9 March - a jacket potato and leftover chilli

I got some baking potatoes in today's vegbox, so lunch was a good old-fashioned jacket potato with tuna mayo and a big pile of salad on the side - can't be beaten!

Tris has gone away for the weekend, so it was a solo supper of some of the leftover chilli con carne, this time with sweetcorn fritters. The chilli was possibly even better for being a few days old and the fritters were yummy as usual.

10 February - jacket potato and salad and the Townhouse

Lunch was another jacket potato today, this time with a salad made up of bits in the fridge; beetroot, tomatoes, green beans, sweetcorn and a few slices of fried chorizo.

There's a restaurant just round the corner that's had at least four different incarnations in the four years we've lived here. The original restaurant was really good, but over the past few changes of hands, it's been just average rather than special. It changed again just recently, so we thought we'd better give it a try. It's now called the Townhouse and is going for up-market English, with a rather fancy menu full of unusual combinations and food in little stacks. We both had scallops with pea puree and black pudding to start. It could have been quite nice and it was all okay, but nothing very inspiring. Then for main, I had fillet of bream with pork belly and more black pudding. Again, it sounded like an interesting combination, but the meat and the fish were presented at different ends of the plate - the rather small, plain fish fillet on a pile of spring greens and the pork and black pudding as part of a potato stack. It felt a bit like eating two different meals on one plate, neither terribly exciting and they didn't particularly work together. I don't mind a bit of fancy cooking and presentation, but I think if you're going to present lots of small little bits of food, they've got to be really special and this just wasn't. Each of the elements might have got away with being solid, English cooking in nice big chunky portions (a la the Kensington Arms), but didn't really cut it here. Not sure we'll bother going back.

14 January - a veggie lunch and crap pasta

Staying around Vittoriosa today, I went out for lunch, this time choosing easy over adventurous - an outside table at Tate, a vegetarian cafe on the waterfront. A good spot for people-watching and a table in the sun, but an initially uninspiring menu. Feeling like I hadn't had much veg over the past couple of days, I ordered a falafel salad. It turned out to be a good choice - freshly cooked falafels with a yoghurt dip, warm pitta and humus and a huge pile of salad - mainly lettuce but with enough bits of carrot, tomato and cucumber plus a herby dressing to make it interesting. I'd had pudding in mind when I sat down, but after munching my way through all those falafels, I was distinctly stuffed.

I'd bought some pasta and a tin of tomatoes yesterday and I'd intended to get some olive oil, onions and garlic to cook up a simple pasta sauce this evening. Unfortunately, although the blurb at the apartment said that local shops were open morning and early evening Mon to Sat, when I went out at 6, everything was distinctly closed! I did try just pasta and some heated tomatoes, but it was so watery and tasteless, I didn't even bother finishing it. Now I'm curled up under a blanket (the apartment's unheated and really chilly of an evening) watching old Doctor Who reruns on BBC entertainment, with a glass of wine and a box of After Eights ... not exactly a healthy supper, but I don't feel too bad after my super-healthy lunch!

10 December - easy food

I was having to do a bit of weekend working today, so food was simple again. We had the bit of leftover leek tart with some salad (spinach, beetroot and roasted red pepper) with small jacket potatoes.

Then we were out to a friend's Christmas party in the evening, so inspired by the pasta my mum used to feed me before I went out drinking as a teenager, we had a bowl of pasta with bacon, mushrooms and cream.

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.

18 October - pork and chorizo stew

There are some salad leaves and beetroot in the fridge bought to go with the weekend's burgers, so lunch today is a salad made up of beetroot, grilled red peppers and goats cheese.

I'm still working my way through the meaty leftovers and tonight it's a bit of pork cut off the joint we had roasted (because it was a bit too big). I cook it up with some chorizo, the other half of the red pepper, onion, tomato and chickpeas, plus a few flavourings (garlic, thyme, saffron and parsley) and cook it long and slow to make a tasty, comforting stew. It's actually a "recipe" I came up with last winter based on the list of ingredients on the back of a "stew pot" at the supermarket that appealed but struck me as overpriced!

6 October - a jacket potato and a hot lamb salad

It's feeling distinctly autumnal now, so a nice hot jacket potato seemed perfect for lunch. I made an avocado left from the other night into a basic guacamole to dollop on the top and topped it with some bacon - proper bacon, that is, from the butchers, so there were nice crispy rinds to chew on too.

I'd bought a couple of big chunks of lamb neck fillet to make up another batch of curry for my Dad, but I had a bit more than I needed, so I cut off a length to have for dinner. I marinated it in some yoghurt with chopped mint and a squeeze of lemon juice, then grilled it and sliced it on top of a hot salad of spinach leaves, roasted cherry tomatoes and roasted red onion. I made up a yoghurty dressing to drizzle on the top (yoghurt mixed with some tahini). A really nice combination.

