21 November - mackerel salad and dahl

There was some mackerel left over from the kedgeree the other night and some roasted red pepper from last night, so today I made up a lovely bright mackerel salad with some new potatoes, cherry tomatoes and spinach, all in a mustardy dressing for lunch.

After last night's rich tagine, I went for a veggie dinner of dahl (a recipe from Floyd's India), spicy cabbage and rice. Dahl always looks a bit unappetising splodged on the plate, but with lots of lovely spices and just the right amount of heat, it was all much tastier than it looked.

26 June - chicken curry outdoors

Today was a proper hot, summer's day and it was mostly spent out on the roof terrace. We watched the F1 grand prix sat outside with the TV in the doorway and a sausage sandwich halfway through for lunch. Then after the race, we set about finishing off some kind of 'raised beds' to go around my French beans, which do at last seem to be growing and are twisting their way up their poles.

I'd got some chicken in to make curry for dinner. I was going to try something different, but the day ran away with me and all of a sudden it was getting late and we were hungry, so I went for an old favourite: Madhur Jaffrey's chicken with cream - but as I didn't have any cream, it was chicken without cream!!

• Sprinkle four chicken thigh fillets (I usually use breast fillets, but picked up the wrong thing and they actually worked really well), cut into chunks with 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/4 tsp ground coriander, 1/4 tsp turmeric, a pinch of cayenne pepper and some salt and set aside for as long as possible.
• Put 3 cloves of garlic and the same amount of fresh ginger into a belnd with 60ml water and blend to a paste.
• Fry the chicken pieces in vegetable oil to brown and remove.
• Fry a chopped onion in the same oil until soft, then add the garlic and ginger paste and stir until the water has gone.
• Stir in another 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp coriander, 1/4 tsp turmeric and a pinch of cayenne, then add about 1/3 tin chopped tomatoes. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes.
• Remove the pan from the heat and stir in a good couple of teaspoons of natural yoghurt gradually, so that it makes a creamy sauce.
• Return to the heat, add the chicken with any collected juices and about 100ml water. Add salt and bring to the boil.
• Turn low, cover and leave to simmer for 20 mins.
• Remove the lid towards the end, stir in half a teaspoon of garam masala, turn up the heat and let the whole thing bubble a bit until the sauce is nice and thick.

Served with boiled rice and some fresh peas cooked with garlic and spring onion in a bit of butter, then a splash of water and some chopped mint and coriander, we ate out in the terrace enjoying the last of the evening sun.

16 May - leftover lamb and chicken noodles

The last chunk of Saturday's lamb was still in the fridge, so for lunch I cooked up some rice and peas, friend an onion and mixed it altogether with the cold lamb and a few spices. Not very attractive, but very tasty.

This evening's stir-fried chicken noodles were loosely based on a recipe from Ching-He Huang's Chinese Food Made Easy.

• Boil some dried noodles with some fresh peas - 5 mins.
• Stir-fry some chopped spring onions, half a chopped red chilli, some grated fresh ginger, a sliced chicken breast (just one for two people), half a sliced pepper, some quartered mushrooms and half a teaspoon turmeric.
• Add the drained noodles and peas, add a pinch of dried chilli flakes, 2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp rice vinegar and stir together.