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.

18-21 February - Miami

Our Miami culinary experiences were a mix of traditional and trendy. We started to tick off our list of US must-haves by ordering "pastrami on rye" in a deli (Jerry's Famous Deli) - how much meat can you fit between two slices of bread?!

We had lunch at the 11th Street Diner - Caesar salad, potato skins and the best banana milkshakes.

We tried out a bit of Cuban fusion cuisine at YUCA (Young Urban Cuban American); a cool spot with great food. I had pork shanks with mojo sauce and arroz congri (rice with black beans) - really delicious. Then we had a seafood blow-out at Grillfish; fried calamari to start then a huge dish of shrimp scampi (huge prawns) with linguine in a fantastic creamy tomato and garlic sauce. There was a great crabcake salad with sweet potato fries at Serendipity 3 for lunch. And we finished off with sushi at the supercool BondSt Lounge - part of the Townhouse Hotel where we were staying. I'm still not really a convert to sushi, but I did really like the tuna tarts; slivers of raw tuna served on a kind of thin crispy cracker and drizzled with truffle oil.

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.

28 January - montpellier chapter, cheltenham

We'd planned a grand day out to give us something to look forward to amongst the January greyness. We got the train to Cheltenham and had booked for lunch at a trendy hotel, the Montpellier Chapter. The restaurant, which has Simon Hopkinson as an advisor, got a good write-up in the Guardian, so we had high hopes for a cool, buzzy atmosphere and some good food. When we arrived at 12.30 though, there were only two other couples in an otherwise completely empty restaurant and we were all stuck in a corridor-type area rather than in the main body of the restaurant, which looked like it was set up for a big group. I was a bit disappointed to be sat in a rather unappealing corner in a draught, but expected that things would perk up when 'the others' arrived, possibly for one. I had some nice scallops to start, although the orange zest in the topping was a bit over-powering for my liking. By the time our mains arrived, the other couples had left and I'd overheard from one of the waitresses that they were actually gearing up for a big group for afternoon tea later in the day - leaving us as the lone diners in the corner of a completely empty restaurant - chilly, soulless and distinctly uncomfortable!! Our main was very good, we both had pork fillet and pork belly with creamy mash, red cabbage and apple sauce - all very well cooked and delicious. We chatted a bit to the waitress at the end of the meal and she apologised that we hadn't caught them on the best of days. I guess it was just bad luck and there wasn't an awful lot they could have done about it - except perhaps seated us in a slightly comfier spot. Thankfully, we had a great afternoon's shopping afterwards though and a good stop for tea and cake at the Swallow Bakery before we headed home.

In the evening, we didn't really need a proper meal, so I made up a few tapas-style dishes to pick on instead - warm tomato and basil salad, beetroot with toasted walnuts and some fried potatoes topped with chorizo and sliced red pepper.

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.

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.

12 November - tapas and a huge pork steak

It was Saturday lunchtime tapas at the Lido again today - humus, squash and feta salad and some posh ham - a great relaxed start to the weekend.

For dinner I got some pork steaks from Ruby & White, which turned out to be absolutely huge. I did some cream and tarragon sauce and we had them with a small splodge of potato and parsnip mash and some spinach. As I was cooking them, and struggling to squeeze them both in a large frying pan, there was talk of leaving some meat to have cold tomorrow, but somehow we managed to clear our plates after all!

8 October - pork with mushroom sauce and mixed mash

With my parents visiting today, we wandered down to Riverstation for lunch. When we arrived, I think there was a flash of recognition from the waiter after the eggs florentine fiasco from last time we went! Thankfully, everything was fine today - we all had savoury tart and chips, and sat enjoying the lovely bright space, even on a day with only glimpses of sunshine.

For dinner, I'd bought some pork steaks from the butcher which I'd planned to serve with a big dollop of mushroom sauce. I had some nice big Portobello mushrooms from the vegbox and went up to the fancy veg shop in Clifton yesterday to get some wild mushrooms to go with them. To my disappointment, they didn't have any in, so I picked up a quince and a lovely string of shallots instead. I ended up getting some chestnut mushrooms from the supermarket - I cooked all the mushrooms up in butter, added a splash of balsamic and some white wine, then a blob of cream and lots of parsley. The idea was to have enough mushroomy stuff to make it more of a side vegetable than just a sauce and I think it worked quite well on top of the simply fried pork, with some mixed mash (potato, sweet potato and parsnip) on the side. I think it went down well, with the pork as the star - really wonderful and tasty.

14 September - pork with creamy chanterelle sauce

We're off on holiday at the end of the week, so I'm trying to make the most of the last few veg on the terrace. Lunch was another couscous salad, with some smoked salmon flakes and homegrown beans and tomatoes.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon, so in-between chores, I wandered up to a nice veg shop in Clifton that I'd spotted the other day had lots of wild mushrooms. I came home with a bag of yellow chanterelles and a tall spike of cavalo nero that poked out of the top of my backpack and raised a smile in Ruby & White on my way home getting some pork loin steaks.

