26 March - lamb's lettuce and chilli

I've had some lamb's lettuce growing under fleece all winter, but with the recent burst of warmth and sun, it's really started flourishing, so I thought I'd better start picking some.

I mixed it into a hot salad of new potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, chorizo and a poached egg.

While I was away over the weekend, Tris had made up a big pot of chilli which meant that I didn't have to worry about shopping and cooking for this evening, which was really nice as I was completely wiped out after my week away and had a load of other stuff to sort out.

30 November - an omelette and tapas at the lido

I peeled and chopped too much potato for last night's curry, so I cooked the excess and used it for a lunchtime omelette along with some chorizo and cherry tomatoes.

A bit of a tickle in my throat yesterday has turned into a full-blown cold, but I still went out to meet a friend at the Lido for the evening. It perked me up no end to get out and have a bit of a chat and a giggle, but my tastebuds have gone on strike and I don't have much appetite, so picking on a bit of tapas was about as much as I could manage.

10 October - thai-spiced parsnip soup and cod with chorizo

With the first parsnips in this week's vegbox, it seemed like time for some Thai-spiced parsnip soup; a fabulous recipe from Sophie Grigson's Vegetables. It's a bowl of sweet, tangy, spicy creaminess - although today without quite as much kick as intended as I used one of the chillis from the garden which don't seem to have much heat to them. Still a great lunch nonetheless.

• Sweat together in a pan a couple of chopped parsnips, a chopped onion, some ginger, a couple of cloves of chopped garlic, a chopped red chilli and a bashed stick of lemongrass with a glug of oil for about 10 minutes.
• Add around 250-300ml vegetable stock and a tablespoon of Thai fish sauce and simmer for 10-15 mins.
• Take out the lemongrass, add 200-300ml coconut milk and liquidise.
• Gently reheat, add a good squeeze of lime juice and serve with a pile of freshly chopped mint and coriander.

For dinner, there were more root vegetables to eat up, so I started off with the idea of some mixed mash (potato and carrot). I didn't really fancy anything meaty, so I got a couple of chunky bits of cod and cooked them with some chopped chorizo and a few cherry tomatoes that were hanging around. It was quite a nice combination, but the tomatoes were a bit watery, so perhaps a proper rich tomato sauce might have been better. Nice chorizo-y juices though to mop up with the mash.

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!

13 June - homegrown spinach

Back home, after a good long sleep in my own bed, today's been all about the veg! I had a good pile of asparagus for lunch with a bit of parma ham and some new potatoes. While I've been away, apparently there's been a mix of sun and rain which has made some of the veg on the terrace go mental, especially the spinach:

So this evening, we had a chicken and chorizo salad with freshly picked spinach leaves as a base, plus some cherry tomatoes, blanched green beans and beetroot. I cooked a chicken breast in the oven (just one between two), then gently caramelised a red onion in a frying pan, added some sliced cooking chorizo and a bit of sliced garlic. Once the chorizo was browned, I tipped in a splash of balsamic vinegar to make a lovely hot dressing to pour over the salad and sliced chicken. The whole thing was served with some saute new potatoes on the side. I could almost feel all that green goodness flowing back through my veins!

12 May - roast veg salad and garlicky chicken

When I was making the pasta last night, I bunged some bits of pepper and courgette that I wasn't using in the sauce in the oven to roast and I had them as a roast veg salad for lunch today, combined with some cherry tomatoes and served with some new potatoes and a few slices of mozzarella.

For dinner, it was another Nigel Slater favourite; chicken thighs browned in a frying pan with a little butter and some oil, then turned down, covered and cooked very slowly over a low heat for about 30-40 mins with some whole cloves of garlic and some thyme leaves. Then I took out the chicken, poured off most of the fat, put the pan back on a high heat and poured in a good slurp of white wine. I let it bubble, scraping up any bits from the pan and squashing the soft garlic cloves. Usually, I add a bit of butter at the end to make a really rich sauce, but today, still on a health drive, I just added a squeeze of lemon juice and poured it over the chicken - less rich, but lovely and sharp and garlicky. No potatoes tonight either, just a plateful of veg; spring greens (from the vegbox), asparagus and a few green beans.

20 April - harissa chicken

I was back in my own kitchen with a cupboardful of ingredients this evening, but a bit knackered after a long day on trains back from Brighton. So this evening was simple harissa chicken - chicken thigh fillets marinated in harissa paste, lemon juice and olive oil, then roast (c.25 mins at 200C) with some strips of red pepper and some cherry tomatoes for the last 10 minutes. Served with a few green beans and some couscous.

19 April - using up; salad & a pie

My last day in Brighton meant trying to use up the contents of the fridge. Lunch was a salad of spinach, cherry tomatoes, the rest of the goats cheese, the last few chunks of pancetta and a few new potatoes. Then this evening, I had more spinach and some green beans to use up, but nothing to go with them. So I gave in to something pre-prepared - a pork and cider pie from a Jamie Oliver shop - yes, he gets everywhere! Actually pretty good, washed down with some really nice pear cider.

Now I've just got to decide what to do with the last few bits of food in the kitchen. I hate throwing things away, but some things just aren't going to travel. I won't feel too bad about binning the rest of the rather unexciting French dressing and I don't think butter's going to fare too well on a warm day.

12 April - a lunchtime salad & cod for tea

The recent warm sunny weather is definitely on the wane, but it was still feeling summery enough to merit a salad for lunch - a big plate of nicoise-style salad (new pots, green beans, cherry tomatoes and a boiled egg), plus the rest of yesterday's parma ham on the side. The sun came out just at the right moment to snatch a quick sunny photo on the terrace, but then a cloud came over and it was back inside to eat.

Dinner was cod wrapped in pancetta and baked in the oven (about 15 mins) with the rest of the asparagus in a risotto. I'm not quite convinced about risotto as a side dish, but not bad.

9 April - lamb & pesto

After a day out in the sunshine, I wanted a simple but tasty birthday dinner, so fell back on an old favourite. I had lamb with Mediterranean vegetables/ratatouille and fresh pesto at a Bristol restaurant, River Station, several years ago and I've been recreating it in various forms ever since. Today it involved some lamb leg steaks, griddled until stripy and caramelised on the outside, but still pink in the middle, served with roasted red peppers cut into strips and cherry tomatoes roasted with a little garlic, then all topped with a splodge of fresh pesto. The pesto wasn't freshly made by me, but from the Waitrose chilled cabinet rather than the nasty stuff you get in jars.

On the side, we had some green beans and rosemary roast potatoes; new potatoes boiled for 10 minutes, then squished slightly so that the skins split and then roast for probably 20 minutes with some olive oil, sea salt and a scattering of chopped fresh rosemary. All washed down with several glasses of Veuve Cliquot - you can't beat birthday bubbles!

I'm not sure the photo really does it justice - I'm definitely going to have to work on my food photography!