17 March - roast chicken and the last cavalo nero

I dug up the last of the cavalo nero on the terrace today to free up the container for some new spring planting. It had rather gone to seed, but I managed to get enough decent leaves to put it together with some spring greens to make a 'mixed greens' side to go with some roast chicken. I did the chicken in a bigger roasting dish than usual to make space for some roast carrots, which turned out to be a bit too big for making up the gravy so that it came out tasting rather 'watered down' - will go back to the old dish next time.

16 March - a new scrubber and wild food

Today's new addition to the kitchen was a new vegetable scrubber. I'd been using a very cool wooden and bristle brush that I got while in Berlin a few years ago, but it was really on its last legs. I've gone for something completely different this time, with a much more modern plastic version. It doesn't look quite so classy next to the sink, but when I tried it out on a lunchtime carrot, it came up clean and shiny in no time, which I guess is the real test! It was a variation on a student staple for lunch, tuna and pasta, bit with some grated carrot, sweetcorn and a honey and mustard dressing.

We were booked for dinner at the Pump House - a bit of a late birthday dinner for Tris. We'd eaten in the bar before, but it was our first time in the restaurant and it didn't disappoint. They focus on local, wild and foraged food with a modern twist and clearly know what they're doing. I started off with baked duck egg with wild garlic, wood blewits and brioche - the wild mushrooms were fabulously woody and made a simple egg something special. Then we both went for venison - actually roast saddle of Mendip fallow deer - served on a stained glass window style plate of different sauces - a green wild garlic sauce and an orangey meribelle plum one, then there was spicy red cabbage on the side. The venison was rare, tender and tasty and the whole dish worked really well ... yum!

14 March - an omelette and Moroccan vegetables

Inspired by some leftover cold potatoes in the fridge, lunch today was an omelette. I fried the potatoes, adding some pancetta, onion and red pepper, then the eggs. It was a bit of a tricky flip, but finally came out in one piece.

For dinner, I did another variation on the five-vegetable couscous I've done before. This evening, I only managed four vegetables; red onion, pepper, carrot and leeks, plus all the usual spices, cooked up in a broth and served with lots of fresh coriander and couscous. It came out, as usual, looking like a rather unexciting pile of boiled veg, but looks can sometimes be deceptive and it was as delicious as ever with all those lovely spices and just the right chilli kick.

29 February - veggie curry

Another veggie dish tonight, this time a Southern Indian vegetable curry from Anjum Anand's Indian Food Made Easy . It had lots of yummy veg - potatoes, carrots, courgette, green beans and cabbage - and plenty of spices, but somehow came out a bit disappointingly bland. At least it felt healthy though ...

6 February - vegetable couscous

I got round to using up the last of the pork bolognese sauce today in a jacket potato for lunch. Tris was out for the evening so I settled for a simple veggie supper based on the seven/five vegetable couscous I've cooked before. Tonight the veg was red onion, courgette, carrot, red pepper, white cabbage and a few chickpeas left over from yesterday, plus all the spices (garlic, ginger, toasted and ground cumin and coriander, saffron, paprika and dried chilli) and some stock. Once I'd chopped up the veg, I realised there was too much for one, so made enough for Tris to take for his lunch tomorrow as well. With couscous and a sprinkling of fresh coriander it made a tasty and healthy-feeling supper-for-one.

24 January - fish pie

Today, I got round to making the fish pie postponed from the weekend. It was a bit basic - just some haddock in a white sauce with a couple of boiled eggs, topped with mash. Sadly, I think the rather tasteless supermarket fish needed a bit of something to add flavour - possibly the prawns that got used the other night. It was okay with some leeks and carrots, but not the most exciting of suppers.

4 January - mushroom soup and kippercakes

More shiitake mushrooms had sprouted and were growing almost by the minute, so lunch was a simple mushroom noodle soup. Annoyingly, I burnt my tongue with my first slurp, so I'm not really sure if it tasted good or not!

