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.

5 December - a mushroom stew

A regular combination for lunch today of fresh beetroot (roast while cooking yesterday's pork) with goats cheese and a baked potato.

There were some huge Portobello mushrooms in Friday's vegbox, so I got some lovely wild mushrooms and a few chestnut mushrooms to go with them in a warming stew. The pale purple wild mushrooms looked so beautiful, it almost seemed criminal to cook them up!

The recipe is sort of a combination of Yotam Ottolenghi's warm mushroom salad and a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall mushroom stew - with most of the ingredients of the former, but the stock/sauce of the latter. We had it with mixed potato and parsnip mash for which I tried out the rather faffy HFW method (cooking the parsnips in milk which you then use in the final mash) - don't think the result's any better than my usual boil-it-all-together-and-mash-it technique. With a blob of creme fraiche on the top, it all tasted great though - a great winter warmer supper.

2 December - couscous salad and an orange supper

Cold's still in full force and tastebuds difficult to tempt. I tried to break through with a bit of chorizo in a warm couscous salad for lunch; giant couscous with chorizo, cherry tomatoes, beans and sweetcorn.

This morning's vegbox had a bit of a festive feel as I'd ordered a few bottles of bubbly along with the regular veg. They're all organic (a champagne, a prosecco and some rose sparkling) and have gone into the wine cellar ... okay the garage! ... ready for a bit of seasonal sparkle once my tastebuds are back. Will report back on what they're like ...

Tris was out this evening, so I bought myself a pork steak for supper. I simply fried it and made a bit of sauce to pour over (Marsala, parsley and butter) and had it with some braised cabbage with carraway seeds and mixed carrot and parsnip mash. It made a rather yellowy-orange plate of food, but lots of good, comforting flavours.

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!