24 March - a rubbish salad and spicy Asian beef

Conference over, I stayed on in Glasgow to spend the day with a friend who came down from Perth to meet up. The weather was glorious and we had a lovely day mooching about, chatting and exploring the city a bit. It was just about warm enough to eat lunch outside, so we grabbed a table at Cafe Rouge. It was a great spot, but sadly my butternut squash and red pepper salad turned out to be a huge plate of rocket with just a tiny sprinkling of the main ingredients on top - really disappointing! It was a good job I'd ordered some chips on the side to keep me going.

At the end of the day, we found ourselves over in the West End, so we went into Soba, a noodle bar, which I think had been mentioned earlier in the week. We arrived quite early and it looked fairly quiet, but was apparently already fully booked - a good sign! They did find room for us to eat in the bar next door though, which was a bit noisier, but still a cool spot. I had some really delicious Foshan Five Spiced Beef - strips of beef in a lovely spicy sauce with mushrooms and greens. A great end to a grand day out.

24 November - spicy beef and noodle salad

After a week of rather uninspired and disappointing food, tonight I definitely got my culinary mojo back. I still had a pomegranate in the fruit bowl and somehow fancied it in some kind of spicy salad. With some spicy beef noodles I had at a roadside cafe in Phnom Penh in mind, I got a fabulous piece of beef fillet from Ruby & White - probably a bit bigger than intended and definitely a bit more expensive - but it turned out to be well worth it. I made a noodle salad of rice noodles with carrot, cucumber and spinach and a spicy Thai dressing from Jamie Oliver (of olive oil, sesame oil, lime juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, red chilli and fresh coriander). I fried the beef fillet in one piece and served it sliced on top of the noodle salad with pomegranate seeds sprinkled over the top. The beef was spectacularly good, really tender and tasty and with the cool noodles, sweet pomegranate and spicy dressing, it was exactly the combination I was after ...

... in fact, it was plate-lickingly good!

30 October - thai beef curry

I think dinner tonight was unconsciously inspired by a bottle of Gruner Veltliner that Tris bought from our local wine shop, Corks of Cotham, when he was stocking up the other day. It's quite a sharp, 'green' tasting wine, but it goes fantastically with Thai food. Mulling over the thought of a Thai curry, I somehow didn't fancy the usual chicken or prawn, so decided to try out a less conventional beef version instead. I went into the Ruby & White asking for some really lean beef that I could slice up into thin strips. The butcher came up with a piece of topside which once he'd cut the fat off the outside was perfect for the job.

I made up a version of my usual Thai curry paste (with red chillis instead of green), fried it up with some spring onions and sliced mushrooms, then added some vegetable stock and coconut milk. Once that had come up to the boil, I dropped in some julienned courgette and finally the beef. I let it bubble for a couple of minutes added a splash of fish sauce, some lime juice and some more fresh coriander. Served with Thai sticky rice, it made a really nice combination, one I'd probably try again, possibly adding the beef really right at the end when I had everything else ready to go (I probably spent a good five minutes faffing today after the beef was already cooked) so that it came out even more tender.