28 July - frittata and fishy fish

At book club last night, a couple of friends were talking about frittata and the idea must've stuck in my head, so I whipped up something eggy for my lunch. I boiled a few sliced new potatoes, some peas and broad beans and popped them all in a frying pans with a few beaten eggs and some chopped mint. It all looked and smelled beautiful in the pan, but sadly, didn't make it onto the plate very elegantly! It still tasted good though and made a nice change for lunch.

I picked a lovely big pile of beans for dinner, they're almost growing quicker than we can eat them at the moment! I made the mistake of buying supermarket fish though. As I opened the packaging of my trout fillets, they turned out to be horribly slimy and I had a frustrating fight trying to skin them. I'm not great with raw fish at the best of times and by the time I'd cooked the trout (coated in herbs, breadcrumbs and lime zest and oven-cooked with lime butter), I'd really gone off the whole idea. The beans tasted great at least!

27 July - salad and lemon polenta cake

I've had some peashoots and a second sowing of spinach growing on the terrace and today there was just enough for a first picking. Together with some tomatoes, also homegrown, some green beans, broad beans, new potatoes and a bit of mozzarella, it made a great lunchtime salad.

This evening was Book Club and I was providing pudding, so I tried out the lemon polenta cake recipe I brought back from my cookery workshop.

It seemed to go down well, even with the girls who weren't meant to be doing pudding!

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.

25 July - hot chicken salad and plum tart

Dinner tonight's a Spanish-inspired hot salad; red onion, butter beans, green beans, tomatoes, sweetcorn, new potatoes, a bit of chopped chorizo and some hot chicken.

We got some lovely English plums in Friday's vegbox that I didn't get round to cooking over the weekend, so I make them into a favourite tart - another Nigel Slater recipe, from Appetite, and one of the very few times I ever make pastry.

• For the pastry put 90g butter and 150g plain flour in a food processor and whizz to 'breadcrumbs'. Add an egg yolk, 2tbsp sugar and just enough water to make a dough. Wrap in clingfilm and pop in the fridge.
• Make a caramel with 50g butter and 4 tbsp flour in a small ovenproof frying pan. Push the plums, cut in half and stoned, cut-side-up into the caramel.

• Roll out the pastry and lay over the plums, roughly tucking in the edges. Bake at 190C for about 45 mins.
• Leave to cool a bit in the pan before turning out.

It's sweet and naughty and even better served with a bit of cream!

24 July - haddock chowder and fillet steak

I'm not always convinced about fishy soups and stews, but there's something romantic-sounding about a chowder. This recipe for haddock and sweetcorn chowder is roughly based on a couple of different ones I found online and came out pretty well:

• Fry half a chopped onion and a few cubes of pancetta.
• Add a couple of new potatoes peeled and finely diced.
• Then add about 200ml vegetable stock and 225ml milk and simmer for about 5 mins.
• Add the corn from one fresh corn on the cob and simmer for another 10 mins.
• Finally add one small smoked haddock fillet cut into chunks and simmer another 10 mins.
• Season with parsley and cives to serve.

Dinner was fillet steak with some baked portobello mushrooms that came in the vegbox with garlicky buttered spinach and some chunky chips.

23 July - a packed lunch and pork with mustard sauce

Today we went out to the Forest of Dean for a bit of fresh air and countryside. We were quite late getting up, so rather than go looking for a pub lunch, we took a good old-fashioned packed lunch with us; tuna and sweetcorn mayo sandwiches in nice soft sliced bread with a packet of crisps - to be squashed into the sandwiches - and a flask of tea ... great! A lovely day and some fantastic forest walking too - although a less-than-flattering photo!

As we were back relatively late, dinner was straightforward meat and two veg, well, three actually; pork steaks with a creamy mustard sauce (a la Nigel Slater) with a big pile of green beans, carrots and broad beans.

22 July - Cafe Maitreya

This evening we were booked in for dinner at Cafe Maitreya. It's a vegetarian restaurant that we've been meaning to try for as long as I can remember, but because it's a taxi ride away on the other side of Bristol and we've got so many good places nearby, we never seem to get round to it. It's won lots of awards and came well recommended by friends, so I was quite excited about going.

I love my veg, but I was actually quite surprised when I checked back through this blog so far at how many actual vegetarian meals I cook. Looking just at main evening meals, over the past three and a half months, only 5% of my meals have been properly vegetarian. Another 14% have been predominantly veg, with just a bit of pancetta or chorizo added. 21% have been fishy, leaving a shocking 60% of meat-based meals!

Anyway, my verdict of Cafe Maitreya was a bit mixed really. My starter of courgette flowers stuffed with goats cheese was really nice and the wine, a South African chenin blanc, really stood out. But my main course had that rather 'mushy' texture about it that makes me think of nut roasts and baby food and often puts me off "vegetarian" dishes. It was described as "aubergine escalope", which was slices of aubergine fried in a couscous coating - not bad. But it was served with a rather large dollop of mushy, slightly sweet pepper and almond pate and rather too much sweet cherry sauce (even though it was described as 'sour' on the menu). By the end of which I just felt a bit sicky. Which was a shame as it was a really cool spot, with a nice atmosphere and really friendly staff. If it was nearer, I'd probably give it a second chance, but as it is, I don't think we're likely to spend 20 quid on taxi fares to get over there again.