18 March - a Mexican brunch and chicken stew

I had a bit of a Mexican-Irish brunch today! It consisted of some fresh spicy tomato sauce, tinned refried beans, a poached egg, some yoghurt, but all on top of an Irish soda farl! Not bad, but the soda farl didn't really go ...

Tris was out for the day, so I made myself a quick and easy supper using leftover roast chicken. I cooked up an onion, some chestnut mushrooms, then added the chicken in some chicken stock (made from the chicken bones, of course) and a bit of cream. It could have been a pasta sauce or a pie filling, but I served it with some garlicky mash and called it a stew!

6 March - slow-cook chilli

I recently got round to getting Thomasina Miers' book Mexican Food Made Simple. I'd already made a few recipes from it, including this one, using a combination of her website and recipes copied onto scraps of paper in Smiths! So it was nice to be able to try this one out properly using almost all the right ingredients, including chiles de arbol from Otomi our local Mexican shop in Clifton. It's a chile con carne made with big chunks of stewing steak instead of mince, which you slow cook along with a load of spices, tomatoes, chorizo and borlotti beans, then pull into shreds with a fork. It takes a bit of time to get the ingredients together, but then you just pop the whole thing in the oven for 3 hours and leave it to do its thing. I was a bit wary about how spicy it would come out and went easy on the chilli, but the result was spot on - hot enough to have a kick, but just within my tolerance levels with a bit of creme fraiche (a substitute for sour cream as I already had some in the fridge).

I'd intended to make some guacamole to go with it, but cut into the avocado to find it'd gone brown. I managed to salvage a few chunks and mixed it up with some tomatoes, fresh coriander, lime juice, olive oil, sugar and salt to make a kind of salsa instead. Together with some simple boiled rice, the whole thing made a great meal.

25 January - warm squash and chorizo salad

I really must get round to buying Thomasina Miers' Mexican Food Made Simple ... I found myself in Smiths again today trying to memorise a recipe! In the end, I actually picked a recipe from the Channel 5 website instead for hot chorizo and squash salad. I pretty much followed the recipe, with spiced roast squash, red onion and cherry tomatoes, mixed with cooked pinto beans, chorizo and spinach leaves, then coriander dressing and a few slivers of parmesan on the top. I did a few cubes of sauted potato too, but to be honest, the salad would have been substantial enough without them. A really tasty, filling, but healthy-feeling supper - yum!

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.

12 July - chickpea salad and a fruity chilli

Lunch today was a chickpea salad with goats cheese. I mixed half a tin of chickpeas with a grilled pepper cut into thin strips and a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic and chopped parsley ... oh yes, and a few more tomatoes from the garden.

For dinner I was going to try out a recipe I saw on a TV cookery programme the other day. It was a version of chilli con carne on Channel 5's Mexican Food Made Simple. I checked the Channel 5 website - I found the episode which included the recipe, but not a list of exact ingredients or quantities. So when I went out to the supermarket, I dropped into Smiths and found the book to go with the series by Thomasina Miers. I had a flick through, but rather oddly, it contains a completely different chilli con carne recipe. Anyway, I gave it a go roughly based on the programme with a few changes:

• Roast a couple of whole tomatoes, a whole green chilli and a chopped onion, then whizz them together in a blender to make the base of the sauce.
• Brown about 100g each of beef and pork mince in a pan, then add the sauce.
• Stir in a teaspoon of cumin and a pinch of cinnamon, plus some fresh chopped oregano.
• Add about 250ml chicken stock, then throw in a chopped banana (yes, a banana!) and the corn from a fresh corn cob.
• Simmer for 20 mins, then add a teaspoon of smoked paprika and a little chilli powder (it could have done with a bit more).
• Simmer a bit longer, season and serve with rice.

The result was quite good, with some nice flavours, but not enough kick for a chilli.