2 February - squash soup, pork bolognese and wonderful rhubarb

There's been a large squash hanging around for weeks and the last chunk was starting to go a bit mouldy, so I finally used the last of it up in some soup for lunch. I roasted the squash, then added the flesh to some sweated onion in a pan, added some chicken stock and liquidised the whole lot before adding a slurp of cream. With a few bits of fried bacon on the top, it actually wasn't too bad.

I went back to Ruby & White as they'd said they'd put some pork mince aside for me today. As usual though, I somehow managed to come away with more than I really wanted. I was going to use half and keep the other half for something else, but then I was a bit late getting started on dinner and in my rush to get it going, I dumped all the mince into the pan - d'oh! So rather than using up the half a tin of tomatoes I'd specifically kept from yesterday, I had to open a new tin and we ended up with more bloody leftovers! The pork bolognese recipe from my Mum was quite simple and not much different from my usual bolognese - apart from substituting pork mince for beef and red wine instead of white. It was quite nice though and made a little bit of a change.

I'd wanted to keep the pasta portions small because I had plans for pudding. With a bit of a glut of milk in the fridge, I made some rice pudding and also cooked up some lovely new season rhubarb, using a recipe from the weekend Guardian. You bake the rhubarb with some sugar, dessert wine and vanilla - with some chopped pistachios sprinkled on top it was absolutely delicious and great with the creamy rice pudding!

9 January - spicy chicken with dates

This one-pot dish was in the Saturday Guardian magazine - you cook the chicken with rice, lentils and spices, adding dates towards the end. I added a sliced red pepper at the beginning to give it a bit of built-in veg and it went quite well. I used four dates each, which I think was perhaps a bit much as they're quite sweet - I'd be inclined to use fewer dates and maybe chop them up if I did it again. It was a bit tricky to get the rice cooked through without it sticking, but otherwise, it was pretty easy and a really tasty super.

30 December - bruschetta and slow-roast lamb

When I had the oven on to cook the salmon yesterday, I popped some peppers and squash in to roast at the same time. I had both today on some bruschetta for lunch with a bit of goats cheese - mmm!

For dinner, I decided to try out a slow-roast lamb recipe I'd seen in the Guardian magazine a few weeks ago where you coat the lamb in yoghurt spiced with ras al hanout (the Moroccan spice mix usually used in tagines) and cook it long and slow with red wine and sliced onions. I slightly miscalculated my timing and put it on earlier than it should've been - I didn't think it'd matter too much with a 4-hour cooking time. Towards the end, I probably should have checked it a bit more, but was distracted by other things and was rather annoyed to find when I finally took it out that it'd completely dried out, so that the onions had shrivelled and burnt and there was no sauce left in the dish to pour over the meat. So all in all, the meat was a bit dry and disappointing. We had it with some couscous and a bit of roast aubergine and pepper and some extra yoghurt on the side. Not bad, but not as tasty as it should've been.

9 November - warm mushroom salad

Waiting in for a plumber today who was due to be coming between 1 and 2, so rather than get caught in the middle of cooking, lunch was just a quick bit of toast and the rest of the pate.

It was Book Club tonight with an autumnal food theme, so I made a warm mushroom salad with lemon ricotta; a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe I cut out of an old Guardian magazine. I got a couple of huge portobello mushrooms, which I sliced, some chestnut mushrooms and a handful of wild mushrooms, which together with shallots, garlic and a big pile of herbs came out really tasty and went down well with the girls.

6 October - a jacket potato and a hot lamb salad

It's feeling distinctly autumnal now, so a nice hot jacket potato seemed perfect for lunch. I made an avocado left from the other night into a basic guacamole to dollop on the top and topped it with some bacon - proper bacon, that is, from the butchers, so there were nice crispy rinds to chew on too.

