , but it was fresh and cleansing to end the weekend.

22 October - lunch in the sun and a chicken curry

It was one of those fantastically bright, sunny autumnal days, so we wandered down to the harbourside for lunch at Mud Dock. It was so lovely and sunny, we were able to eat outside - I even had to peel off a few layers the sun was so warm! I had some really nice fishcakes with chilli dipping sauce, followed by a long, lingering coffee just to make the most of those rays! Then we headed over to visit mshed, Bristol's new museum - it's a cool building with great views.

There was a big bag of spinach in yesterday's vegbox which I know won't keep long, so tonight I made chicken and spinach curry. It wasn't as creamy and delicious as some curries can be, but tasty nonetheless.

21 October - venison and quince

After being out all morning, I was quite late getting home for lunch and feeling distinctly peckish. As ever when you're hungry, my impression of my appetite was a bit out of kilter, so I bought myself a Pieminster chicken pie on my way home and cooked up some leeks to have with it while I waited for it to heat up. Almost as soon as I'd got started on it, I realised I wasn't actually that hungry and struggled to plough my way through the rather too peppery pie!

For dinner I got a couple of venison steaks from Ruby & White and picked up a quince too to have with them. Thankfully, this time, the quince was fine and I made some nice quince and rosemary compote which went really nicely with the venison - just cooking up the peeled and cubed quince with some water and sugar and adding some chopped rosemary at the end. Unfortunately, I didn't do so well with a potato and wild mushroom gratin. I had a few wild mushrooms to use up and I came across a recipe from WFI that looked really nice. I don't know if I got the quantity of cream wrong, or just had the oven too hot, but it came out completely dried out and really quite unappetising. It's always frustrating when you've gone to a lot of trouble with special ingredients and it doesn't come out as expected. Thankfully, at least the venison and quince was good.

20 October - chowder and coffee cupcakes

Today was rather a domestic affair - gardening and baking cakes! I decided it was finally time to take down the beans and had fun on a chilly but sunny afternoon unwinding the plants from their canes.

Since I had a particularly yummy piece of "cappucino cake" a few weeks ago, I've been craving coffee cake and as I haven't come across any again, I decided to bake my own. I didn't want a big slab of coffee and walnut cake, but little light, coffee fairycakes. I did a bit of searching online and came across a promising-looking recipe on a blog: Afternoon Tea Total. I got the ingredients together and was a bit suspicious when it said to mix the small amount of butter into not just the sugar, but the flour too. As suggested, I started trying to mix the butter into the huge pile of dry stuff using an electric whisk and created a fantastic flour cloud! I ploughed on undaunted though and eventually it did all come together and looked just like ordinary cake mix. The cakes came out pretty well, if a little crunchy on the top (cooked a bit too long/too hot?) and the butter icing was fantastic. Just what I needed with my afternoon cup of tea.

I'd planned to have a jacket potato with tuna and sweetcorn mayonnaise for lunch, but to my immense disappointment, when I opened the cupboard there was no sweetcorn ... so it was just plain old tuna mayo in my jacket.

Perhaps to make up for the lack of lunchtime sweetcorn, I made a smoked cod and sweetcorn chowder for supper ... after a trip to Sainsbury's obviously. I rather seem to have missed the sweetcorn season this year, I think it must've peaked while we were away. The chowder wasn't bad, although I'm not doing very well at cooking for one and I made far too much. I really didn't want more leftovers to eat though, so I ended up having seconds and felt a bit sick by the time I'd polished it all off!

19 October - another beetroot salad and orzo with mushrooms

The salad leaves were looking distinctly sad and starting to go a bit slimy, so it was another salad for lunch, this time a variation on a favourite that involves new potatoes, chorizo and a poached egg. Today's other ingredient was the last of the beetroot, a surprisingly good combination.

