4 August - leftover tart and roasted veg

For lunch today I had the leftover slice of courgette and goats cheese tart - just as good second time around with a pile of spinach wilted with some garlic and butter.

Dinner was a big pile of roasted veg; peppers, aubergine, beetroot and tomatoes (from the garden). I made up a bit of vaguely Moroccan-inspired sauce; a chopped onion, chopped garlic and red chilli fried up with some toasted and crushed cumin and coriander seeds. I then added some tinned tomatoes and a splodge of harissa. It seemed to work quite well along with a pile of herby couscous.

21 June - Herman, parsley and harissa chicken

Today's been a bit of a marathon cooking day. A couple of weeks ago, we were given 'Herman' by a friend ... Let me explain. He arrived as a rather unpromising pot of brown, yeasty-smelling gunk together with some instructions. Over the course of about 10 days, we had to stir him as he gradually expanded, then at various points, we had to feed him. This involved stirring in quantities of milk, flour and sugar. Finally by today, he had expanded to fill a large mixing bowl and it was time to divide him up. The idea is to divide the mix into 5 and give four of the new little Herman's away to friends to start the whole process over again. You then use the fifth pot of mixture to make a cake by adding more ingredients (more flour, sugar, eggs, oil, flavourings, nuts and apple).

I've never been particularly good at baking and don't really own proper cake tins, so I poured the resulting mix into a loaf tin and popped it in the oven. After an hour (as per the instructions), it was still distinctly sticky in the middle so I left it a bit longer. When it finally came out, it was a probably a bit crunchier round the edges than it should've been. It didn't look wildly promising, but actually a slice with a cup of tea wasn't too bad. No idea who we're going to pass the remaining 'Hermans' onto though!

Next I cooked up some bulgar wheat. Along with the spinach, the parsley on the terrace is getting a bit out of control and the most obvious use for it was some tabbouleh. I'm not actually a big fan of too much parsley myself, but Tris loves it, so I made him up a big bowl to take to work for his lunch. I then had a bit of the plain bulgar wheat with some salad and the leftover, cold lamb for my lunch.
By the time it got to thinking about dinner, I was a bit out of culinary inspiration, so I turned to my usual favourite, Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. For 21st June, he has a recipe for harissa chicken, which quite appealed, so I went with it. You mix up some yoghurt with harissa paste and a bit of olive oil, then use it to coat some chicken thigh fillets. Then you simply grill them and sprinkle over some mint. Very simple, but it came out great with a big pile of green veg (peas, broad beans and asparagus).

14 June - chickpeas with tomatoes and harissa

It was a lovely sunny day today, so both lunch and dinner were al fresco - hooray! It was a quick lunchtime favourite; peas and pancetta with linguine. Unfortunately, I wasn't really concentrating and undercooked the pasta.

This evening's dinner was from Sunday's Observer magazine; Nigel Slater's chickpeas with tomatoes and harissa. I roasted 8 medium tomatoes cut into 6 pieces each with a red pepper chopped into large chunks mixed with some olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar and a pinch of cumin seeds at about 200C. I left them to cook while I was on the phone and when I went back to check after nearly an hour, they were a bit charred around the edges - oops! I picked out some of the very blackened bits of skin and tipped the lot into a pan, added a splash more olive oil, a teaspoon of harissa paste and the chopped rind of preserved lemon and let it heat through. Meanwhile I cooked up some giant couscous that I came across in the supermarket the other day. Finally, I stirred some whole basil leaves into the chickpea mix. The stew was really tasty - the lemon and harissa really gave it a tang. I was a bit less convinced about the giant couscous; rather back to that frogspawn feel again!

14 May - slow-roast lamb

With the FA Cup Final to watch on the telly this afternoon, it was the ideal time to do slow-roast lamb - popped in the oven at half-time, it was perfectly cooked for 8. This is a favourite recipe, originally from Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine.

• Slice two large onions and scatter in the bottom of an oven-proof dish. Add a whole bulb of garlic, split into cloves, but unpeeled, 50ml red wine vinegar, 150ml red wine, 50ml olive oil, a heaped teaspoon of rose harissa paste and some salt.
• Nestle a shoulder of lamb (c.700g today) on top of this mix and add water until the lamb's about 80% covered. Bring it just to the boil on the hob, then put in the oven at 180C for about half an hour.
• Turn the oven down to 150C and leave to cook for around 4 hours.

The resulting lamb is meltingly tender and falling to pieces on the bottom, but with a lovely crunchy crust on the top. The onions and garlic become really tender and jammy, but need straining out of the remaining liquid with a slotted spoon. I dollop the onion mix onto plates and top with a chunk of lamb (a mix of soft and crunchy bits), then serve it with some couscous, roast beetroot and pepper, and a splodge of minty yoghurt (just Greek yoghurt with chopped mint). It's a fabulous combination of flavours and textures and today was washed down with a bottle of bubbly to celebrate Man City's cup win!

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.