5 April - pork with mustard sauce

We finished a short week with some nice chunky pork steaks from Ruby & White with a creamy mustard sauce, some baby leeks, beans and new potatoes - simple but delicious.

15 March - chickpea salad and pasta with salmon

Along with some leftover couscous from last night, I made up some chickpea and pepper salad for lunch with a bit of soft goats cheese on the side.

Tris often says that we don't have much pasta for supper, mainly because it tends to be one of my lunchtime staples. So this evening I consciously went for a pasta dish - smoked salmon and leeks in a cream sauce.

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.

13 February - mackerel salad and pork hotpot

Lunch today was a bit of an experimental winter salad; smoked mackerel with new potatoes, leeks and sweetcorn. It wasn't one of my best, but not bad.

To use up the leftover pork chop, I came up with a pork and cider hotpot, partly inspired by a WFI recipe, using the slow cooker. I softened some onions in a pan, then browned the pork,chopped into chunks. I put the onion and pork in the slow cooker with 250ml dry cider, some chestnut mushrooms and a bit of yellow pepper, plus some thyme and a bay leaf. Then I popped it in the oven for a couple of hours (at 180C). It was the first time I'd used the slow cooker without using one of the recipes that came with it and I was a bit nervous when I lifted the lid. It initially looked like it'd dried out quite a bit and I quickly added another slurp of cider, but later realised, it probably just needed a stir. With a spoonful of mustard stirred in at the end, it came out quite well and was really tasty with some mash to soak up the juices and some kale on the side.

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.

8 January - beef stew

We had some simple baked potatoes for lunch today with some leeks from the vegbox, cooked up gently with some bacon and then mixed with a bit of creme fraiche - a classic, comfort-food combination.

For supper, I did a slow-cook beef stew. The recipe idea came with the vegbox and was originally for beef and squash stew. Having had squash yesterday though, I substituted it for some parsnip.

• Brown c. 450g diced beef in an ovenproof pan and remove.
• Add a sliced onion and cook until softened, then add a clove of chopped garlic.
• Return the beef to the pan and add 250ml red wine and the same of water (a bit more if the beef isn't covered), plus a sprig of rosemary and bay leaf.
• Cover with a lid and put in the oven at 150C for two hours.
• Add a couple of peeled and chopped parsnips and cook for another 10-15 mins - checking there's enough liquid in the pan - I had to add a bit more at this point as it was drying out.

It came out smelling great, but looking a bit grey and watery. It could have done with some nice juicy greens on the side, but the only thing I had was some more leeks. It did taste really good - the beef was melt-in-the-mouth and the sweet, nutty parsnips were great mashed into the gravy. If I did it again, I think I'd find a way of thickening the sauce a bit, maybe just a bit of cornflour stirred in at the end.

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.

2 January - espresso cupcakes and pork with leeks and beans

I bucked the New Year's detox trend this afternoon, making up a batch of espresso cupcakes. The only downside was waiting for them to cool down enough to ice!

With an extra Bank Holiday, Tris cooked dinner. He'd found a Jamie Oliver recipe for fillet steak with creamy leeks and white beans. Unfortunately, with the butcher's closed and no fillet steak in Waitrose, we had to go for pork steaks instead. It was still a good combination though - really tasty and definitely one to try again when I can get some proper fillet steak from Ruby & White.

28 November - a final pizza and fishcakes

We just had time for a trip across the river to explore the narrow streets of Trastevere this morning. We really needed to be on the train for the airport by 2pm, so went for an early lunch at Dar Poeta, another recommendation, this time for pizza. I don't generally eat pizza, but gave it a try anyway. I have to say, I wasn't converted, but Tris managed to get through his quite happily even though we were looking at our watches and had to cut our last Roman lunch rather short.

We got back to Bristol early evening and stopped off at Waitrose on the way back to grab some easy fishcakes for dinner. Not quite up to the weekend's culinary excellence, but with a big pile of fresh peas and leeks, not bad for a simple, pasta-free supper.

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!

28 October - pasta and fish @ the Kensington

To eat up the last bit of smoked salmon, I made up a quick pasta lunch with a sauce made of leek, the smoked salmon and mascarpone.

I was feeling a bit woolly-headed and achy all day as if I was coming down with a cold, so I didn't feel much like going out, but Tris had booked a table at the Kensington Arms for dinner (another website not working!). I didn't really have much of an appetite, so we shared a starter - a fantastically smooth chicken liver parfait with toast and onion jam - then I chose fish as a lighter main. I had pan-fried sea bream with crushed potatoes and carrots - simple but delicious and well worth the effort of going out.

21 October - venison and quince

After being out all morning, I was quite late getting home for lunch and feeling distinctly peckish. As ever when you're hungry, my impression of my appetite was a bit out of kilter, so I bought myself a Pieminster chicken pie on my way home and cooked up some leeks to have with it while I waited for it to heat up. Almost as soon as I'd got started on it, I realised I wasn't actually that hungry and struggled to plough my way through the rather too peppery pie!

For dinner I got a couple of venison steaks from Ruby & White and picked up a quince too to have with them. Thankfully, this time, the quince was fine and I made some nice quince and rosemary compote which went really nicely with the venison - just cooking up the peeled and cubed quince with some water and sugar and adding some chopped rosemary at the end. Unfortunately, I didn't do so well with a potato and wild mushroom gratin. I had a few wild mushrooms to use up and I came across a recipe from WFI that looked really nice. I don't know if I got the quantity of cream wrong, or just had the oven too hot, but it came out completely dried out and really quite unappetising. It's always frustrating when you've gone to a lot of trouble with special ingredients and it doesn't come out as expected. Thankfully, at least the venison and quince was good.