I caught a bit of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on the telly the other night, talking about his quest to eat only vegetables again. His arguments do strike a chord, but Ruby & White, our lovely local butcher's, keeps luring me in and all my veggie intentions go out the window! Having spent the past couple of days eating up the meat in the fridge, tonight I was determined to have something veggie. As I was looking through HFW's new veg cookbook in a bookshop the other day, a recipe for orzo with mushrooms caught my eye, so I jotted it down quickly on the back of a receipt ... on the principle of "try before you buy"! Yesterday, I managed to pick up some lovely wild mushrooms, so I mixed them with a handful of chestnut mushrooms and fried them up in butter, added some garlic, a tsp of balsamic vinegar, a splash of white wine and some double cream. Then I mixed the mushroom suace with some cooked orzo (rice-shaped pasta) and sprinkled some parsley over the top.

I know it sounds a bit silly, buit the result was possibly a bit too mushroomy! I don't know if I got the quantity of mushrooms right, but there seemed to be a lot for the amount of pasta and as the wild mushrooms had a really strong flavour, it was perhaps a bit much. It was a good recipe though and definitely one I'll try again. The orzo made a nice change too, kind of a midway between risotto and pasta.

18 October - pork and chorizo stew

There are some salad leaves and beetroot in the fridge bought to go with the weekend's burgers, so lunch today is a salad made up of beetroot, grilled red peppers and goats cheese.

I'm still working my way through the meaty leftovers and tonight it's a bit of pork cut off the joint we had roasted (because it was a bit too big). I cook it up with some chorizo, the other half of the red pepper, onion, tomato and chickpeas, plus a few flavourings (garlic, thyme, saffron and parsley) and cook it long and slow to make a tasty, comforting stew. It's actually a "recipe" I came up with last winter based on the list of ingredients on the back of a "stew pot" at the supermarket that appealed but struck me as overpriced!

17 October - sweet potato soup and shepherd's pie

The week has started using up what's in the fridge. For lunch, I had the last of the sweet potato and red lentil soup. As well as a dollop of soured cream, I scattered a few fried lardons on the top and had a couple of slices of soft, fresh bread from Hart's.

I ummed and erred about what to do with the leftover lamb mince (from yesterday's burgers), coming up with lots of different options - meatballs, moussaka, stuffed peppers - but in the end, I went for some old-school shepherd's pie. I cooked up all the mince and came up with a bit more than a single helping, so it looks like I'll be eating leftovers for a while yet!

16 October - underdone burgers and leftover pork

For lunch today I cooked some homemade burgers - fried them for a few minutes each side, then popped them under the grill topped with mozzarella. I put them on the plate with a nice big pile of salad (lambs lettuce, pea shoots and beetroot). When I cut into mine though, I realised it was really underdone - not just 'rare', but completely cold and raw inside. Although it was really fresh mince, it was too underdone to be appetising, so I had to scrape the burgers off the plates and pop them in the oven for a bit to cook through. They came out a bit better, but I'd rather gone off the whole thing by then.

Tris headed off to London this afternoon for a week with work, so I had my first lone supper of a week of cooking for one. There was a chunk of cold roast pork from yesterday and some cabbage. For a bit of a change, I decided to braise the cabbage - cooking it long and slow in a bit of chicken stock with a knob of butter, tightly covered for almost an hour. It came out wonderfully nutty-tasting and made a lovely warming supper with the pork and the leftover gravy poured over the top.

15 October - a ploughmans and slow-roast pork

After a morning watching sport on the telly again, we went out for a wander and some lunch down by the harbour. We headed to the Pump House for a couple of gourmet ploughmans; Tris had traditional cheddar, but I went for mackerel pate that came with beetroot salad, apple, leaves and a lovely big hunk of bread, all presented on a big wooden board. It looked great and the pate was delicious.

Dinner was inspired by Lorraine Pascal's Home cooking made easy - slow-roast pork cooked all afternoon, with a handful of roast veg (carrots, parsnips, shallots and garlic) and some cabbage, plus of course, some gravy made from the pan juices. I was a bit dubious when the joint came out the oven looking a bit dry, but once it'd been rested for a bit, it just pulled apart with a fork - wonderfully juicy and tender and with some great crunchy crackling.

