2 April - goats cheese with figs and porotos granados

Rather inspired by the figs in my salad the other day, I had one of my favourite combinations for lunch today; goats cheese on toast with some fresh figs ... I just never get bored of it!

As I knew I was going to be out early evening today, I actually made up a pot of 'stew' for supper yesterday afternoon that could just be reheated when I got in. I tried another recipe from HFW's River Cottage veg every day - a kind of soupy vegetable stew called porotos granados. It's made up of pinto beans, squash, french beans and sweetcorn, along with stock and flavourings, and as the name suggests, it's South American (Chilean actually) in origin. Well, I'm not sure if perhaps I just didn't put in enough paprika, but I found the result a bit bland. The veg were tasty enough, but it did just taste like a bowl of boiled veg without much else to tie them together - definitely something missing in this one.

31 March - a day out in Bath

We had a day out in Bath today. It being a busy Saturday, I didn't expect to get into the petite Cafe Shoon, so was pleasantly surprised when we got a table. I had a delicious serano ham, fig and mozzarella salad - three of my favourite ingredients on one dish!

After a hard afternoon's shopping, I wasn't feeling like doing much cooking, so we picked up some lamb with mint and balsamic crust from Waitrose - you can't go wrong with some garlicky spring greens and rosemary roast new potatoes.

23 December - tuna ceviche and venison with figs

With a weekend at the in-laws looming, I wanted to have a pre-Christmas meal that contained lots of nice flavours but without lots of rich stodge. I went for another couple of Nigel Slater recipes from Simple Cooking, both adapted a bit. I turned his sweet and sharp sea bass into a tuna ceviche - thin slices of fresh tuna marinated in citrus juices (passion fruit, lime and orange) with some red chilli and a scattering of coriander. I made it first thing and left it in the fridge to "cook". The whole lot nearly went in the bin after Tris texted early evening to say he was going to be late ... I was not amused! I gave him until 7.30 and he walked in the door just in the nick of time for a few sharp words, but the food still on the plate! The tuna was really good and the sharp and sweet juices worked really well. The slices could have perhaps been a bit thinner to make it a bit more delicate, but I'm not sure any of my knives would've been up to it!

To follow, I pan-fried some venison fillets with red onions, then threw in some halved fresh figs to caramelise right at the end and some port and balsamic vinegar to make a sauce. The Nigel Slater recipe called for 3 times as much vinegar as port, which I think could be a misprint. It came out very sharp and I ended up adding more port to balance it out. The final result was good though, the venison perfectly pink, the caramelised onions and figs piled on top and served with a big pile of spinach.

29 November - bakery closed!

Disaster this morning - I pottered down the lane to Hart's Bakery to get some bread for my lunch, only to be faced with a notice saying it was closed for relocation. It turns out that Laura's had to leave her current premises and hasn't got a new place to go to yet. Such a shame as it's such a great little business - fantastic products and clearly really popular - keeping fingers crossed she finds somewhere new soon (preferably nearby!) and normal yummy bread/custard tart service is resumed before too long!

With the bread plan scuppered, I ended up with a couple of small jacket potatoes (for speed) for lunch to go with my fresh figs and goats cheese.

After all the rich, meaty Roman fare over the weekend, I went for a tasty but fresh veggie curry this evening:

• Whizz together in a blender some chopped fresh chilli (usually green, but red today), half an onion, a couple of cloves of garlic and about the same amount of fresh ginger.
• Heat some oil in a large pan, add a tsp cumin seeds and half tsp turmeric, stir around then add the puree and fry for a minute or so.
• Add a chopped tomato, a squeeze of lemon juice, 3 cardamom pods, 3 cloves and about 150ml veg stock.
• To this add a small cauliflower broken into florets and a medium potato peeled and cubed - simmer for 20-25 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through.
• Either stir in a good splodge of natural yoghurt or drizzle it over the top, together with a good handful of fresh coriander.

31 October - cheese on toast and beef chilli

With fresh Turkish figs still in season, I bought a lovely crusty sourdough loaf from Hart's this morning to make some goats cheese on toast with figs on the side for lunch.

There was a chunk of beef from yesterday in the fridge which I somehow fancied slow cooking. I stopped in Smith's on my way to the supermarket to flick through Thomasina Miers' Mexican Food Made Simple. I really ought to buy a copy, but for today, I settled for just memorising a recipe for beef chilli. It's a pretty long list of ingredients, but I think I managed to get home with them all still in my head it more or less the right proportions and order!