I fried the pork steaks until nice and brown on each side, then popped them in the oven to finish off. I then used the same pan to gently fry a shallot, added the chanterelles, followed by a glug of white wine. I bubbled it down a bit, added some double cream, bubbled a bit more and poured the sauce over the pork. With some potatoes and the cavolo nero, it tasted wonderfully autumnal.

22 August - pork chops and homegrown kale

I planted some black kale, cavolo nero, from seed some time ago and the little kale plants have been growing healthily on the roof terrace.

The little plants were getting a bit crowded though, so I pulled up a few little plants in order to thin them out. I decided to cook up the young leaves for dinner. I blanched them for barely a minute, but they reduced to almost nothing. I still tossed them with a little oil and garlic and served them with some pork chops and a blob of rosemary jelly. Looking forward to some more substantial kale later ...

29 July - a new butchers and a pork chop

Over the past few days, I've been watching as a new shop was fitted out just across the road and today I was very excited to venture into a new local butchers for the first time. It's called Ruby & White and it's a very classy-looking outfit - all Farrow & Ball woodwork and cool branding. It has a very impressive main meat counter, with just about everything from the usual pork, beef, lamb and chicken to venison, veal and pigeon. Then there's a deli counter with cold meats and cheese (although not a huge range), a bit of wine and things like marinades, spices and sauces. I've been losing interest in supermarket meat for some time and the other nearby butchers are neither very nearby nor often seem to have what I'm looking for. So this is quite an exciting development.

I was so overwhelmed by the choice, not to mention all the staff who were a bit overeager to tell me all about what they were doing, I played it safe with just a couple of pork loin chops to start off - all nicely wrapped in classy waxed paper - okay, so I'm a sucker for some nice packaging, esp. when it doesn't involve nasty plastic trays!

I fried them up with some chestnut mushrooms, took the pork out of the pan (to a warm oven) and added a good glug of pear cider, followed by some cream to make a sauce. Served with baby leeks and new potatoes, not only was the sauce tasty, but the flavour of the pork really shone through. A very promising start.

23 July - a packed lunch and pork with mustard sauce

Today we went out to the Forest of Dean for a bit of fresh air and countryside. We were quite late getting up, so rather than go looking for a pub lunch, we took a good old-fashioned packed lunch with us; tuna and sweetcorn mayo sandwiches in nice soft sliced bread with a packet of crisps - to be squashed into the sandwiches - and a flask of tea ... great! A lovely day and some fantastic forest walking too - although a less-than-flattering photo!

As we were back relatively late, dinner was straightforward meat and two veg, well, three actually; pork steaks with a creamy mustard sauce (a la Nigel Slater) with a big pile of green beans, carrots and broad beans.

1 July - peach and mozzarella salad and a pork chop

The peaches still don't feel wonderfully ripe, but are at least a bit softer, so I go for that peach and mozzarella salad. I try a slightly sweeter dressing this time; oil with raspberry vinegar (home made by popping a handful of fresh raspberries into a small bottle of white wine vinegar), which works better. It looks so lovely, I can't resist another picture and it tastes pretty good too, even with slightly crunchy peaches.

Tris is out for the evening, so I have an easy pork chop with some creamy mushroom sauce and a big pile of fresh veg; homegrown mangetout and peas, broad beans and new potatoes from today's organic vegbox. Still can't get over how amazing the homegrown mangetout taste!

17 June - pork with gooseberry sauce

I got a box of gooseberries in today's organic vegbox; small, pinky-green and face-pullingly sharp! I ordered them on a bit of a whim when I was choosing this week's box contents and I wasn't quite sure what I planned to do with them. I rather fancied them as an accompaniment to something savoury, perhaps pork, rather in the vein of apple sauce. I found a recipe for gooseberry sauce to go with savoury dishes on the Riverford website, then I came across a recipe from another food blogger (Girl Interrupted Eating) for pork with gooseberry and sage sauce. I went for a combination of the two as below:

Gooseberry sauce: I put c. 150 g gooseberries, a tablespoon of sugar, a small knob of butter, a splash of water and some chopped sage into a small saucepan and heated it gently until the berries were starting to burst and collapse, but a few were still just keeping their shape. Because the gooseberries were quite pink in colour, the sauce came out a fairly nice yellowy-pinky colour, not the nasty green snot colour my fellow blogger found!

When I tasted the resulting sauce, I not only pulled an incredible face but did a little dance at the exquisite sharpness! I was a bit cautious about dolloping a big blob onto our pork chops, but somehow the sweetness of the caramelised pork managed to balance out the tartess of the gooseberries wonderfully and made a really top combination served with some simple new potatoes and summer greens. Definitely one I'd recommend and to try again.