14 October - sweet potato soup and monkfish with cardamom and vanilla

I'm realising that I really overdid it with the root vegetables in last week's vegbox! For lunch today I cooked up some sweet potato and red lentil soup - another Sophie Grigson recipe from Vegetables.

• Sweat a large sweet potato peeled and cut into chunks, together with a chopped onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, some peeled and chopped fresh ginger, a star anise and a glug of sunflower oil over a low heat with the lid on.
• Add a blob of tomato puree, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and about 75g red lentils, cover just under a litre of water and bring to the boil.
• Simmer until tender (20 mins or so), remove the star anise and blend.
• Return to the pan to reheat gently, season with salt and the juice of a lime.
• Serve with a blob of soured cream and a little fresh mint.

I'd been looking for a savoury recipe to use some of the vanilla we brought back from Madgascar. I found a recipe for monkfish with creamy vanilla and cardamom sauce on the Waitrose website. It was quite a faff and I ended up with not quite enough fish and a rather runny sauce that I wasn't completely convinced about. Oh well, you've got to try these things.

13 October - food with friends

Today was a day for catching up with friends - out for lunch with one and another round for supper this evening. I "did lunch" with Ange at Jamie's Italian and I have to say, after our rather disappointing evening there a couple of months ago, they did much better with lunch. I had mushroom panzerotti (mushroom filled pasta) and Ange had truffle risotto and both went down really well. And it had just the vibe for a good lunchtime natter too.

Despite a rotten cold, Michelle made it round for supper this evening. With a bag of beetroot from last week's vegbox still unused, I sliced up a couple to make beetroot crisps (very finely sliced beetroot, lightly coated in oil, spread on a baking sheet and oven baked on a low heat for nearly an hour, then sprinkled with salt); a good pre-dinner nibble. Then I did the lamb tagine recipe we brought back from Morocco last year. Every time I look at the recipe with it's dodgy English and printing mistakes, it takes me right back to our morning of Moroccan cookery in Essaouira - it always comes out well too. Today, I used fresh Turkish figs instead of the dates from the original recipe and they worked really well.

• Mix together about 500g lamb neck fillet cut into cubes with a very finely chopped onion, a couple of cloves of garlic (finely chopped), 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp Ras al hanout, a pinch of saffron, some salt, a cinnamon stick and couple of tbsps olive oil. As I don't have a proper tagine, I put the whole mix into a wide heavy-bottomed pan with a lid instead.
• Cook over a medium heat for 15-20 minutes to brown the lamb and give it time to release its juices.
• Then add 750ml cold water (could have used a bit less), bring to the boil, turn low, cover and leave to simmer for an hour plus.
• Gently fry a good handful of blanched almonds in a little vegetable oil and add to the tagine towards the end.
• Crush together a juniper berry with a tiny chunk of gum Arabic (brought back from Morocco with us). Mix with a scant tsp of ground cinnamon, tbsp caster sugar and a couple of tbsps orange blossom water in a small frying pan.
• Bring this mix gently to the boil, then add the figs, cut in half, cut side down for a couple of minutes just to caramelise. Add the figs to the tagine to bubble for the last couple of minutes, then tip the sticky sauce over at the last minute before serving with couscous and today a simple grated carrot salad.

I was too busy chatting to take any pictures, but it all looked good and went down well too. The lamb was lovely and rich and flavour-packed and the freshness of the carrot offset it nicely. All round a really good evening.

12 October - pasta and a steak

Leeks, bacon, cream and cheese are a classic combination and today they made a great pasta sauce for lunch - warm, tasty and comforting on rather a grey, drizzly day.

