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.

9 March - a jacket potato and leftover chilli

I got some baking potatoes in today's vegbox, so lunch was a good old-fashioned jacket potato with tuna mayo and a big pile of salad on the side - can't be beaten!

Tris has gone away for the weekend, so it was a solo supper of some of the leftover chilli con carne, this time with sweetcorn fritters. The chilli was possibly even better for being a few days old and the fritters were yummy as usual.

14 September - pork with creamy chanterelle sauce

We're off on holiday at the end of the week, so I'm trying to make the most of the last few veg on the terrace. Lunch was another couscous salad, with some smoked salmon flakes and homegrown beans and tomatoes.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon, so in-between chores, I wandered up to a nice veg shop in Clifton that I'd spotted the other day had lots of wild mushrooms. I came home with a bag of yellow chanterelles and a tall spike of cavalo nero that poked out of the top of my backpack and raised a smile in Ruby & White on my way home getting some pork loin steaks.

I fried the pork steaks until nice and brown on each side, then popped them in the oven to finish off. I then used the same pan to gently fry a shallot, added the chanterelles, followed by a glug of white wine. I bubbled it down a bit, added some double cream, bubbled a bit more and poured the sauce over the pork. With some potatoes and the cavolo nero, it tasted wonderfully autumnal.

7 September - Moroccan chicken

I had a fantastically tasty salad for lunch today; new potatoes, fried chorizo, homegrown tomatoes and beans, some fresh cooked beetroot, a few strips of roasted pepper and a poached egg. The red chorizo-flavoured oil, mingled with the oozy egg yolk and the purple beetrooty juices all came together in a perfect, vivid puddle in the bottom of the dish to mash the potatoes into!

We had lemony Moroccan chicken for dinner with couscous and some cubes of roasted squash. Tasty, but again a bit rushed and it could've been cooked a bit longer.

18 August - homegrown tomatoes and a rabbit burger

The tomatoes on the terrace are ripening nicely and I'm now picking a good handful every couple of days. They've been building up a bit, so today I had a nice big Nicoise salad for lunch with lots of tomatoes, some green beans and some fancy tuna from a jar instead of a tin. The tuna was quite nice; a kind of halfway house between tinned and fresh.

This evening, we had an easy meal out at Deco Lounge, just round the corner. They always have good specials and today they were even more interesting than usual. I had a rabbit and pancetta burger! I have to say it tasted more porky/bacony than it did really of rabbit, but it was still really nice and a bit different.

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.

18 July - a warm tomato salad and chorizo & broad bean "paella"

There was another handful of tomatoes ready to pick today, so I used them in a favourite warm tomato and basil salad. I have to admit that the home-grown tomatoes have been slightly less impressive than the other veg, with slightly thick skins and not quite as flavoursome as I'd hoped. This treatment just softened them slightly and brought out their sweetness perfectly. I warmed a good pool of extra virgin olive oil in a small pan and gently fried a couple of chopped spring onions (I usually use a shallot, but didn't have any), with some thinly sliced garlic. Then I added a squeeze of lemon juice, a splash of vinegar (I used raspberry vinegar today) and a pinch of salt, followed by the tomatoes - chopped in half - and a few shredded basil leaves. Just stir them around for a minute or so and then tip onto a plate with a few new potatoes and some mozzarella - yum!

For dinner, I cooked up some chorizo and broad beans with paella rice. Just a chopped onion and a couple of cloves of sliced garlic fried gently with some sliced cooking chorizo so it releases its red-orange juices, then a cup of paella rice stirred in with a few threads of saffron. I gradually added chicken stock until the rice was cooked, adding a few peas and chopped green beans (literally just a couple from the garden), then a nice big pile of broad beans and some chopped parsley. Simple, tasty and comforting on another damp evening.

12 July - chickpea salad and a fruity chilli

Lunch today was a chickpea salad with goats cheese. I mixed half a tin of chickpeas with a grilled pepper cut into thin strips and a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic and chopped parsley ... oh yes, and a few more tomatoes from the garden.

