24 November - spicy beef and noodle salad

After a week of rather uninspired and disappointing food, tonight I definitely got my culinary mojo back. I still had a pomegranate in the fruit bowl and somehow fancied it in some kind of spicy salad. With some spicy beef noodles I had at a roadside cafe in Phnom Penh in mind, I got a fabulous piece of beef fillet from Ruby & White - probably a bit bigger than intended and definitely a bit more expensive - but it turned out to be well worth it. I made a noodle salad of rice noodles with carrot, cucumber and spinach and a spicy Thai dressing from Jamie Oliver (of olive oil, sesame oil, lime juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, red chilli and fresh coriander). I fried the beef fillet in one piece and served it sliced on top of the noodle salad with pomegranate seeds sprinkled over the top. The beef was spectacularly good, really tender and tasty and with the cool noodles, sweet pomegranate and spicy dressing, it was exactly the combination I was after ...

... in fact, it was plate-lickingly good!

23 November - cheesy leeks and chicken with sumac

To use up a couple of leeks I blanched them, mixed them with some cheese sauce and a few bits of bacon and popped them in the oven for a bit. Tasty and warming.

For dinner I tried out a recipe from last weekend's Observer magazine for roast chicken with sumac. I bought some sumac powder for a recipe a while ago and have hardly used it since, so I thought I'd give this simple chicken dish a go. It wasn't wildly exciting, but with some cabbage and carrots, it made an interesting twist on a midweek chicken supper.

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.

21 November - mackerel salad and dahl

There was some mackerel left over from the kedgeree the other night and some roasted red pepper from last night, so today I made up a lovely bright mackerel salad with some new potatoes, cherry tomatoes and spinach, all in a mustardy dressing for lunch.

After last night's rich tagine, I went for a veggie dinner of dahl (a recipe from Floyd's India), spicy cabbage and rice. Dahl always looks a bit unappetising splodged on the plate, but with lots of lovely spices and just the right amount of heat, it was all much tastier than it looked.

20 November - lamb tagine with pomegranate

I got a couple of pomegranates in Friday's vegbox, so today I made a lamb tagine (using my usual recipe) and instead of figs or dates, added the final sweet touch with a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds. It was a bit messy getting the seeds out - and I ended up with bright red stains all over my white t-shirt! - but the final result looked great and tasted pretty good too.

I remembered to put the tagine on well ahead of time and let it bubble for almost two hours, so the result was meltingly tender and with some roasted squash and peppers and a pile of couscous, it was a great way to end the weekend.

19 November - a bad food day

I was feeling particularly uninspired and woolly-headed today and some disappointing food did nothing to lift my mood. We had bacon and avocado sandwiches for lunch, but although the bacon was good, the bread was a bit dry and the avocado not really ripe. Then I fell back on kedgeree for supper, but put in too large a pinch of cayenne to give it a bit of kick and ended up overpowering all the other nice comforting flavours ...

18 November - Culinara

There was some of the roast tomato sauce from earlier in the week in the fridge, so lunch was a quick dish of orecchiette pasta with the sauce and a bit of added bacon.

There aren't many Bristol eateries that we haven't tried, but until now we hadn't got round to visiting Culinaria - just 10 mins walk away. It's a small bistro with a short menu of carefully chosen food and interestingly, is only open over the weekend (Thu-Sun). It has a lovely atmosphere with friendly, interested staff, which was a great start. We both went for the fillet of brill with leek and saffron sauce, served with spinach, beans and new potatoes and it was, well, brill! To go with it we had an English wine by Limney - one we hadn't tried before but comes from Horsmonden, a village in Kent not far from where I grew up. Much like Chapel Down (from the same area), it was a lovely light wine with quite an elderflowery feel. I don't often go for a dessert, but having skipped a starter I finished off tonight with a lovely rich chocolate mousse. Culinara will definitely be added to the list of regular haunts.