12 October - pasta and a steak

Leeks, bacon, cream and cheese are a classic combination and today they made a great pasta sauce for lunch - warm, tasty and comforting on rather a grey, drizzly day.

Tris was away this evening, so I was looking for a supper for one and feeling a bit uninspired. The butcher's does meat already marinated and packaged. I've often looked at it, but generally, I prefer to add my own flavourings. Today though, I picked up a steak in teriyaki marinade to give it a go. I flash-fried it - accompanied by quite a bit of smoke and lots of smell - and had it with some homemade chips and a few carrots and beans. The steak came out with a promising caramelised coating, but it was rather thin for my liking and, to be honestly, a bit disappointingly bland. I wonder if it might have been better sliced and stir-fried instead.

9 October - kedgeree and lamb with quince/apple

After an early start watching the F1 and World Cup rugby, we had an early lunch of kedgeree using the bit of smoked mackerel in the fridge from my lunch in the week. I used my usual kedgeree recipe, but substituted leeks instead of spinach. It amazes me how you can cook the same dish time and again, but each time it comes out slightly differently - today, it was just spot on and absolutely delicious, a perfect brunch with a couple of boiled eggs on the top.

For dinner, I'd planned to try out another Guardian recipe, this time from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for hot lamb and quince salad - using the quince I'd picked up the other day. Sadly, after the lamb had been sitting in its marinade all afternoon, I cut open the quince to find it was all brown and horrible! With the lamb half ready, I decided to plough ahead and to use an apple instead of the quince. Rather than having it as a salad, I wanted it as a main dish with some roasted new potatoes and cavalo nero from the garden. The recipe turned out to be a bit long-winded, messy and stressful as it seemed to involve lots of stuff going on at the same time and juggling lots of dishes and pans. I'd been a bit pissed off about the quince and by the time I'd got the food on the plates, I was feeling a bit hot and hassled. Was it worth it? Well, the lamb was quite nice and I might use a similar marinade again, but the rest of the faff probably wasn't worth the effort. The homegrown cavalo nero was great though!

2 October - simple garlic chicken

Having come home to some unexpected late summer sunshine, we went out for lunch at the Lido. We sat outside, enjoying the sun and the atmosphere with cooling glasses of citron presse and a nice selection of tapas: humus, babaganoush, Greek salad and fried chorizo, plus of course, hunks of their delicious fresh bread. A great way to ease back in!

Usually when we've been away, we're craving some kind of food, often vegetables. This time though, we felt like we'd had a bit of everything while we were away and couldn't think of anything obvious that we'd missed. Being particularly tired after almost two days travelling back, I just opted for something simple - chicken thighs slow-cooked with herbs and garlic, with some new potatoes, creamy leeks and a handful of beans still just about going on the terrace.

11 September - lamb chops with salsa verde

The parsley's still going strong so I thought I'd make a last salsa verde of the summer. I got a couple of lamb chops to go with it and some baby leeks. I think I dolloped rather too much mustard into the sauce and it came out a bit sharp for my taste. The lamb was nice though and the leeks were lovely and silky.

14 August - cold pork, a baked potato and orange polenta biscuits

For lunch today I had the leftover pork from last night, which I think was even better cold as the sticky sweet-vinegary coating stood out without the other strong flavours. It went went with some vegetable couscous; with tomatoes, green beans and broad beans.

I really like a baked potato, but I rarely cook them because it seems such a waste to put the oven on for an hour plus just for a single potato (and we don't have a microwave). This afternoon I was baking biscuits though, so popped a potato in at the same time and didn't feel quite so guilty! I had it with a mix of leeks, bacon and mushrooms in a creamy sauce - basic food but tasty and comforting.

The biscuits were little orange polenta biscuits from a Jamie Oliver recipe. As I'm teaching at the moment, I often take a flask of tea with me to slurp through the day. My flask has a funny little compartment in the lid, just about 3cm across. I'd often thought that it'd be fun to slot a couple of tiny biscuits in to snack on. In the book, these looked just right, but I found that getting them to come out the right size was more of a challenge. The recipe was supposed to make 25 biscuits, but in the end it made double that number! I had to bake them in two batches as I only have one large baking tray. The first batch came out really too big, so I tried to make the second batch smaller. I ended up with a handful just small enough to fit in, put some in a tin and took the rest in to leave in the staffroom. They disappeared pretty quickly!

• Mix together 170g butter, 170g sugar, 255g polenta and 100g plain flour, followed by the zest of two oranges and 2 eggs. I did it all in a food mixer.
• Cover the mixture and put in the fridge for an hour.
• Spoon small teaspoons of mixture (a rather variable measure!!) onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake for c.6mins at 190C.

Very easy and tasty.

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.

6 August - creamy chicken with leeks and sweetcorn

Tris is down in London for the weekend, leaving me with a whole vegbox of stuff to get started on alone! After a brunch of scrambled eggs on toast with a few tomatoes from the garden lightly fried, this evening, I cooked up what was originally a soup recipe into a creamy chicken stew with leeks and fresh sweetcorn.

• I gently fry/sweat a small chopped onion, some chopped garlic and red chilli, with a sliced leek and a few bits of bacon.
• Then I add some chopped chicken just to brown, before pouring in a slurp of cider (still leftover from the other day), followed by about 150ml chicken stock.
• I cut the corn off a fresh corn cob, add this and simmer the whole lot for about 20 mins.
• Towards the end, I add a slurp of double cream and some chopped parsley.

It makes rather a generous plateful (I'm too used to cooking for two!), with some new potatoes to mash into the sauce.