Tris was away this evening, so I was looking for a supper for one and feeling a bit uninspired. The butcher's does meat already marinated and packaged. I've often looked at it, but generally, I prefer to add my own flavourings. Today though, I picked up a steak in teriyaki marinade to give it a go. I flash-fried it - accompanied by quite a bit of smoke and lots of smell - and had it with some homemade chips and a few carrots and beans. The steak came out with a promising caramelised coating, but it was rather thin for my liking and, to be honestly, a bit disappointingly bland. I wonder if it might have been better sliced and stir-fried instead.

11 October - a jacket potato and late tapas

With some fresh figs in the fruit bowl that need eating up and some ricotta in the fridge, I decide to pair them for lunch; after all figs generally go well with white cheese (goats cheese, mozzarella ...). I go for a jacket potato with the ricotta dolloped on the top and the figs on the side. The ricotta's a bit too runny and tasteless though to be up to the job and even with a good grinding of sea salt, it doesn't really work with the figs. Oh well, you live and learn ...

I'm out early evening and drop into the Lounge on my way back about 9 to meet up with Tris and a couple of friends. It's a bit late for a proper meal, but a bit of tapas goes down well with a glass of wine.

10 October - thai-spiced parsnip soup and cod with chorizo

With the first parsnips in this week's vegbox, it seemed like time for some Thai-spiced parsnip soup; a fabulous recipe from Sophie Grigson's Vegetables. It's a bowl of sweet, tangy, spicy creaminess - although today without quite as much kick as intended as I used one of the chillis from the garden which don't seem to have much heat to them. Still a great lunch nonetheless.

• Sweat together in a pan a couple of chopped parsnips, a chopped onion, some ginger, a couple of cloves of chopped garlic, a chopped red chilli and a bashed stick of lemongrass with a glug of oil for about 10 minutes.
• Add around 250-300ml vegetable stock and a tablespoon of Thai fish sauce and simmer for 10-15 mins.
• Take out the lemongrass, add 200-300ml coconut milk and liquidise.
• Gently reheat, add a good squeeze of lime juice and serve with a pile of freshly chopped mint and coriander.

For dinner, there were more root vegetables to eat up, so I started off with the idea of some mixed mash (potato and carrot). I didn't really fancy anything meaty, so I got a couple of chunky bits of cod and cooked them with some chopped chorizo and a few cherry tomatoes that were hanging around. It was quite a nice combination, but the tomatoes were a bit watery, so perhaps a proper rich tomato sauce might have been better. Nice chorizo-y juices though to mop up with the mash.

9 October - kedgeree and lamb with quince/apple

After an early start watching the F1 and World Cup rugby, we had an early lunch of kedgeree using the bit of smoked mackerel in the fridge from my lunch in the week. I used my usual kedgeree recipe, but substituted leeks instead of spinach. It amazes me how you can cook the same dish time and again, but each time it comes out slightly differently - today, it was just spot on and absolutely delicious, a perfect brunch with a couple of boiled eggs on the top.

For dinner, I'd planned to try out another Guardian recipe, this time from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for hot lamb and quince salad - using the quince I'd picked up the other day. Sadly, after the lamb had been sitting in its marinade all afternoon, I cut open the quince to find it was all brown and horrible! With the lamb half ready, I decided to plough ahead and to use an apple instead of the quince. Rather than having it as a salad, I wanted it as a main dish with some roasted new potatoes and cavalo nero from the garden. The recipe turned out to be a bit long-winded, messy and stressful as it seemed to involve lots of stuff going on at the same time and juggling lots of dishes and pans. I'd been a bit pissed off about the quince and by the time I'd got the food on the plates, I was feeling a bit hot and hassled. Was it worth it? Well, the lamb was quite nice and I might use a similar marinade again, but the rest of the faff probably wasn't worth the effort. The homegrown cavalo nero was great though!

8 October - pork with mushroom sauce and mixed mash

With my parents visiting today, we wandered down to Riverstation for lunch. When we arrived, I think there was a flash of recognition from the waiter after the eggs florentine fiasco from last time we went! Thankfully, everything was fine today - we all had savoury tart and chips, and sat enjoying the lovely bright space, even on a day with only glimpses of sunshine.

