3 April - sausage and mushroom cassoulet

It was another one-pot stew tonight, this time because Tris was working late and I wanted something I could eat before I collapsed with hunger, then he could just reheat when he finally got in. I came up with a simple sausage and mushroom cassoulet from the Riverford website. The sauce was a little bit runny, but otherwise, it made a nice warming supper with some spring greens on the side.

31 March - a day out in Bath

We had a day out in Bath today. It being a busy Saturday, I didn't expect to get into the petite Cafe Shoon, so was pleasantly surprised when we got a table. I had a delicious serano ham, fig and mozzarella salad - three of my favourite ingredients on one dish!

After a hard afternoon's shopping, I wasn't feeling like doing much cooking, so we picked up some lamb with mint and balsamic crust from Waitrose - you can't go wrong with some garlicky spring greens and rosemary roast new potatoes.

27 March - pork belly with spicy rhubarb sauce

We had some slightly green rhubarb hanging around that didn't quite feel pink enough for crumble, so I decided to do something savoury with it instead. I googled "pork and rhubarb" and came up with a few recipes - the below is sort of a combination of several:

• Blend two large shallots, 3 cloves garlic, 1/2 inch grated fresh ginger, 2tbsp honey and 2tbsp extra virgin olive oil to a paste.
• Coat c.750g piece of pork belly with the mixture and put it in a roasting dish with c.300ml dry cider and a red chilli just snapped to release its flavour. Cover with foil and cook at 180C for 90 mins (maybe a bit less or a bit cooler as it rather dried out) - check and add more cider if necessary (I ended up using a full 500ml in the end)
  
• Uncover and add c.250g chopped rhubarb and cook for another 15 mins until the rhubarb's tender.
• Remove the pork to rest and discard the chilli. Then bubble the sauce gently on the hob, adding a bit of cold chopped butter to make it smooth.

The resulting sauce was quite stunningly tasty and really had quite a chilli kick. Served on top of the lovely tender pork belly (we only ate about 2/3 of the meat, but all the sauce) along with some spring greens and beans, it was absolutely top!

21 March - scrambled eggs and garlicky greens

I started today with my first attempt at scrambled eggs in a microwave. Although the apartment does have a small hob, there's only one rather large pan, so I thought I'd try my hand with the microwave instead. The result - actually, not bad scrambled eggs after a good bit of stirring.

Knowing the lack of interesting lunch options at the conference centre, I picked up some couscous salad in Sainsbury's on my way in to see me through another busy day. Then it was out again for the evening, this time for supper with a fellow freelancer and an in-house editor who we've both been working for. Luckily the editor is based in Glasgow so was able to take us somewhere a bit different, in the trendy West End. It actually turned out to be a Zizzi's - a familiar chain, but actually quite a funky location. I went for roast pork belly, which was lovely and tender, and better still was served on a huge pile of garlicky spring greens - who says the Scots don't do veg!!!

17 March - roast chicken and the last cavalo nero

I dug up the last of the cavalo nero on the terrace today to free up the container for some new spring planting. It had rather gone to seed, but I managed to get enough decent leaves to put it together with some spring greens to make a 'mixed greens' side to go with some roast chicken. I did the chicken in a bigger roasting dish than usual to make space for some roast carrots, which turned out to be a bit too big for making up the gravy so that it came out tasting rather 'watered down' - will go back to the old dish next time.

11 March - a warm salad and more chicken

Lunch today was a nice warm, tasty salad of potatoes, spinach, tomatoes, red pepper, a bit of chorizo and a poached egg.

I had the usual issue with cooking/shopping for one - I got yesterday's chicken thighs in a pack of four, so I was left with chicken again for supper. Trying to come up with something that would be quite different, I made some chicken and chickpea stew with spring greens. It's a Sophie Grigson recipe that involves putting some of the greens in the stew itself, then frying up a few leaves finely shredded to go on the top. It's a bit of a faff, but the crunchy topping is quite fun and less tricky with such a small amount.

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.

15 May - pork with creamy mushroom sauce

To finish a meaty weekend, I cooked pork loin steaks with a creamy mushroom sauce. I fried the pork, slightly coated in flour, in a bit of oil and butter. When just about cooked, I transferred it to the oven to keep warm, then fried sliced mushrooms and some sliced garlic in the same pan, added a good slurp of Marsala, let it bubble down, then added half a small pot of single cream. Not forgetting to add the juices collected in the dish the pork was warming in at the last minute. It's a favourite sauce combination and as usual, it was really tasty. Served with some new potatoes, asparagus and the last of the spring greens.

12 May - roast veg salad and garlicky chicken

When I was making the pasta last night, I bunged some bits of pepper and courgette that I wasn't using in the sauce in the oven to roast and I had them as a roast veg salad for lunch today, combined with some cherry tomatoes and served with some new potatoes and a few slices of mozzarella.