• Blend an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic.
• Brown a chunk of beef on all sides in a pan- I used about 150g topside - and remove.
• Fry some chopped cooking chorizo in the same pan, then add the onion and garlic mix.
• Add a tsp cumin and a tsp allspice, a few cloves, a cinnamon stick and a bay leaf.
• Stir in a couple of chopped red chillis, a few bits of jalapeno (from a jar), a splash of balsamic vinegar, a squirt of tomato ketchup, some dried oregano and half a tin of tomatoes. Stir it all around to cook for a while, then return the beef and top up with about 150ml water.
• I transferred the whole lot to a casserole, covered it with foil and popped it in a low oven (150C) for a couple of hours.
• Towards the end, stir in half a tin of borlotti beans.
• When you take it out, break up the beef with a fork into shreds.

The result wasn't particularly photogenic, but it tasted absolutely fantastic! All the flavours came together wonderfully to create a real 'surround-sound' kind of taste that lingered long after the last mouthful! Rather than rice or tortillas, I served it with some cubes of roast sweet potato and a blob of guacamole.

11 October - a jacket potato and late tapas

With some fresh figs in the fruit bowl that need eating up and some ricotta in the fridge, I decide to pair them for lunch; after all figs generally go well with white cheese (goats cheese, mozzarella ...). I go for a jacket potato with the ricotta dolloped on the top and the figs on the side. The ricotta's a bit too runny and tasteless though to be up to the job and even with a good grinding of sea salt, it doesn't really work with the figs. Oh well, you live and learn ...

I'm out early evening and drop into the Lounge on my way back about 9 to meet up with Tris and a couple of friends. It's a bit late for a proper meal, but a bit of tapas goes down well with a glass of wine.

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.

3 October - turkish figs and singapore noodles

There are lots of lovely big Turkish figs in the shops at the moment, so it was a favourite for lunch today of figs and goats cheese with a few boiled potatoes on the side.

For dinner I fancied something tasty with lots of veg, so went for a version of Singapore noodles (roughly from Ching-He Huang's Chinese Food Made Easy) - stir-frying the following:

• a blob of grated ginger
• chopped red chilli (homegrown!)
• spring onions
• chestnut mushrooms
• a tsp turmeric
• a sliced leek
• a sliced red pepper
• a few bits of chopped bacon
• large raw prawns
• a few chilli flakes
• cooked noodles
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar

It's a long list of ingredients, but very easy as you just throw them all in a pan and you end up with a yummy bowl of yellowy noodles in a few minutes.

10 September - fresh figs and a lamb curry

I got some lovely big, fresh, Turkish figs in the supermarket this morning. So lunch involved some fresh bread from Hart's Bakery (@ Ruby & White) with the figs, some bresaola and a tomato and basil salad.

We fancied a curry, so I flicked through Madhur Jaffrey and cooked up some lamb do piaza with some spicy green beans and rice. As usual, the sauce rather curdled, but it was still tasty.

• Fry one and a half finely sliced onions until starting to brown. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.
• Put a cinnamon stick, 3 cardamom pods and 3 cloves in the same oil.
• Add about 250g cubed lamb to brown, then remove.
• Fry 1/2 finely chopped onion, then add some garlic and ginger paste (made from a couple of cloves of garlic and a lump of ginger, both grated and mixed with a little water).
• Add 1 tsp coriander and 1/2 tsp cumin and stir.
• Gradually add 2 tbsp yoghurt and stir to incorporate. I never manage this without it curdling, even taking the pan off the heat.
• Return the meat with a cup of water, a pinch of cayenne pepper and some salt. Then bubble away gently for an hour or so.
• Return the fried onions and half a tsp of garam masala.

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.

29 June - fig salad and quick pasta

A few days ago, I bought some peaches to make a peach and mozzarella salad I'd seen when I was flicking through a Jamie Oliver book. Sadly though, they're still rock hard - never believe all this "ripen in bowl" nonsense! So instead, I used a couple of figs. There were some pea shoots, the figs, mozzarella and a couple of slices of bresaola, drizzled with a bit of simple lemon and olive oil dressing. To go with it I had a couple of slices of fabulous fresh wholemeal and sesame bread from Hart's. With hindsight, the dressing was perhaps a bit too sharp, but otherwise a great combo.

I was out early evening, so dinner was late, some quick pasta; orecchiette with fresh broad beans, some fried pancetta and mascarpone, seasoned with just a little finely grated lemon zest. It's one of my favourite types of pasta, shame it's so difficult to get hold of.

18 April - figs & goats cheese and pasta again

On a beautiful sunny day here in Brighton, I had another lunchtime favourite; fresh figs and goats cheese, served with some walnut bread - mmm!

Then this evening, I had the challenge of trying to use up the ingredients I've accumulated this week, without just repeating the same combinations. It was pasta again, but this time with a tomato-y sauce. The last shallot fried slowly and gently in olive oil with a sliced red pepper, some garlic and a bit of that chunk of pancetta. Then I added a small tin of tomatoes and some fresh basil and let it bubble down. Still a few things in the fridge to use up tomorrow - my last day here.