11 September - lamb chops with salsa verde

The parsley's still going strong so I thought I'd make a last salsa verde of the summer. I got a couple of lamb chops to go with it and some baby leeks. I think I dolloped rather too much mustard into the sauce and it came out a bit sharp for my taste. The lamb was nice though and the leeks were lovely and silky.

3 August - lamb with salsa verde

Another wonderfully sunny summer day meant dinner on the terrace; lamb and salsa verde (using a bit more of the still prolific parsley), with homegrown beans, carrots and new potatoes.

We also got a delivery of Camel Valley wine today, so it seemed only fitting to have a chilled glass of Atlantic Dry in the evening sun.

14 July - italian cookery course at bordeaux quay

For my birthday, my friend Ange passed on a spare voucher for the cookery school at Bordeaux Quay, so this evening I went along for an Italian Provincial Cookery workshop. I went to another workshop there, on Spanish tapas, last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Like then, this evening was really more interesting for the little hints and tips picked up from seeing a professional chef at close quarters than the actual recipes. Last time, I completely changed my chopping technique and this time, I think it was a better technique for crushing garlic that I think'll stay with me.

The evening started off with a demonstration - linguine with crab and chilli - looked quite good, but perhaps a bit too crabby for my taste!?! Then we moved onto some fresh pesto - made with basil and hazelnuts (as pine nuts are super-expensive and difficult to get at the moment). I've made my own pesto before, but it was really good to learn a bit more about balancing the flavours and the result I mixed up together with my partner was great. We then made a chunky minestrone soup which was served with a good dollop of the pesto on the top - really tasty and one to remember for summer lunches.

Next came more herb chopping, with a salsa verde to go with some lamb. It was a bit ironic that I'd made a salsa verde just back at the beginning of the week, but again interesting to see the balance of ingredients suggested for this one.

After polishing off our efforts with a glass of wine, the evening finished off with some delicious lemon polenta cake. Unfortunately, we'd run out of time for a proper demo, but there was "one he'd made earlier" to taste and the recipe to take home and try.

All round, a really enjoyable evening and a few culinary nuggets of inspiration brought home with me. Thanks, Ange!

11 July - fresh tuna with salsa verde and homegrown beans

The veg on the roof terrace are still flourishing; the mangetout are, I think, coming to an end now, so I picked what will probably be the last decent picking, with a few starting to get a bit overlarge and misshapen. The beans are coming along though and even though the dwarf French bean plants have never really got going, they're still managing to produce some decent-sized beans on really pathetically weedy plants! The climbing beans look much healthier, now reaching up to the top of their canes and producing their first handful of beans too.

To go with the veg, I had in mind some kind of fish with a variation on salsa verde, to use up some more of the parsley, which is starting to take over. Again, I wasn't very inspired by the fish on offer, so ended up with a couple of tuna steaks, which wasn't really what I had in mind, but actually worked okay. For the salsa verde, I whizzed together in a blender:

• a large bunch of flat-leaf parsley
• a small handful of mint
• a good tsp smooth Dijon mustard
• a couple of anchovy fillets
• a good glug of extra virgin olive oil
• juice of half a lemon

Very green and tangy dolloped over the tuna steaks.