For pudding, I tried out a Nigel Slater recipe from the weekend's Guardian, some fresh figs baked with a drizzle of honey, then some ricotta mixed with yoghurt, icing sugar and fresh vanilla (that we brought back from Madagascar) dolloped on the top.

10 August - a packed lunch and more splodge

I'm teaching at the university for the next few weeks, so I'm not always at home for lunch. Today we had a lunchtime staff meeting, so I made myself a quick packed lunch last night to keep me going; a pot of salad - new potatoes, beans and tomatoes from the garden, some mozzarella, basil and olive oil.

Tris is away again for a few days and there's some of last night's vegetable splodge left over. I'm not very excited about having the same thing two nights in a row, but I know if I leave it in the fridge, I probably won't get round to eating it. At least it's quick after a busy day.

2 August - courgette and goats cheese tart

After finishing a big batch of work late afternoon, I had a bit of time to potter about in the kitchen, so I made a courgette and goats cheese tart from For Every Season. It's actually a combination of two of the recipes in the book. The courgette and goats cheese recipe contained both cream and creme fraiche, but I settled on just eggs and cream for my filling, as per another tart recipe. The pastry was super-easy to make, although quite tricky to handle as it was so crumbly, it completely collapsed on first attempt and I had to squidge it back together and try again.

• Whizz 110g plain flour with 55g cold butter (cut into chunks) and a pinch of salt together in a blender until like breadcrumbs. Then dribble in a tbsp of good olive oil through the hole in the top. It forms a lovely shiny ball. Wrap in clingfilm and pop in the fridge.
• Line a smallish flan case with the pastry and bake blind (filled with baking beans on a piece of greaseproof paper) for 15 mins at 180C. Remove the beans and cook for another 5 mins.
• For the filling, mix together 2 eggs, 2 egg yolks and 150ml double cream.
• Fry 2 small sliced courgettes in olive oil and add to the filling mix.
• Pour the filling carefully into the pastry case (I actually had a bit too much, so maybe one less egg and a bit less cream). Crumble 50g goats cheese over the top.
• Bake for 25 mins, sprinkling a few pine nuts over the top 10 mins before the end.

It came out looking fantastic. We had it with a salad of beetroot, broad beans, peas, mint and peashoots - back out on the terrace on another lovely summery evening. The crumbly pastry was just wonderful, well worth the challenge of getting it from board to tin!

1 August - goats cheese on toast and pasta with spinach

Another cheesy lunch today, this time goats cheese on toast with a pile of salad. And a quick supper of orecchiette with spinach, pancetta and a slurp of cream to make a simple sauce.

27 July - salad and lemon polenta cake

I've had some peashoots and a second sowing of spinach growing on the terrace and today there was just enough for a first picking. Together with some tomatoes, also homegrown, some green beans, broad beans, new potatoes and a bit of mozzarella, it made a great lunchtime salad.

This evening was Book Club and I was providing pudding, so I tried out the lemon polenta cake recipe I brought back from my cookery workshop.

It seemed to go down well, even with the girls who weren't meant to be doing pudding!

29 June - fig salad and quick pasta

A few days ago, I bought some peaches to make a peach and mozzarella salad I'd seen when I was flicking through a Jamie Oliver book. Sadly though, they're still rock hard - never believe all this "ripen in bowl" nonsense! So instead, I used a couple of figs. There were some pea shoots, the figs, mozzarella and a couple of slices of bresaola, drizzled with a bit of simple lemon and olive oil dressing. To go with it I had a couple of slices of fabulous fresh wholemeal and sesame bread from Hart's. With hindsight, the dressing was perhaps a bit too sharp, but otherwise a great combo.

I was out early evening, so dinner was late, some quick pasta; orecchiette with fresh broad beans, some fried pancetta and mascarpone, seasoned with just a little finely grated lemon zest. It's one of my favourite types of pasta, shame it's so difficult to get hold of.

25 June - courgette & feta salad and fillet steak with Thai dressing

The theme for today was definitely "home-grown"! My first courgette was a bit small and misshapen, but I wanted to pick it to encourage more to grow. It wasn't quite worth eating on its own, so for lunch, I mixed it in with some shop-bought golden courgettes. I sliced them thinly and griddled them to make a simple salad, dressed with a little lemon juice and scattered with chunks of feta cheese and toasted pine nuts.

For dinner I wanted to do a favourite dish of beef fillet with a Thai dressing from Jamie Oliver's The Return of the Naked Chef. After visits to several butchers, I couldn't get the right-sized piece of beef fillet to cook as one chunk as I usually do, so I had to go for a couple of chunky ready-cut fillet steaks. I find that supermarket steaks tend to be a bit tasteless, but these ones from Waitrose were actually pretty tasty. The Thai dressing has a long list of ingredients, but they just need all mixing together and the result is well worth the effort:

• 2-3 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
• pinch of brown sugar
• 1/2 tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 1/2 clove of garlic, thinly sliced
• some chopped red chilli (I only use about 1/3 a big one)
• lots of chopped coriander and mint

I made up a salad of freshly-picked spinach and the first of the home-grown mangetout (just very briefly blanched in boiling water), with some thinly-sliced, grilled red pepper.

