This Week

Because my sweetheart was a sicky boy on the weekend Saturday night was just a large platter of nibbly things - mozzarella, parma ham, bread, salad - much like we'd had through the day

Sunday was toast and coffee, lunch was fish and chips at the Sea Cow (he was feeling a little better) and dinner was a bit of a disaster. I grilled the sausages, which as always, were lovely and I made lentils to go with them and there in lay the problem. I had found a packet of lentils du puy at the back of the cupboard and decided they would be okay so long as I cooked them a little longer than usual. So I added some red wine and bacon and fennel and simmered them and simmered them and simmered them. An hour later I abandoned hope - they were like well scented pebbledash. I also made a fabulous banana and walnut cake that lasted the week as a sweet treat in the lunch boxes

Monday - coffee and cereals all week for breakfast, cold sausage and salad for lunch, and Chinese for tea - tofu with chilli and soy, sea spice aubergines and rice

Tuesday - rice and aubergine for lunch, stir fry pork noodles for dinner - the trip to the Chinese supermarket created a mini theme to start the week

Wednesday - salad for lunch, dinner was an oddity. I had seen a recipe a few weeks ago for curing a piece of beef with salt and sugar and spices that intrigued me so I duly made up the mix and coated the piece of skirt and put it into the fridge for three days. The cure mix did its work and drew an extraordinary amount of moisture from the meat - by Wednesday it looked like road kill in city gutter slush after a week of snow. I washed it off, patted it dry and seared it briefly in hot olive oil. We had it thinly sliced with salad and crusty bread and it was okay - but odd. It would work well on an hors d'ouevres platter, or possibly with middle eastern things like baba ghanoush and olives (the spicing was coriander and cumin). I might use the rest shredded into a noodle salad with hot and sour dressing to balance the sweet and salty.

Thursday - I bought extra bread yesterday so we had cheese and mango chutney rolls for lunch and, using the spectacularly expensive courgettes as well as some aubergine, peppers, cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs we had roasted vegetable pasta for dinner

Friday - cold pasta for lunch and probably spinach omelette tonight