22 November - uninspired

After spending an uninspired five minutes hovering in front of the supermarket fresh soup section trying to choose something for lunch, when I got my pot of soup home, I didn't really fancy it. I decided to fall back on tuna and sweetcorn mayo with pasta, but once the pasta was cooking and I'd opened the tin of tuna, I realised the jar of mayo I had in the fridge was one I'd decided I didn't really like because it was too vinegary and not very creamy... extra sweetcorn just about covered up the taste.

Equally uninspired about dinner, I went for fishfingers with mixed carrot and potato mash and some homemade beans (a tin of cannellini beans with some onion, garlic, tomato and herbs). All rather orange and okay, but it didn't really hit the spot.

14 November - pasta and baked squash

I picked up some out-of-season fresh peas in Waitrose this morning for a lunch of pasta with bacon, peas and cream - a bit against my usual seasonal principles, but sometimes you've just got to go with what you fancy!

Lacking inspiration, I was flicking through my folder of old recipes I've collected over the years and plumped for baked squash and corn with goats cheese by Jane Baxter from Riverford (who I get my vegbox from) I think cut it out from an old Guardian magazine. The baked squash is quite straightforward - just roasted cubes of butternut squash mixed with sweetcorn, garlic, chopped chilli and some goats cheese - but it's the pumpkin seed dressing that makes it worth digging out the recipe. You blend together:

• 40g toasted pumpkin seeds
• 1 clove garlic
• a chopped tomato
• a handful coriander leaves
• a chopped green chilli
• a splash of good olive oil

Served with corn tortillas, with the dressing drizzled over the veg mix, it's a really different, tasty supper with quite a kick.

15 August - pea & ham soup and harissa chicken

Yesterday evening, along with all my other baking, I made up a batch of fresh pea and ham soup for lunch today. Really nice to come home to after a busy morning before heading out again.

With lots of other things on my mind, I was feeling a bit uninspired about dinner. Tris had requested something "without meat or cheese" after he'd overdosed on both during his trip to Switzerland. I came up with some quick and easy harissa chicken together with corn on the cob and a nice big pile of spinach. It was really tasty, but by the time I went to bed I realised I was still a bit hungry after having no carbs all day.

7 August - vegetable Thai green curry

There's so much veg floating around the kitchen today, it really has to be a vegetarian dinner. Lots of it seems to be green, which by a process of association leads me towards a green curry! I use a Nigel Slater paste as my base, mixing up in a blender:

• a stalk of lemongrass (centre bit chopped)
• a couple of cloves of garlic
• some galangal from a jar in the fridge
• a shallot
• half a green chilli
• a handful of fresh coriander
• a squeeze of lime juice
• a splash of fish sauce

I fry up a chopped courgette and a couple of spring onions, then add the paste, some veg stock and a small tin of coconut cream. Then in go some sugarsnap peas, green beans and some fresh sweetcorn (just to add a bit of yellow). It all comes out as a fairly tasty bowl of flavoursome green stuff and the sauce doesn't overwhelm the individual flavours of the veg.

6 August - creamy chicken with leeks and sweetcorn

Tris is down in London for the weekend, leaving me with a whole vegbox of stuff to get started on alone! After a brunch of scrambled eggs on toast with a few tomatoes from the garden lightly fried, this evening, I cooked up what was originally a soup recipe into a creamy chicken stew with leeks and fresh sweetcorn.

• I gently fry/sweat a small chopped onion, some chopped garlic and red chilli, with a sliced leek and a few bits of bacon.
• Then I add some chopped chicken just to brown, before pouring in a slurp of cider (still leftover from the other day), followed by about 150ml chicken stock.
• I cut the corn off a fresh corn cob, add this and simmer the whole lot for about 20 mins.
• Towards the end, I add a slurp of double cream and some chopped parsley.

It makes rather a generous plateful (I'm too used to cooking for two!), with some new potatoes to mash into the sauce.