15 May - pork with creamy mushroom sauce

To finish a meaty weekend, I cooked pork loin steaks with a creamy mushroom sauce. I fried the pork, slightly coated in flour, in a bit of oil and butter. When just about cooked, I transferred it to the oven to keep warm, then fried sliced mushrooms and some sliced garlic in the same pan, added a good slurp of Marsala, let it bubble down, then added half a small pot of single cream. Not forgetting to add the juices collected in the dish the pork was warming in at the last minute. It's a favourite sauce combination and as usual, it was really tasty. Served with some new potatoes, asparagus and the last of the spring greens.

6 May - a vegbox and the Lido

Continuing my recent food supplier theme, today was my first organic vegbox delivery for a few weeks. I've been getting an organic vegbox delivered from Riverford every fortnight for about 6 years now. Generally, I think it's a really good idea and I do love my veg, but I do go through phases where I suffer from "vegbox fatigue". Although I like most vegetables, there are certain things I'm less keen on and sometimes I get boxes that I just feel like I'm just trying to "use up" rather than enjoying. Back around Feb/March time, I had a few particularly uninspiring boxes in a row - it isn't a great time of year for veg anyway - so as I was going to be away a lot through April anyway, I paused my deliveries for a while.

Sadly, today's box didn't quite rekindle my excitement. It contained asparagus, spring onions, peppers and rhubarb which are all good, potatoes (not new ones) and carrots, which are unexciting but okay. But then it contained a huge lettuce - now I don't eat lettuce at all, so poor Tris is going to be ploughing his way through salad for lunch for quite some time to use that one up! And then a big bag of spring greens ... I quite like greens occasionally, but having just ploughed my way through three servings of greens in the past week using up a big bag from the supermarket, this time, their arrival provoked a rather sinking feeling! I think I'm going to have to go back to making up my own box for a while - which requires a bit more planning and a minimum order, but ensures I don't get stuck with more stuff I don't really want.

Friday night often means a meal out and this evening we went to a local favourite, the Lido; as its name suggests, a swimming pool but with a great cafe and restaurant too. The food was fresh, different and delicious as usual. We both had wood roasted scallops with herby butter to start; a bit tricky to eat without splashing butter over yourself, but fantastic with some fresh bread to mop up the leftover butter. Then roast pork with a romesco aioli - a sauce made, I think, of nuts, garlic and peppers and then mixed up into a kind of mayonnaise - difficult to describe, but absolutely delicious!

29 April - a barbecue in the garden

Today we left Cornwall and stopped off at Tris's Mum's in Budleigh Salterton on our way back. The sun was still holding out enough to spend most of the day lounging around in the garden and to finish the evening with a barbecue. As well as the usual sausages, we had pork tenderloin, cut into chunks and marinated in lemon juice, creme fraiche and mixed herbs. It came off the barbecue looking a bit black, but it was absolutely delicious and really juicy - definitely an idea to copy if we get round to a barbecue on our roof terrace this year.

25 April - The Gurnard's Head, Zennor

Again, a bit of forward planning had gone into today's eating out, with a booking already made for the Gurnard's Head at Zennor. We've stayed and eaten at its sister pub/hotel, the Felin Fach Griffin, near Brecon, so it was already on my list of places to try if we were down this way. And it didn't disappoint. We had a simple spring vegetable salad to start, to leave enough space for our mains; delicious, melt-in-the mouth braised pork with a wonderfully sweet and earthy mixed root veg mash and some spring greens - yum! We were both pretty stuffed, but still couldn't quite resist sharing some orange cheesecake for pudding!

In an attempt to walk it off, we had an afternoon walk from Lands End, along the cliff path to Sennen Cove where we stopped off for a late afternoon pot of tea in a cool little beach cafe, before walking back.

For supper, a simple salad was enough; beetroot, tomato and boiled egg with a creamy dressing from the Observer magazine (again!). A tbsp white wine vinegar mixed with slightly less sugar, a good teaspoon of vinegar, then 3 tbsp double cream. When I dunked my finger in the bowl, it tasted like an odd sweet mix with a vinegary after-kick, but once it was mixed with the beetroot, it actually worked really nicely.

19 April - using up; salad & a pie

My last day in Brighton meant trying to use up the contents of the fridge. Lunch was a salad of spinach, cherry tomatoes, the rest of the goats cheese, the last few chunks of pancetta and a few new potatoes. Then this evening, I had more spinach and some green beans to use up, but nothing to go with them. So I gave in to something pre-prepared - a pork and cider pie from a Jamie Oliver shop - yes, he gets everywhere! Actually pretty good, washed down with some really nice pear cider.

Now I've just got to decide what to do with the last few bits of food in the kitchen. I hate throwing things away, but some things just aren't going to travel. I won't feel too bad about binning the rest of the rather unexciting French dressing and I don't think butter's going to fare too well on a warm day.