3 February - tuna tataki

I used to get Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine every month - I've got a shelf of more than 10 years of copies! - but I gave up buying it when it changed to Waitrose Kitchen a couple of years ago and became not much more than an advert for Waitrose with a few basic meal ideas rather than properly interesting recipes. I picked a copy up the other day again though just to see if it had changed at all. They had at least stopped the annoying habit of naming Waitrose products in all their recipes, but it still didn't have a lot of real interest. The only exception was a few pages of Japanese-inspired recipes. This evening I adapted a recipe for seared tuna tataki salad, a starter, into a main course with stir-fried veg instead of the salad. You very simply roll a whole chunk of tuna fillet in a mix of toasted sesame seeds and salt, then sear it briefly before slicing it thinly and pouring over a dressing of soy sauce, pink grapefruit juice and honey.

It was very simple, but really delicious. I probably should have served it with rice or maybe some noodles, but I just had a fancy for chips. So I sauted some parboiled new potatoes and we had them on the side with some wasabi mayonnaise to dip them in (just a few dollops of mayo with some wasabi stirred in) - turned out to be an inspired combination!

10 January - soup and a winter stir-fry

I got jerusalem artichokes in Friday's vegbox, so today I made up a batch of soup for lunch. I think I added a bit too much stock, so it was a bit watery, but otherwise tasty, esp. with a dribble of truffle oil.

For dinner, I tried out a recipe from River Cottage Veg for a winter stir-fry with spring onion, carrot, parsnip, mushrooms and spinach, flavoured with chilli and garlic and a sauce of soy sauce, rice wine and five-spice. The recipe suggested 50g noodles for two, but as I drained them, I realised there was nowhere near enough, so everything was put on hold while I quickly did some more. I wasn't sure about the idea of stir-fried parsnip, but it actually came out okay. I was less convinced by the squeeze of lime juice that went on at the end - it completely overpowered all the other flavours.