Completely out of ideas for supper, I turned to the Kitchen Diaries, starting off with today's date and browsing back and forth. I came across what were described as "kipper patties", but somehow became known as "kippercakes" in the cooking! Really they were just pretty straightforward fishcakes made with kippers, potato and a bit of dill. The recipe suggested serving them with dill mayonnaise, but I had some creme fraiche in the fridge, so used that instead with some dill and a crushed clove of garlic. They were a bit soggy and went a bit squishy in the frying, but the smoky kippercakes with the fresh, cooling creme fraiche were a great combination, along with a pile of steamed leeks, beans and carrots.

29 December - salmon with coriander pesto

It was another HFW recipe for lunch - chachouka is a mix of slow-cooked onions and peppers with tomatoes and spices, then an egg cracked in the top. I added a few chickpeas that were in the fridge and they went pretty well for a hearty lunch.

When I bought fresh coriander for yesterday's curry, the smaller packets were looking a bit yellowy, so I ended up getting a big bag. To use it up while it was still green and perky, I made up a batch of coriander pesto made with garlic and pistachios. I teamed it up with some plain salmon fillets and a pile of fresh veg; carrots, green beans and tenderstem broccoli. The pesto was really tasty and looked great against the pale pink of the salmon.

2 December - couscous salad and an orange supper

Cold's still in full force and tastebuds difficult to tempt. I tried to break through with a bit of chorizo in a warm couscous salad for lunch; giant couscous with chorizo, cherry tomatoes, beans and sweetcorn.

This morning's vegbox had a bit of a festive feel as I'd ordered a few bottles of bubbly along with the regular veg. They're all organic (a champagne, a prosecco and some rose sparkling) and have gone into the wine cellar ... okay the garage! ... ready for a bit of seasonal sparkle once my tastebuds are back. Will report back on what they're like ...

Tris was out this evening, so I bought myself a pork steak for supper. I simply fried it and made a bit of sauce to pour over (Marsala, parsley and butter) and had it with some braised cabbage with carraway seeds and mixed carrot and parsnip mash. It made a rather yellowy-orange plate of food, but lots of good, comforting flavours.

23 November - cheesy leeks and chicken with sumac

To use up a couple of leeks I blanched them, mixed them with some cheese sauce and a few bits of bacon and popped them in the oven for a bit. Tasty and warming.

For dinner I tried out a recipe from last weekend's Observer magazine for roast chicken with sumac. I bought some sumac powder for a recipe a while ago and have hardly used it since, so I thought I'd give this simple chicken dish a go. It wasn't wildly exciting, but with some cabbage and carrots, it made an interesting twist on a midweek chicken supper.

17 November - fishcakes and lamb with pesto

I used the bits of leftover cod from last night to make a couple of simple fishcakes for my lunch today with the rest of the (out-of-season!) peas on the side. While I was out on the terrace snipping some chives to go in the fishcakes, I was looking at the few carrots I tried to grow back in the summer that never really came to anything. I pulled up what was left and came back in with a handful of the most miniature carrots you've ever seen to add to my peas!

I was totally uninspired about dinner and as I wandered down the veg aisle in Sainsbury's, the only thing that caught my eye was some baby leeks - must be a thing for small veg today! Anyway, they seemed like something to go in a meat and two veg kind of supper, so I went for a favourite standby of lamb steaks with fresh, homemade pesto (I knew there was still some basil in the fridge). I was still a bit unconvinced when it came to supper time, but there is something quite therapeutic about making pesto and as soon as I'd dipped my finger in it, my tastebuds perked up. In the end, lamb and pesto with baby leeks and a blob of mashed parsnip turned out to be spot-on and exactly what I wanted after all!

27 August - roast chicken

A busy day of marking was rounded off with a good old-fashioned roast chicken, cooked with butter, garlic, a bit of sage and some lemon, the juices boiled up with a glass of wine to make a lovely sharp gravy. We had it with a bit of cabbgae, some little carrots, a handful of beans and some simple boiled potatoes to soak up the gravy. As good as ever.

