8 January - beef stew

We had some simple baked potatoes for lunch today with some leeks from the vegbox, cooked up gently with some bacon and then mixed with a bit of creme fraiche - a classic, comfort-food combination.

For supper, I did a slow-cook beef stew. The recipe idea came with the vegbox and was originally for beef and squash stew. Having had squash yesterday though, I substituted it for some parsnip.

• Brown c. 450g diced beef in an ovenproof pan and remove.
• Add a sliced onion and cook until softened, then add a clove of chopped garlic.
• Return the beef to the pan and add 250ml red wine and the same of water (a bit more if the beef isn't covered), plus a sprig of rosemary and bay leaf.
• Cover with a lid and put in the oven at 150C for two hours.
• Add a couple of peeled and chopped parsnips and cook for another 10-15 mins - checking there's enough liquid in the pan - I had to add a bit more at this point as it was drying out.

It came out smelling great, but looking a bit grey and watery. It could have done with some nice juicy greens on the side, but the only thing I had was some more leeks. It did taste really good - the beef was melt-in-the-mouth and the sweet, nutty parsnips were great mashed into the gravy. If I did it again, I think I'd find a way of thickening the sauce a bit, maybe just a bit of cornflour stirred in at the end.

26 December - simple pasta

After a lunch of cold turkey and salad, we headed home this afternoon. Oddly, despite all the mounds of food on offer over the past couple of days, I didn't feel as if I'd actually eaten much and got back quite hungry and craving something simple and tasty. Pasta with a creamy mushroom and bacon sauce did the trick nicely!

14 November - pasta and baked squash

I picked up some out-of-season fresh peas in Waitrose this morning for a lunch of pasta with bacon, peas and cream - a bit against my usual seasonal principles, but sometimes you've just got to go with what you fancy!

Lacking inspiration, I was flicking through my folder of old recipes I've collected over the years and plumped for baked squash and corn with goats cheese by Jane Baxter from Riverford (who I get my vegbox from) I think cut it out from an old Guardian magazine. The baked squash is quite straightforward - just roasted cubes of butternut squash mixed with sweetcorn, garlic, chopped chilli and some goats cheese - but it's the pumpkin seed dressing that makes it worth digging out the recipe. You blend together:

• 40g toasted pumpkin seeds
• 1 clove garlic
• a chopped tomato
• a handful coriander leaves
• a chopped green chilli
• a splash of good olive oil

Served with corn tortillas, with the dressing drizzled over the veg mix, it's a really different, tasty supper with quite a kick.

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.

6 July - homegrown tomatoes and chicken noodle soup

I've been holding out until a proper handful of tomatoes were ready to pick and today I harvested six cherry tomatoes (a mix of red and yellow), which definitely constituted a handful! So they went in a salad for lunch with some beetroot, new potatoes, goats cheese, bacon and pine nuts.

For dinner I used up the last of the cold chicken together with a decent picking of mangetout with some noodles in a soupy broth made from the rest of the stock, flavoured with chilli, lemongrass, ginger, soy sauce and Thai fish sauce. Tris was late home from work again, so it was made in two batches. I'm definitely not going to keep this up for much longer!