For dinner, I'd bought some pork steaks from the butcher which I'd planned to serve with a big dollop of mushroom sauce. I had some nice big Portobello mushrooms from the vegbox and went up to the fancy veg shop in Clifton yesterday to get some wild mushrooms to go with them. To my disappointment, they didn't have any in, so I picked up a quince and a lovely string of shallots instead. I ended up getting some chestnut mushrooms from the supermarket - I cooked all the mushrooms up in butter, added a splash of balsamic and some white wine, then a blob of cream and lots of parsley. The idea was to have enough mushroomy stuff to make it more of a side vegetable than just a sauce and I think it worked quite well on top of the simply fried pork, with some mixed mash (potato, sweet potato and parsnip) on the side. I think it went down well, with the pork as the star - really wonderful and tasty.

7 October - mackerel and bacon salad

The other day I was watching Nigel Slater's Simple Cooking and was quite taken with his mackerel and bacon salad, so I made up my own version for lunch. I mixed together some boiled new potatoes, with a smoked mackerel fillet, some crispy bacon, roasted red onions leftover from last night and a small handful of green beans from the garden. I turned it all over in a simple dressing of white wine vinegar, mustard and olive oil and sprinkled over some chopped chives. It was a really good combination and I think could become a bit of a lunchtime favourite.

I got a butternut squash in today's vegbox, so dinner was pasta with squash, sage and goats cheese. Unfortunately, the pasta took a bit longer than expected to cook, so the squash got a bit dry and overcooked, and I didn't really have enough goats cheese either, so not my most successful supper!

6 October - a jacket potato and a hot lamb salad

It's feeling distinctly autumnal now, so a nice hot jacket potato seemed perfect for lunch. I made an avocado left from the other night into a basic guacamole to dollop on the top and topped it with some bacon - proper bacon, that is, from the butchers, so there were nice crispy rinds to chew on too.

I'd bought a couple of big chunks of lamb neck fillet to make up another batch of curry for my Dad, but I had a bit more than I needed, so I cut off a length to have for dinner. I marinated it in some yoghurt with chopped mint and a squeeze of lemon juice, then grilled it and sliced it on top of a hot salad of spinach leaves, roasted cherry tomatoes and roasted red onion. I made up a yoghurty dressing to drizzle on the top (yoghurt mixed with some tahini). A really nice combination.

For pudding, I tried out a Nigel Slater recipe from the weekend's Guardian, some fresh figs baked with a drizzle of honey, then some ricotta mixed with yoghurt, icing sugar and fresh vanilla (that we brought back from Madagascar) dolloped on the top.

5 October - meatballs and malay chicken korma

I used up the little bit of leftover turkey mince for lunch, making it into some Asian-influenced meatballs. I mixed the mince with some chopped lemongrass, red chilli, garlic and fresh coriander and fried it as little meatballs, which I then dropped into a bowl of broth (veg stock with the rest of the chilli, a couple of lime leaves and more herbs: mint, basil and coriander) with some noodles in the bottom. A yummy, fresh, tasty lunch:

My parents are coming to visit at the weekend, so I'm making up some curries for my Dad. He loves curry, but my Mum hates it, so periodically I make him a batch to put in the freezer. He can then take them out and heat them up when my Mum's not home, both satisfying his curry urge and getting round the fact that he's not much of a cook! This evening I made up a big batch of chicken curry - a recipe I hadn't tried before for Malay chicken korma (from Madhur Jaffrey) - so that we could have half for dinner and I could pop the rest in pots for my Dad.

It was quite a long-winded recipe - which is I why I'm not going to bother typing it up here! - but the result was probably worth it. It's a very mild creamy curry - with both yoghurt and coconut milk - and as it contains potatoes and carrots, we decided to have it as a meal on its own without any rice. I'm not sure how well it's going to freeze and whether it's going to curdle when it's heated up again, but I'll pass a couple of pots onto my Dad and see what he makes of it.