13 August - balsamic pork belly with caramelised figs

I usually have a list when I go out food shopping, but today I just couldn't think what I wanted to eat, so I went out 'listless' hoping to be inspired. I came back with a bit of pork belly, from Ruby & White which is becoming a regular haunt, but not sure what I was going to do with it. I had a couple of figs in the fruit bowl that needed eating and wondered about combining them. I did a bit of online searching and came up with a recipe for balsamic pork belly with caramelised figs on another blog; Gourmet Recipes. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but did something similar and it came out really rather well.

• Mix together a 1/4 cup of brown sugar, the same amount of water and half the amount of balsamic vinegar with a crushed clove of garlic and pour this over the pork belly in an oven dish. Cover with tinfoil and roast for 30 mins at 160C.
• Take off the foil and turn the heat up to 200C for another 45 mins or so.
• Cut the figs in half and dip the cut side into brown sugar, then caramelise in a hot frying pan for about a minute.

I chopped up the pork belly, drizzled over a bit of the juice from the dish and served it with the figs and some leeks and carrots. Pretty good.

3 August - lamb with salsa verde

Another wonderfully sunny summer day meant dinner on the terrace; lamb and salsa verde (using a bit more of the still prolific parsley), with homegrown beans, carrots and new potatoes.

We also got a delivery of Camel Valley wine today, so it seemed only fitting to have a chilled glass of Atlantic Dry in the evening sun.

23 July - a packed lunch and pork with mustard sauce

Today we went out to the Forest of Dean for a bit of fresh air and countryside. We were quite late getting up, so rather than go looking for a pub lunch, we took a good old-fashioned packed lunch with us; tuna and sweetcorn mayo sandwiches in nice soft sliced bread with a packet of crisps - to be squashed into the sandwiches - and a flask of tea ... great! A lovely day and some fantastic forest walking too - although a less-than-flattering photo!

As we were back relatively late, dinner was straightforward meat and two veg, well, three actually; pork steaks with a creamy mustard sauce (a la Nigel Slater) with a big pile of green beans, carrots and broad beans.

19 July - gardening and garlicky chicken

After lots of rain, there was a rare patch of sunshine this afternoon, so I spent a bit of time out on the terrace pulling up the mangetout, which had finished doing their thing, and planted some carrots, spring onions and kale in their place. I'm quite getting into this whole veg growing thing now!

After last night's stodgy rice, I decide to go back to a low carb dinner; garlicky chicken with a big pile of leeks and carrots. I pan-cook chicken thighs with some whole cloves of garlic - browning them first, then covering them and turning down the heat to let them cook through slowly for about half an hour. I remove the chicken from the pan and tip out the fat, then add a big handful of parsley, a slosh of white wine and a squeeze of lemon juice to make a sharp, herby sauce to go over the chicken, with the soft, caramelised garlic cloves on the side.

3 July - roast chicken with lemon, sage and garlic

I didn't consciously plan to cook a Sunday roast, but roast chicken is a a regular favourite and it makes sense to cook it when you've got a bit of time to potter around. It was a fabulously sunny afternoon, spent mostly out on the terrace doing some gardening and DIY, so it was nice to have a meal that I could pop in the oven then just wander in occasionally to check. I usually do variations on the same theme with roast chicken; sometimes I use butter, sometimes olive oil and the herbs vary too thyme and sage both work well though.

• I mix some chopped sage with some slightly softened butter and a bit of finely grated lemon zest. I smear it all over the chicken and pop it in a roasting tray. I slice a lemon in half, put half inside the chicken, then squeeze the other half over the top and throw the shell in the tin.
• I roast it for an hour and a bit (depending on the size), in a hot oven (c.200C) basting occasionally and adding a few whole, unpeeled cloves of garlic about half an hour before the end. If you put them in from the start, they just go brown and shrivelled.
• When it's cooked, I take the chicken out and leave to stand covered in foil, while I make the sauce. I put the pan on the hob and add a glass of white wine, stirring up the sticky bits from the bottom, and squeezing the lemon shell and garlic.

The moist white chicken with the sharp, rich sauce is great as usual. Today we have it with more home-grown mangetout and some carrots, plus some new potatoes to mash into the juices - yum!