For dinner I was going to try out a recipe I saw on a TV cookery programme the other day. It was a version of chilli con carne on Channel 5's Mexican Food Made Simple. I checked the Channel 5 website - I found the episode which included the recipe, but not a list of exact ingredients or quantities. So when I went out to the supermarket, I dropped into Smiths and found the book to go with the series by Thomasina Miers. I had a flick through, but rather oddly, it contains a completely different chilli con carne recipe. Anyway, I gave it a go roughly based on the programme with a few changes:

• Roast a couple of whole tomatoes, a whole green chilli and a chopped onion, then whizz them together in a blender to make the base of the sauce.
• Brown about 100g each of beef and pork mince in a pan, then add the sauce.
• Stir in a teaspoon of cumin and a pinch of cinnamon, plus some fresh chopped oregano.
• Add about 250ml chicken stock, then throw in a chopped banana (yes, a banana!) and the corn from a fresh corn cob.
• Simmer for 20 mins, then add a teaspoon of smoked paprika and a little chilli powder (it could have done with a bit more).
• Simmer a bit longer, season and serve with rice.

The result was quite good, with some nice flavours, but not enough kick for a chilli.

16 June - broad bean salad and miso salmon with noodles

Lunch today was both beautiful and tasty - a whole supermarket bag of broad beans, podded, briefly boiled then slipped out of their skins, with some chopped tomato, then some chorizo briefly fried with some sliced garlic and parsley, all mixed together with a bit of oil and vinegar. Great colours and a really good lunch with a few new potatoes on the side.

I've had a pot of leftover sweet white miso paste in the fridge since almost the start of this blog. So I did a bit of online searching and came up with a recipe for salmon marinated in miso paste on the BBC Food website. I'd put a couple of salmon fillets in to marinate in the miso paste (I had about 150g left), c. 100g sugar, 100ml sake and 100ml mirin yesterday evening. You take the fish out and wipe off the marinade (which seems a terrible waste, but it's done its job). Then you simply place it on an oiled baking tray and pop it in the oven (180C) for about 10 mins, turning it over halfway through.

When it comes out, it looks fairly unexciting, but the flavours have definitely worked their way in and make a really tasty, but not overwhelming dish. I served it with some udon noodles, a pile of fresh peas and asparagus and a slice of lime, which worked really well squeezed over the salmon and noodles.

14 June - chickpeas with tomatoes and harissa

It was a lovely sunny day today, so both lunch and dinner were al fresco - hooray! It was a quick lunchtime favourite; peas and pancetta with linguine. Unfortunately, I wasn't really concentrating and undercooked the pasta.

This evening's dinner was from Sunday's Observer magazine; Nigel Slater's chickpeas with tomatoes and harissa. I roasted 8 medium tomatoes cut into 6 pieces each with a red pepper chopped into large chunks mixed with some olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar and a pinch of cumin seeds at about 200C. I left them to cook while I was on the phone and when I went back to check after nearly an hour, they were a bit charred around the edges - oops! I picked out some of the very blackened bits of skin and tipped the lot into a pan, added a splash more olive oil, a teaspoon of harissa paste and the chopped rind of preserved lemon and let it heat through. Meanwhile I cooked up some giant couscous that I came across in the supermarket the other day. Finally, I stirred some whole basil leaves into the chickpea mix. The stew was really tasty - the lemon and harissa really gave it a tang. I was a bit less convinced about the giant couscous; rather back to that frogspawn feel again!

11 May - with chives

I've got some fantastic chives growing out on the terrace, so today it was potato salad for lunch, just to make use of them! I made it with creme fraiche instead of mayo, just to be healthy, which was a bit uninspiring, but the chives made up for it. With some beetroot and egg salad to go with it.

Dinner was 'student pasta' - onion, pepper, courgette, some bacon bits and a tin of tomatoes all cooked up and served with pasta - more-or-less exactly the recipe I lived on as a student and still just as tasty.

18 April - figs & goats cheese and pasta again

On a beautiful sunny day here in Brighton, I had another lunchtime favourite; fresh figs and goats cheese, served with some walnut bread - mmm!

Then this evening, I had the challenge of trying to use up the ingredients I've accumulated this week, without just repeating the same combinations. It was pasta again, but this time with a tomato-y sauce. The last shallot fried slowly and gently in olive oil with a sliced red pepper, some garlic and a bit of that chunk of pancetta. Then I added a small tin of tomatoes and some fresh basil and let it bubble down. Still a few things in the fridge to use up tomorrow - my last day here.