I'd bought a couple of big chunks of lamb neck fillet to make up another batch of curry for my Dad, but I had a bit more than I needed, so I cut off a length to have for dinner. I marinated it in some yoghurt with chopped mint and a squeeze of lemon juice, then grilled it and sliced it on top of a hot salad of spinach leaves, roasted cherry tomatoes and roasted red onion. I made up a yoghurty dressing to drizzle on the top (yoghurt mixed with some tahini). A really nice combination.

For pudding, I tried out a Nigel Slater recipe from the weekend's Guardian, some fresh figs baked with a drizzle of honey, then some ricotta mixed with yoghurt, icing sugar and fresh vanilla (that we brought back from Madagascar) dolloped on the top.

4 October - turkey patties with wasabi guacamole

Dinner tonight was from Yotam Ottolenghi in Saturday's Guardian magazine; turkey cakes with wasabi guacamole. It seemed like a bit of an odd idea - mixing turkey mince with grated courgette, egg and various herbs and spices into a rather gloppy mess in a bowl - but they came out actually very tasty. As I'm not a big fan of hot flavours (like horseradish and mustard), I went easy on the wasabi paste in the guacamole but left Tris to add a bit more to his. The recipe didn't suggest what to serve the little patties with, so I went for a spinach salad and a few homemade chunky chips - it worked well and is probably one worth repeating.

29 May - fried haloumi & steak and mushrooms

There were various bits and pieces in the fridge, but it took me a while to decide how to combine them for lunch. In the end, I went for fried haloumi cheese based on a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe cut out from an old Guardian magazine - I used his haloumi coating and salad dressing which do complement each other perfectly. The haloumi is simply sliced and then coated in a mix of flour and paprika and fried very briefly - less than a couple of minutes each side - so simple, but the slight crispy coating really works. The salad dressing mixes a tsp of honey, the juice of half a lemon, a crushed garlic clove and some olive oil, whisked together. Our salad was some lamb's lettuce and pea shoots, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and sweetcorn. The salty haloumi and sharp lemony dressing taste fabulous together!

Dinner matched some portobello mushrooms from the vegbox with fillet steak - another great combination! The mushrooms were baked according to the Jamie Oliver recipe I did the other day, but without the goat's cheese this time. So the mushrooms are coated in a mix of thyme, garlic, chilli, lemon juice and olive oil, with a few more slices of garlic stuck into the top, dotted with butter and baked for 15 mins. Served with simply fried fillet steak, some spinach and potatoes.

11 April - asparagus & miso chicken

Today saw a classic combination for lunch and a new recipe for dinner. With the arrival of English asparagus in the shops, I couldn't resist a Spring lunch favourite; asparagus with parma ham and a handful of new potatoes. On a busy working day, I didn't really have the time or patience to make any fresh garlic mayonnaise to dip in or hollandaise to pour over, so I went for a simple poached egg on the top instead. Trouble is I was so busy arranging the ham and asparagus on the plate ready for a photo call, I slightly overcooked the egg and the yolk didn't quite ooze as it should. Note to self, don't let keeping a record get in the way of the cooking or eating!

For dinner, I was tempted to go for another old favourite, but prompted by what I said in the intro to this blog about trying new things, I opted for a recipe I'd spotted in Saturday's Guardian magazine for dinner - Yotam Ottolenghi's miso chicken. I was a bit surprised to find the key ingredient, sweet white miso paste in my local Sainsbury's and the whole thing was pretty easy to make - just mixing up the marinade mid-afternoon and then leaving the chicken until the evening and bunging it in the oven. I didn't go for the accompanying Asian slaw, because I'm not really a fan of raw cabbage, so we had it instead with a few boiled new potatoes and some wilted spinach.

The verdict - well, as someone who doesn't eat chicken skin, I rather missed out on some of the miso coating, but what I managed to scrap off was very tasty and Tris gave it a thumbs up. So it might be one to go for again, perhaps with a variation on the Asian slaw next time to add a bit more punch. Now I've just got the rest of the packet of sweet white miso paste to use up in something else ...