28 December - potato salad and aubergine curry

I tried out another recipe from my new cookbook for lunch - well, more of an idea than a recipe really, just a bit of a twist on a potato salad. You roughly chop a boiled egg into a simple dressing of oil, vinegar and mustard and slightly mash it in so that the yolk mixes a bit with the dressing. Then you add cold, boiled potatoes and cherry tomatoes. The slightly thickened yellowy dressing coated the potatoes and made it a nice simple lunch with a bit of mozzarella on the side.

We had another one-pot veg dish for supper, this time an aubergine Thai curry from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, with aubergine, mushrooms and tomatoes in a spicy coconut sauce. It's a recipe I've done before with several variations and always comes out tasty - you can't beat aubergine for soaking up lots of lovely spices!

11 May - with chives

I've got some fantastic chives growing out on the terrace, so today it was potato salad for lunch, just to make use of them! I made it with creme fraiche instead of mayo, just to be healthy, which was a bit uninspiring, but the chives made up for it. With some beetroot and egg salad to go with it.

Dinner was 'student pasta' - onion, pepper, courgette, some bacon bits and a tin of tomatoes all cooked up and served with pasta - more-or-less exactly the recipe I lived on as a student and still just as tasty.