11 February - huge pork steaks

We got potatoes, parsnips and a huge bag of red Russian kale in the vegbox on Friday, which seemed to suggest a meat with mash and veg type dinner. I was out all day at a screen-printing workshop, so I asked Tris to get some pork steaks at Ruby & White. He suffered the same issue that I've come across there lately and came home with two absolutely huge steaks, half a plateful each! As we're trying to cut down, I decided to use just one of them and cut it in half - it still made a couple of very presentable little pieces. I was a bit knackered when I got in, so I just simply fried the pork to have with some rosemary jelly, mixed mash and the kale just wilted in a bit of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice.

11 January - easy lamb

I'd intended to cook fish pie, but as I was in Waitrose looking at the fish, nothing really took my fancy and I didn't feel like all that fish pie faff. So when I spotted their lamb in mint and balsamic crust in the same chiller cabinet, I decided to opt for the easy pre-prepared option instead! We had the lamb with kale and mixed mash (potato, parsnip and jerusalem artichoke) and it was as good as usual.

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.