For dinner, it was another Nigel Slater favourite; chicken thighs browned in a frying pan with a little butter and some oil, then turned down, covered and cooked very slowly over a low heat for about 30-40 mins with some whole cloves of garlic and some thyme leaves. Then I took out the chicken, poured off most of the fat, put the pan back on a high heat and poured in a good slurp of white wine. I let it bubble, scraping up any bits from the pan and squashing the soft garlic cloves. Usually, I add a bit of butter at the end to make a really rich sauce, but today, still on a health drive, I just added a squeeze of lemon juice and poured it over the chicken - less rich, but lovely and sharp and garlicky. No potatoes tonight either, just a plateful of veg; spring greens (from the vegbox), asparagus and a few green beans.

4 May - bread & cheese and chicken noodles

A few months ago a new bakery opened just a few doors down from us tucked away on the little back lane the runs along one side of our house. It's called Hart's Bakery and it's a one-woman operation run by baker, Laura Hart. I don't eat a huge amount of bread, but I like to support local businesses, so I ventured in and I've been trying to go back regularly because the bread and the pastries are really good. This morning, I got a wonderful wholemeal and sesame sourdough loaf and had a couple of slices for lunch with some melted goat's cheese and a bit of salad on the side - yum!

For dinner I used up the last of the cold chicken along with the remaining spring greens in an Asian noodle soup.

• Simmer c. 750ml chicken stock with a smashed stalk of lemongrass and half a chopped red chilli.
• Then add the shredded chicken and season with a dash of dark soy sauce, a small splash of Thai fish sauce and a small squeeze of lemon juice.
• Boil some noodles as per packet, then drain and stir through a dribble of toasted sesame oil.
• Steam the finely shredded greens.
• Pile the noodles in the bottom of deep pasta bowls and pile on some of the greens.
• Stir in some chopped mint, coriander and Thai basil into the "soup" and pour it over the noodles and greens.

It could perhaps have done with a bit more 'soup', but it was wonderfully tasty and fresh.

2 May - Sri Lankan greens, dahl and rice

Trying to come up with a way to use up the rest of the spring greens from Saturday, I found a Sri Lankan recipe for 'spring onions and greens with coconut milk' from High Fearnley-Whittingstall in Saturday's Guardian magazine. I used coconut cream instead of milk simply because it comes in a smaller carton and I didn't want to open a whole tin of coconut milk just for a splodge.

2 cloves garlic - sliced
bundle spring onions trimmed, left in big chunks
150g spring greens - shredded
1tsp curry powder
c.150ml coconut cream

Gently sweat the garlic in some groundnut oil for a couple of minutes in a large pan. Add the spring onions and fry for a couple of minutes, then add the greens and stir until they're wilted. Then stir in the curry powder and add the coconut cream and simmer for five minutes.

As the greens didn't seem quite substantial enough on their own and I wanted to stick with the healthy, veggie theme, I made up a bit of dahl to go with them using a favourite Keith Floyd recipe (from Floyd's India):

100g red lentils (rinsed and soaked in cold water for an hour)
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin seeds
a red onion, finely chopped
one garlic clove, crushed
grated ginger (about equal to the garlic)
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tin tomatoes

Cook the lentils with the turmeric and some salt in just enough water to cover until they've absorbed most of the water. Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan, add the cumin seeds and then the onions and fry for a few minutes. Stir in the ginger and garlic with the chilli powder, then add the tomatoes and mix together. Finally add the lentils, mix it all together and simmer gently until you're ready to serve.

With some simple basmati rice, the whole thing made a really tasty, substantial meal. The greens had a lovely subtle creamy flavour, although they were perhaps a bit crunchier than I'd like and I wonder if shredding them a bit more finely would have been better.

30 April - roast chicken and a broken timer

The culinary news of the day was less about the food and more about the sad demise of my timer. It was a frankly rather naff plastic timer in the shape of an apple, but it was given to me as a birthday present by a friend a couple of years ago and I've become rather attached to it. So when I twisted it round rather absent-mindedly as I was cooking dinner this evening, I was horrified to hear the crack of plastic and find half a timer in each hand! I did try and fix it back together again, but a couple of little bits had snapped off inside, so it was RIP apple timer!!

Back home again, we've started a new 'regime', to try and lose a few extra pounds gained over the winter and no doubt not helped by the frequent eating out over the past week or so. It was roast chicken for dinner, but rather than slathering it in butter as I usually do, today it was just drizzled with olive oil, a scattering of thyme leaves and a squeeze of lemon juice - with one half of a lemon stuffed inside the bird, the other thrown into the roasting tray. Then halfway through cooking - estimated without the aid of my timer! - I threw some unpeeled and slightly squashed garlic cloves in too ... I've learnt not to put them in from the start because they just dry out and burn to a crisp.

When the chicken was cooked, I took it out to rest, poured the oil out of the roasting tray, then popped it on the hob. I added a slurp of wine, stirred up the sticky bits from the bottom, squeezed the lemon and the garlic cloves and let it all bubble up to make a wonderfully rich, sharp gravy. Served with boiled new potatoes and some spring greens, it tasted every bit as good as the usual buttery version.