6 December - leftovers and no moussaka

Considering this cold seems to have killed my appetite, I'm not doing a bad job of "feeding" it! I decided to use up a few leftovers for lunch and somehow ended up with a huge plateful. There were a couple of sausages and some cold cooked cabbage that I made into bubble and squeak. It looked like it might be a bit dry, so a chucked in what I thought was just a small spoonful of leftover mushroom stew as a kind of "gravy". It was way more than I'd usually have for lunch, but very tasty and I managed to munch my way through the whole lot over my lunchtime crossword!

This afternoon I managed to talk the nice man at Ruby & White into doing me some lamb mince to make the moussaka which didn't get made at the weekend. I cooked up the meat sauce and left it to bubble, but then when I cut open the aubergines, both were brown and soggy inside.

They'd arrived in the vegbox on Friday and been in the fridge since, so not great. With organic veg, you expect the odd slug and blemish, but it's no good when it's completely inedible, especially when you're already halfway through a recipe! I added a bit more tomato to make the meat sauce a bit more "saucy" and we had it with some pasta instead.

25 August - sausage and cabbage

I had some cabbage to use up and for some reason had a fancy for some sausages, so came up with a dish that involed 'roasting' the sausages with some pancetta and whole cloves of garlic, then adding the shredded cabbage with a splash of sherry and a bit of chicken stock and popping it back in the oven. After about 30 mins, it came out looking promising ...

At this point though, Tris texted to say he was going to be late. Thus it went back in the oven for another 20 mins or so on a low heat, but sadly then came out as a rather shrivelled, burnt, unappetising mess. Bit of a "dinner in the dog" moment!

26 July - spicy sausage pasta

The other day we heard a sports commentator mention having had spicy sausage pasta and it's been on my mind ever since! So today I was in St Nick's market in town and picked up a couple of Moroccan lamb sausages from the Bristol Sausage Shop.

I fried a chopped red onion with a bit of garlic and some chopped red pepper. Then I skinned the sausages and crumbled the sausagemeat into the pan. Plus half a tin of tomatoes and a few chilli flakes and hey presto, spicy sausage pasta sauce. The sausages were a good choice and the result came out just as hoped.

27 June - mint tea & sausage and pepper pasta

It was another really hot day today, up around 30C, but very close and sultry. I try to drink plenty of water when it's hot, but it gets a bit boring, so this afternoon I made myself a pot of fresh mint tea. I roughly follow the way I was taught in a cookery workshop in Morocco last year, using gunpowder green tea and fresh mint leaves. You're supposed to pour a little boiling water over the tea first and swish it around until the leaves open out. You then pour that water away, because it's quite bitter. I use my glass Bodum teapot with a built-in infuser, so I put the green tea in the infuser, then the mint leaves in the main body and let it all brew together. With a bit of sugar and served in one of the little glasses we brought back from Morocco, it tasted spot on and really refreshing.

This evening I used up the couple of sausages in the fridge to make a favourite pasta sauce.

Sausage and pepper pasta

• Grill a red, orange or yellow pepper until the skin's blackened. Pop it in a container with a lid for a few minutes (to help steam off the skin), then peel and chop into chunks.
• Fry a chopped onion (mine was red today) in a decent pool of extra virgin olive oil (I think it's needed for the flavour here), with a little chopped or sliced garlic.
• Peel the skin from the sausages and crumb the sausage meat into the pan. If I'm using more sausages I leave it in quite big chunks, but with only two today, I break it up into smaller pieces. Fry gently until the meat is starting to brown.
• Add about 250ml of white wine (although I used an open bottle of rose today and it came out fine), plus some fresh herbs (oregano, parsley) and a couple of slices of lemon peel. Let this simmer gently for a few minutes. As you add the wine, it forms a kind of milky emulsion with the oil, which gives this sauce a slightly different feel from a standard tomato-based sauce.
• Now add a tin of tomatoes and the pepper.
• Leave to bubble away gently - 30 mins is good, but if you put the water on to boil for the pasta now, it'll probably be enough.
• Serve with some pasta - papadelle is good, but tonight I had big twists.

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.

29 April - a barbecue in the garden

Today we left Cornwall and stopped off at Tris's Mum's in Budleigh Salterton on our way back. The sun was still holding out enough to spend most of the day lounging around in the garden and to finish the evening with a barbecue. As well as the usual sausages, we had pork tenderloin, cut into chunks and marinated in lemon juice, creme fraiche and mixed herbs. It came off the barbecue looking a bit black, but it was absolutely delicious and really juicy - definitely an idea to copy if we get round to a barbecue on our roof terrace this year.