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.

24 May - fishcakes and minty peas

With flights now cancelled due to volcanic ash, it was eight hours by train from Perth to Bristol; sustained by a prawn sandwich, more Dairy Milk and smoothies!

Back home, the easy option was posh take-away; fishcakes and minty peas from Fishminster. We went for two fishcakes each, but then realised they were huge. We ate one and half each, putting the other in the fridge, but one would've really been enough.

5 May - sea bream from Fishminster

Today, I was frequenting another local supplier; Fishminster is an upmarket fish and chip shop with a fresh fish counter just round the corner. I like fish, but I tend to avoid cooking it because I'm a bit squeamish about it when it's raw and I don't like handling it. Add to that the fact that supermarket fish is completely tasteless and it'd rather slipped out of my repertoire until recently when this new fish shop opened. It's a nice little fish counter that isn't too daunting and contains lots of nice clean fillets to choose from.

So dinner was a couple of lightly pan-fried sea bream fillets dotted with a bit of truffle butter and served with roasted asparagus and new potatoes. Simple, but good.