4 October - turkey patties with wasabi guacamole

Dinner tonight was from Yotam Ottolenghi in Saturday's Guardian magazine; turkey cakes with wasabi guacamole. It seemed like a bit of an odd idea - mixing turkey mince with grated courgette, egg and various herbs and spices into a rather gloppy mess in a bowl - but they came out actually very tasty. As I'm not a big fan of hot flavours (like horseradish and mustard), I went easy on the wasabi paste in the guacamole but left Tris to add a bit more to his. The recipe didn't suggest what to serve the little patties with, so I went for a spinach salad and a few homemade chunky chips - it worked well and is probably one worth repeating.

3 October - turkish figs and singapore noodles

There are lots of lovely big Turkish figs in the shops at the moment, so it was a favourite for lunch today of figs and goats cheese with a few boiled potatoes on the side.

For dinner I fancied something tasty with lots of veg, so went for a version of Singapore noodles (roughly from Ching-He Huang's Chinese Food Made Easy) - stir-frying the following:

• a blob of grated ginger
• chopped red chilli (homegrown!)
• spring onions
• chestnut mushrooms
• a tsp turmeric
• a sliced leek
• a sliced red pepper
• a few bits of chopped bacon
• large raw prawns
• a few chilli flakes
• cooked noodles
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar

It's a long list of ingredients, but very easy as you just throw them all in a pan and you end up with a yummy bowl of yellowy noodles in a few minutes.

2 October - simple garlic chicken

Having come home to some unexpected late summer sunshine, we went out for lunch at the Lido. We sat outside, enjoying the sun and the atmosphere with cooling glasses of citron presse and a nice selection of tapas: humus, babaganoush, Greek salad and fried chorizo, plus of course, hunks of their delicious fresh bread. A great way to ease back in!

Usually when we've been away, we're craving some kind of food, often vegetables. This time though, we felt like we'd had a bit of everything while we were away and couldn't think of anything obvious that we'd missed. Being particularly tired after almost two days travelling back, I just opted for something simple - chicken thighs slow-cooked with herbs and garlic, with some new potatoes, creamy leeks and a handful of beans still just about going on the terrace.

Madagascar - 16 Sept - 1 Oct

Well, Madagascar was amazing - stunning landscapes, fantastic wildlife, fascinating people ... and the food wasn't bad either! It's a very poor country and the average Malagasy lives mainly on rice, often flavoured with a broth made of vegetables or perhaps a bit of meat. On our first day we got a taste of ro mazava, the national dish; a broth of zebu meat (although ours was mostly bone and gristle!) and very bitter greens, served with a big pile of rice. It wasn't a very promising start, but thankfully, things improved significantly.

The trip was mostly full-board and the hotels we were staying in were surprisingly good. The food varied enormously, but it was mostly French-influenced (the former colonial power) but using local ingredients. Probably the predominant ingredient through the first half of the trip was zebu - the local horned cattle that you see absolutely everywhere and which are very important in Malagasy culture:

I think perhaps the best example I had, and possibly the best meal of the trip, was at a restaurant in the little town of Ambalavao where we stopped for lunch on the long drive south. I ordered zebu fillet and chips and the steak that arrived, topped with crispy fried ginger, was one of the tastiest, most tender steaks I think I've ever had - simple, but absolutely delicious!


As we reached the south coast, the meat gave way to seafood, staying at a fantastic beach hotel - Anakao Ocean Lodge - where the Italian owner took charge of deciding how the day's catch was to be cooked. We had three courses for both lunch and dinner and the entrees and mains were always fresh seafood, imaginatively cooked and served, and always delicious! We had everything from warm potato and octopus salad, to fish fillet with vanilla sauce, to a melt-in-the-mouth fish carpaccio.

A pirogue - a traditional Malagasy fishing boat

All round, a great culinary adventure and we came back with a big bundle of Madagascan vanilla to play with too.