I griddled the steaks for about 5 mins, then sliced each one, laid it on top of the salad and poured over the dressing. Served with a bowl of home-made chunky chips, it made a scrummy meal - such a wonderful combination of flavours and textures. And the spinach and mangetout really were completely different from those you buy in the shops, or even the stuff we get in the vegbox - just so much greener-tasting and absolutely melt-in-the- mouth tender!

13 June - homegrown spinach

Back home, after a good long sleep in my own bed, today's been all about the veg! I had a good pile of asparagus for lunch with a bit of parma ham and some new potatoes. While I've been away, apparently there's been a mix of sun and rain which has made some of the veg on the terrace go mental, especially the spinach:

So this evening, we had a chicken and chorizo salad with freshly picked spinach leaves as a base, plus some cherry tomatoes, blanched green beans and beetroot. I cooked a chicken breast in the oven (just one between two), then gently caramelised a red onion in a frying pan, added some sliced cooking chorizo and a bit of sliced garlic. Once the chorizo was browned, I tipped in a splash of balsamic vinegar to make a lovely hot dressing to pour over the salad and sliced chicken. The whole thing was served with some saute new potatoes on the side. I could almost feel all that green goodness flowing back through my veins!

29 May - fried haloumi & steak and mushrooms

There were various bits and pieces in the fridge, but it took me a while to decide how to combine them for lunch. In the end, I went for fried haloumi cheese based on a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe cut out from an old Guardian magazine - I used his haloumi coating and salad dressing which do complement each other perfectly. The haloumi is simply sliced and then coated in a mix of flour and paprika and fried very briefly - less than a couple of minutes each side - so simple, but the slight crispy coating really works. The salad dressing mixes a tsp of honey, the juice of half a lemon, a crushed garlic clove and some olive oil, whisked together. Our salad was some lamb's lettuce and pea shoots, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and sweetcorn. The salty haloumi and sharp lemony dressing taste fabulous together!

Dinner matched some portobello mushrooms from the vegbox with fillet steak - another great combination! The mushrooms were baked according to the Jamie Oliver recipe I did the other day, but without the goat's cheese this time. So the mushrooms are coated in a mix of thyme, garlic, chilli, lemon juice and olive oil, with a few more slices of garlic stuck into the top, dotted with butter and baked for 15 mins. Served with simply fried fillet steak, some spinach and potatoes.

26 May - spring vegetable tart

When I've been away from the kitchen for a while, I often get the urge to cook something a bit more involved and time-consuming. I'd clearly still got a bit of a thing about eggs going on, so I went for a quiche/tart.

• Roll out some ready-made shortcrust pastry and line a flan tin (mine's a smallish 18cm tin). Scrunch up a piece of greaseproof paper, then roughly flatten it back out to line the pastry case - the scrunching makes it sit better - and fill with baking beans. Bake blind for about 15 mins at 180C and remove.
• Meanwhile blanch some fresh peas and asparagus for a few minutes in boiling water and leave to drain. And gently caramelise a sliced onion in a little olive oil.
• Put the onion and the vegetables into the flan case and pour over a mixture of two beaten eggs, about 75ml single cream, a few chopped fresh herbs (I used mint and chives today) and some grated goat's cheese (I used Parlick Fell).
• Sprinkle a bit of grated parmesan over the top and bake for about 30 mins until it's risen and golden on the top.

Breaking my usual rule about green leafy salad, we had lamb's lettuce and pea shoots with some cucumber, cherry tomatoes and roasted red pepper on the side. Really tasty and summery and even better because the whole place smelled of baking.

22 May - Scottish smoked salmon

Another morning walk today took in woods, rumbling rivers and a hermitage, working up just enough of an appetite for lunch at Birnam Arts Centre; a really cool little community arts centre with a great cafe. My smoked salmon and cream cheese salad came with a huge pile of salmon and a really interesting salad; not just the usual dreaded lettuce, but tomatoes, cucumber, grapes, olives, orange ... and in a lovely, bright, airy foyer with a photography exhibition to mooch around after post-lunch coffees.

27 April - a pub lunch in Mousehole

Continuing the trend for lunch out and supper back at the cottage, today we had lunch at one of the pubs in Mousehole - the Old Coastguard is a pub/hotel with a great restaurant and more fab views out to sea. I'd gone in thinking fish, but couldn't resist the crispy pork belly - it was simply served with mash and some grilled courgettes, but really tasty. Tris went for Thai green crab linguine, which looked a bit of a mush, but apparently tasted great. Could've sat with our coffees on the terrace all afternoon.

Supper was about using up the contents of the fridge in an egg salad, but after a heavy lunch, just what we needed.

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.