10 March - carrot soup and slow-cook chicken

I got a huge bag of carrots in the vegbox - I'm sure I didn't order a whole kg, but maybe I wasn't paying attention - so the obvious choice for lunch was some homemade carrot and coriander soup. Today I used a Covent Garden Soup Co recipe, which was dead simple:

• Gently fry a small chopped onion and some garlic in butter.
• Add c. 200g peeled and roughly chopped carrots, together with 500ml chicken stock and a grating of fresh nutmeg.
• Simmer gently until the carrots are tender.
• Whizz in a blender and return to the pan.
• Stir in c. 50g grated carrot, some chopped fresh coriander and a glug of single cream.

For supper, I decide to have a go at 'roasting' chicken in the slow cooker. I tossed some sliced red onion and whole garlic cloves in a little olive oil and spread them on the base of the slow cooker. I put a couple of chicken thighs on top, squeezed over a bit of lemon juice, then threw in a few lemon slices, some fresh thyme and rosemary and cooked the whole lot in a hot oven for 90 mins. I rather expected the chicken to come out a bit anaemic-looking, but it had actually browned quite nicely and was wonderfully juicy and tender. Served with the onions and garlic spooned on the top and some spring greens and purple sprouting broccoli on the side, it made a really healthy-feeling, tasty supper.

7 March - smoked haddock fishcakes

For lunch today I grabbed a Higgidy quiche with some salad on the side. Then in the evening, I cooked some homemade smoked haddock fishcakes; a few smoked haddock fillets poached in milk, then flaked into some mashed potato. We had them with a pile of purple sprouting broccoli and a dollop of creme fraiche mixed with some chopped tarragon. Simple and tasty without being too heavy.

31 January - a very orange pie

There was still plenty of cold chicken to eat, so I came up with a leftovers pie, using the rest of the puff pastry and some squash in the bottom of the fridge. I wasn't completely convinced about chicken and squash combination, but I came up with a filling of fried onions, a few lardons, cubed cooked squash, some chicken stock, the chicken, a bit of chopped sage and a splodge of cream. It looked quite alarmingly orange, but seemed to taste okay! I put it in a pie die with a pastry lid and popped it in the oven. We had it with some purple sprouting broccoli and it actually wasn't too bad. I think there was probably a bit too much squash for the amount of chicken, but otherwise, quite tasty.

1 September - chicken soup and soy baked salmon

For lunch I tried out a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe from the Guardian magazine from a couple of weeks ago for chicken and buttermilk soup. It was meant to be a cold soup, but did say you could heat it up if you were really careful not to let it curdle. Rather frustratingly though, after lots of messing about and then being super-careful, it still curdled and tasted rather nasty and sour ... still, if you don't try ...

Thankfully, dinner was rather more successful. I was wandering round Sainsburys at a complete loss for ideas and was so uninspired, I ended up in the ready meals section ... yes, I know! I did spy some crispy seaweed (actually crispy shredded greens) though which gave me an idea. I got some salmon fillets and pulled out a really old recipe for soy-baked salmon. You marinate the salmon in c.100ml mirin, 80ml soy sauce, a good chunk of grated ginger and a couple of star anise, in the fridge. The original recipe said for 6 hours, but I only had a couple of hours today, which still did the trick. Then you bake the whole lot (the salmon in the marinade in an ovenproof dish) for about 15 mins at 200C. Served with the crispy seaweed (yes, I did succumb), some purple sprouting broccoli and a bit of boiled rice, it came out great, with just a bit of the sauce drizzled over the top.