15 July - roast lamb and pesto

After last night's lamb taster, I fancied a bit more tonight. There wasn't much in the way of decent chunky steaks at the supermarket, so I went for a small joint instead to roast. I'd intended to make the meat last over a couple of meals, but after I'd carved up enough for a decent serving each, there wasn't really enough worth keeping, so we ate it all! I'd brought home a small pot of pesto from last night's workshop (although, I think probably not the one I made as they got mixed up), so this made a nice fresh sauce to pour over the lamb. Together with some roasted new potatoes with rosemary, a bit of tenderstem broccoli and some green beans, plus a glass or two of chilled rose, it made a rather decadent Friday night dinner.

13 July - spicy pork noodles

With pork mince left over from yesterday, I looked up a recipe I'd used before in an old Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine for spicy pork noodles. Whilst pulling the various ingredients out of the cupboards before I got started, I noticed that the sweet chilli sauce was looking a bit worse for wear and when I checked the best before date, it said March 2009 - oops! It normally goes in the sauce with the oyster and soy sauces, but I substituted some fresh red chilli at the beginning and a spoonful of sugar to the sauce.

• Stir-fry a few chopped spring onions, some chopped red chilli and some grated fresh ginger.
• Add about 250g pork mince and fry until browned.
• Mix together a good tablespoon oyster sauce, the same of soy sauce and a pinch of sugar, then mix in with the mince. Stir and simmer for a couple of minutes.
• Mix a good teaspoon of cornflower with a couple of teaspoons of Chinese cooking wine to a smooth paste. Add it to the mince and stir to thicken.

I served the spicy mince with a small pile of noodles and some tenderstem broccoli - lots of nice flavours in the mince with the simple noodles and clean-tasting broccoli worked well together.