21 January - fillet steak and thai dressing

We were in town at lunchtime today so stopped off in Carluccio's for a bite to eat. I didn't want anything too big, so I choose a starter - aubergine rolls - plus some potatoes on the side. The rolls were thin slices of aubergine stuffed with a mix of breadcrumbs, tomatoes, pine nuts and cheese, served warm with a tomato sauce - really nice and just the right amount.

We picked up a really expensive piece of beef fillet from Ruby & White this morning. I couldn't quite justify cooking the whole piece for dinner, so I chopped off about two-thirds and we had it with spicy, herby Thai dressing (from Jamie Oliver), on a bed of spinach, beans, carrot and red pepper and some roasted cubes of sweet potato. The steak was a bit rarer than even I normally like it and the dressing a little bit spicier, but it was still a really tasty combination and the steak was lush.

28 December - potato salad and aubergine curry

I tried out another recipe from my new cookbook for lunch - well, more of an idea than a recipe really, just a bit of a twist on a potato salad. You roughly chop a boiled egg into a simple dressing of oil, vinegar and mustard and slightly mash it in so that the yolk mixes a bit with the dressing. Then you add cold, boiled potatoes and cherry tomatoes. The slightly thickened yellowy dressing coated the potatoes and made it a nice simple lunch with a bit of mozzarella on the side.

We had another one-pot veg dish for supper, this time an aubergine Thai curry from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, with aubergine, mushrooms and tomatoes in a spicy coconut sauce. It's a recipe I've done before with several variations and always comes out tasty - you can't beat aubergine for soaking up lots of lovely spices!

6 December - leftovers and no moussaka

Considering this cold seems to have killed my appetite, I'm not doing a bad job of "feeding" it! I decided to use up a few leftovers for lunch and somehow ended up with a huge plateful. There were a couple of sausages and some cold cooked cabbage that I made into bubble and squeak. It looked like it might be a bit dry, so a chucked in what I thought was just a small spoonful of leftover mushroom stew as a kind of "gravy". It was way more than I'd usually have for lunch, but very tasty and I managed to munch my way through the whole lot over my lunchtime crossword!

This afternoon I managed to talk the nice man at Ruby & White into doing me some lamb mince to make the moussaka which didn't get made at the weekend. I cooked up the meat sauce and left it to bubble, but then when I cut open the aubergines, both were brown and soggy inside.

They'd arrived in the vegbox on Friday and been in the fridge since, so not great. With organic veg, you expect the odd slug and blemish, but it's no good when it's completely inedible, especially when you're already halfway through a recipe! I added a bit more tomato to make the meat sauce a bit more "saucy" and we had it with some pasta instead.

19 August - lamb and aubergine stew

I've been meaning to have a go at this slow-cooked lamb and aubergine stew from For Every Season for a while. Stew is generally a wintry dish, but the recipe promised this one was more summery and in the sense that it's got quite a North African feel to it, I think it is. The original recipe includes black olives, but as I'm not a big fan, I just left them out.

• Fry c. 300g cubed lamb in oil and remove to a dish.
• Do the same with a cubed aubergine.
• Next fry (in the same pan) a sliced onion until soft, then add 2 crushed cloves of garlic and a bit less than half a tin of chopped tomatoes.
• Stir in 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp ground cumin, then add a glass of water.
• Return the lamb to the pan, cover and simmer gently.
• After about 1/2 an hour, add the aubergine and continue to simmer for another hour or so. So a good hour and a half in total, so that the lamb goes wonderfully tender.
• Sprinkle with chopped coriander and serve with couscous.

It smelled great while it was bubbling away and once on the plate, lived up to expectations. Definitely one to do again.

9 August - vegetable splodge!

It's a busy day and I'm a bit uninspired about dinner. I've got some nice cooking chorizo in the fridge that I bought the other day and a rather oversized courgette left in the vegbox, which somehow leads to a big pan of what I can only describe as 'vegetable splodge'! It's sort of 'ratatouille plus'; made up of onion, garlic, pepper, courgette, aubergine and tomatoes, plus some chorizo and a tin of cannellini beans. It's not very attractive, but it makes a tasty bowl of vegetably stew.

22 July - Cafe Maitreya

This evening we were booked in for dinner at Cafe Maitreya. It's a vegetarian restaurant that we've been meaning to try for as long as I can remember, but because it's a taxi ride away on the other side of Bristol and we've got so many good places nearby, we never seem to get round to it. It's won lots of awards and came well recommended by friends, so I was quite excited about going.

I love my veg, but I was actually quite surprised when I checked back through this blog so far at how many actual vegetarian meals I cook. Looking just at main evening meals, over the past three and a half months, only 5% of my meals have been properly vegetarian. Another 14% have been predominantly veg, with just a bit of pancetta or chorizo added. 21% have been fishy, leaving a shocking 60% of meat-based meals!

Anyway, my verdict of Cafe Maitreya was a bit mixed really. My starter of courgette flowers stuffed with goats cheese was really nice and the wine, a South African chenin blanc, really stood out. But my main course had that rather 'mushy' texture about it that makes me think of nut roasts and baby food and often puts me off "vegetarian" dishes. It was described as "aubergine escalope", which was slices of aubergine fried in a couscous coating - not bad. But it was served with a rather large dollop of mushy, slightly sweet pepper and almond pate and rather too much sweet cherry sauce (even though it was described as 'sour' on the menu). By the end of which I just felt a bit sicky. Which was a shame as it was a really cool spot, with a nice atmosphere and really friendly staff. If it was nearer, I'd probably give it a second chance, but as it is, I don't think we're likely to spend 20 quid on taxi fares to get over there again.