8 March - a chowder and orzo with mushrooms

I'd kept back a bit of the smoked haddock I cooked yesterday and the poaching milk to make some chowder for lunch today. I sweated some leeks with a few bacon lardons, then added some diced potato, the milk and some vegetable stock. After simmering that for a while, I added the haddock and a bit of chopped parsley. I think the stock was a bit salty which together with the lardons was a bit much, but otherwise, not bad.

For supper, I used a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe for orzo (rice-shaped pasta) with mushrooms. I used a whole carton of mini portobello mushrooms and it came out with a lovely earthy, mushroomy flavour.

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 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.

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.

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.

24 July - haddock chowder and fillet steak

I'm not always convinced about fishy soups and stews, but there's something romantic-sounding about a chowder. This recipe for haddock and sweetcorn chowder is roughly based on a couple of different ones I found online and came out pretty well:

• Fry half a chopped onion and a few cubes of pancetta.
• Add a couple of new potatoes peeled and finely diced.
• Then add about 200ml vegetable stock and 225ml milk and simmer for about 5 mins.
• Add the corn from one fresh corn on the cob and simmer for another 10 mins.
• Finally add one small smoked haddock fillet cut into chunks and simmer another 10 mins.
• Season with parsley and cives to serve.

Dinner was fillet steak with some baked portobello mushrooms that came in the vegbox with garlicky buttered spinach and some chunky chips.

1 June - mushroom pasta and kedgeree

With one more portobello mushroom left in the fridge, I couldn't resist baking it again; this time coated in a simple mix of garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and a bit of parsley. I then chopped it up, mixed it with some cream and some lardons and stirred it into some pasta for lunch.

A busy day didn't leave much time for shopping and I nipped into Waitrose feeling completely uninspired about what to cook for dinner, so went for an easy fall-back option of kedgeree.

• Boil enough basmati rice for two (I use a 1/3 measuring cup and fill it twice with rice and three times with water) with some salt and a few cardamom pods.
• Fry a sliced onion in some butter until soft, then stir in a good teaspoon of curry powder. The curry powder I happen to have in the cupboard has a nice flavour but is very mild, so I add a pinch of chilli powder too.
• Add a small bag of spinach and let it wilt down.
• Tip in the cooked rice and stir it until coated and yellow - you need a low-ish heat at this point to stop it sticking.
• Flake in some hot-smoked mackerel fillets, stir in, then add a squeeze of lemon juice.
• Serve with boiled eggs and a scattering of parsley.

I used to cook this with Sainsbury's Taste the Difference smoked mackerel which was absolutely delicious, but sadly, they don't seem to do it anymore. It's never been quite the same with any other brands, but still makes an easy, tasty supper.

29 May - fried haloumi & steak and mushrooms

There were various bits and pieces in the fridge, but it took me a while to decide how to combine them for lunch. In the end, I went for fried haloumi cheese based on a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe cut out from an old Guardian magazine - I used his haloumi coating and salad dressing which do complement each other perfectly. The haloumi is simply sliced and then coated in a mix of flour and paprika and fried very briefly - less than a couple of minutes each side - so simple, but the slight crispy coating really works. The salad dressing mixes a tsp of honey, the juice of half a lemon, a crushed garlic clove and some olive oil, whisked together. Our salad was some lamb's lettuce and pea shoots, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and sweetcorn. The salty haloumi and sharp lemony dressing taste fabulous together!

Dinner matched some portobello mushrooms from the vegbox with fillet steak - another great combination! The mushrooms were baked according to the Jamie Oliver recipe I did the other day, but without the goat's cheese this time. So the mushrooms are coated in a mix of thyme, garlic, chilli, lemon juice and olive oil, with a few more slices of garlic stuck into the top, dotted with butter and baked for 15 mins. Served with simply fried fillet steak, some spinach and potatoes.

1 May - Portobello mushrooms & simple pasta

Lunch today was a variation on a Jamie Oliver recipe for Portobello mushrooms. I mushed up a clove of garlic, some thyme leaves and a bit of chopped red chilli together with some olive oil and lemon juice. Then brushed this all over a couple of big Portobello mushrooms, dotted a tiny bit of butter on the top and put them in a hot oven (2ooC) for about 10 minutes. I then added a couple of thick slices of goat's cheese on top and popped them back in for another 5 minutes to melt the cheese. The result, as always, was absolutely delicious with a handful of new potatoes to soak up the juices - a real favourite!

Dinner was a simple bowl of pasta - linguine with shallots, pancetta, asparagus, a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkling of parmesan - I think my first 'repeat' dish so far.