11 March - a warm salad and more chicken

Lunch today was a nice warm, tasty salad of potatoes, spinach, tomatoes, red pepper, a bit of chorizo and a poached egg.

I had the usual issue with cooking/shopping for one - I got yesterday's chicken thighs in a pack of four, so I was left with chicken again for supper. Trying to come up with something that would be quite different, I made some chicken and chickpea stew with spring greens. It's a Sophie Grigson recipe that involves putting some of the greens in the stew itself, then frying up a few leaves finely shredded to go on the top. It's a bit of a faff, but the crunchy topping is quite fun and less tricky with such a small amount.

30 May - a rescued hollandaise and lamb with mint sauce

I had a fancy for a proper bank holiday brunch, so made up a batch of hollandaise sauce to go with poached eggs on toast and asparagus. Making hollandaise can always be a bit stressful, but using Nigel Slater's Appetite recipe as my guide, I usually get through. I use the yolk of one egg in a Pyrex bowl over a pan of gently boiling water, then whisk in about 60g cold butter, a few cubes at a time until it's all melted into a thick yellow sauce. I add a squeeze of lemon juice and a bit of salt and cover until needed. The problem usually comes when the eggs are cooked and the toast toasted ... when I go back to uncover and stir my sauce, it can, as it did today, split into a nasty-looking, curdled mess. Nigel's solution of adding a splash of cold water and whisking again, worked a treat as always! Unfortunately, all that rich sauce and eggs seems to have given me indigestion for the rest of the day ... probably serves me right!

Dinner started off with the jar of homemade mint sauce still in the fridge from the week before last, which I thought I ought to use up, so it called for lamb, again. I quickly sealed a couple of chunky, Welsh rump steaks in a frying pan, then popped them in the oven for about 8 minutes to cook through. I did some braised, French-style veg - a leek, some fresh peas and broad beans, softened gently in some butter with a sliced clove of garlic and some chopped mint, then I added a slurp of white wine and let them cook gently, covered for about 15 mins. Together with some new potatoes - briefly boiled, then squashed and roasted with some sea salt and chopped rosemary - and of course, the mint sauce. Spot on. Sorry, it's a bit of a blurry photo, but I was eager to dig in!

17 May - disappointing chicken

This evening we were out at the theatre, so I had my main meal at lunchtime. I was having a busy day and didn't really have time to shop or think much about food, so when it came to lunch, it was just what was in the fridge. I decided to use the chicken breast I hadn't used in the stir-fry last night and the quick thing seemed to pan-fry it. To go with it I had more new potatoes and asparagus. To add a bit of interest, I made up some fresh mayonnaise but added a bit of extra lemon juice; to make it a bit more lemony and also to make it more the consistency of a sauce to pour over the asparagus. To be honest, the result wasn't particularly exciting, but well, it kept me alive!

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.

5 May - sea bream from Fishminster

Today, I was frequenting another local supplier; Fishminster is an upmarket fish and chip shop with a fresh fish counter just round the corner. I like fish, but I tend to avoid cooking it because I'm a bit squeamish about it when it's raw and I don't like handling it. Add to that the fact that supermarket fish is completely tasteless and it'd rather slipped out of my repertoire until recently when this new fish shop opened. It's a nice little fish counter that isn't too daunting and contains lots of nice clean fillets to choose from.

So dinner was a couple of lightly pan-fried sea bream fillets dotted with a bit of truffle butter and served with roasted asparagus and new potatoes. Simple, but good.

30 April - roast chicken and a broken timer

The culinary news of the day was less about the food and more about the sad demise of my timer. It was a frankly rather naff plastic timer in the shape of an apple, but it was given to me as a birthday present by a friend a couple of years ago and I've become rather attached to it. So when I twisted it round rather absent-mindedly as I was cooking dinner this evening, I was horrified to hear the crack of plastic and find half a timer in each hand! I did try and fix it back together again, but a couple of little bits had snapped off inside, so it was RIP apple timer!!

Back home again, we've started a new 'regime', to try and lose a few extra pounds gained over the winter and no doubt not helped by the frequent eating out over the past week or so. It was roast chicken for dinner, but rather than slathering it in butter as I usually do, today it was just drizzled with olive oil, a scattering of thyme leaves and a squeeze of lemon juice - with one half of a lemon stuffed inside the bird, the other thrown into the roasting tray. Then halfway through cooking - estimated without the aid of my timer! - I threw some unpeeled and slightly squashed garlic cloves in too ... I've learnt not to put them in from the start because they just dry out and burn to a crisp.

When the chicken was cooked, I took it out to rest, poured the oil out of the roasting tray, then popped it on the hob. I added a slurp of wine, stirred up the sticky bits from the bottom, squeezed the lemon and the garlic cloves and let it all bubble up to make a wonderfully rich, sharp gravy. Served with boiled new potatoes and some spring greens, it tasted every bit as good as the usual buttery version.

22 April - minty lamb in a new kitchen

Today we arrived in Mousehole in Cornwall for a week in another rented cottage. It's a really cool little place with a great kitchen.

We came down with a load of stuff in the back of the car, so I was all ready for an easy-cook dinner when we arrived. Another Nigel Slater favourite, I made up a marinade in advance of fresh mint, garlic, olive oil and a couple of anchovy fillets whizzed up to a paste. Then when we arrived, I coated a couple of lamb fillets in the minty slush and left them for an hour or so, before popping them in a hot oven for about 15 minutes. I boiled some new potatoes then gently squished them to split their skins and popped them in the oven with a bit of olive oil and salt to cook with the lamb and served both with some more asparagus. A bottle of wine and some chocolate bunnies for pud made a great start to our Easter hols.

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.

9 April - lamb & pesto

After a day out in the sunshine, I wanted a simple but tasty birthday dinner, so fell back on an old favourite. I had lamb with Mediterranean vegetables/ratatouille and fresh pesto at a Bristol restaurant, River Station, several years ago and I've been recreating it in various forms ever since. Today it involved some lamb leg steaks, griddled until stripy and caramelised on the outside, but still pink in the middle, served with roasted red peppers cut into strips and cherry tomatoes roasted with a little garlic, then all topped with a splodge of fresh pesto. The pesto wasn't freshly made by me, but from the Waitrose chilled cabinet rather than the nasty stuff you get in jars.

On the side, we had some green beans and rosemary roast potatoes; new potatoes boiled for 10 minutes, then squished slightly so that the skins split and then roast for probably 20 minutes with some olive oil, sea salt and a scattering of chopped fresh rosemary. All washed down with several glasses of Veuve Cliquot - you can't beat birthday bubbles!

I'm not sure the photo really does it justice - I'm definitely going to have to work on my food photography!