This is the life

To come in from a hard day's work to find a chicken roasting in the oven above a mirepoix of vegetables and some fluffy jacket potatoes - and be eating it all within half an hour - is ideal. The beauty was... it was all done for us by my kind mother. We'd gone back to my parents for the weekend and they'd gone out, leaving the food cooking for when my boyfriend, a brother and I arrived.

It was fantastic. We guzzled the moist and tender chicken (with crispy bacon on top), perfect spuds and a flavoursome mix of veg (onion, garlic, celery, parsnips, turnips and carrots, seasoned with black pepper and oregano). We also warmed a tin of sweetcorn for a bit of extra colour. Perfect. We had thought we'd get a takeaway but this was better by far.

And another veg stirfry - yawn...

Hmmm, I've had a lot of stirfries recently. This was another one, a quick veg one on Wednesday night before I went out. I also dipped some mini wholemeal pittas in fresh tomato salsa while I decided what to eat. I constructed a stirfry sauce with a dash of sherry vinegar, grated fresh ginger and soy sauce. I would have put garlic in it too but I was too lazy and rushed to get the chopping board out. Nutritious - look at all that spinachy stuff.

This pile of puke... isn't, thankfully, a pile of puke

It's a veg stirfry with thai green curry sauce. Well, Sainsbury's cheap equivalent. It was fine, but nothing to write home about - or blog about, really. I had the leftovers for lunch today. They were fine. I should have bothered heating them up, but I didn't.

Posher than usual stirfry with pork

I ate this tonight at supper and it was cooked for me as I sat around - bliss. Him indoors cooked us pork stirfry with Blue Dragon hoisin and garlic sauce and some Sharwood's egg noodles. He used a Chinese stirfry pack from Sainsbury's - more expensive than the bog-standard packs we usually get with a bit of shredded cabbage and carrot, but it had spring onions and mangetouts in it for added crunch and extra taste. Well worth the extra fifty pence, I'd say.

How did I forget about sausages?

Sausages are one of my favourite foods. And this is one of my favourite meals. I usually have it virtually every week in winter, so I'm not sure why I haven't cooked it for so long. I try not to think about what goes in to sausages, so in an attempt to minimise the rubbish we're eating I like to buy good quality sausages from farmers' markets and the butcher. Sadly, more often than not I find I don't manage it and end up buying them from supermarkets - but only their 'quality' ranges.

Rather surprisingly, a few years ago I did some taste tests with the three supermarkets near where I was living - Safeway, Tesco and Waitrose. After much testing, I found the Safeway range to shrink the least on cooking - an important quality in a sausage. And they had a great range of flavours. I thought the Waitrose range was a bit disappointing and they had very thick sausage skins which was rather unappealing, but I may have had higher expectations for their sausages than the others as their meat always seems to be good quality. I admit, I was never a big fan of buying meat in Tesco, although my brother always preferred Tesco to our local Safeway, but even he admitted the Safeway sausages beat the Tesco ones. Having written this, I'll probably find out they all are from the same supplier...

More recently, I tend to buy Sainsbury's taste the difference sausages as there are two Sainsbury's supermarkets nearby - and their Ultimate Pork Chipolatas are great. But on Friday night we cooked the packet of Taste the Difference Toulouse sausages that had been stinking out my fridge for a couple of days. I roasted them in a pan with a couple of red onions, some whole, unpeeled garlic cloves, a large carrot in batons, a courgette and most of a green pepper. They produced so much water I drained the pan a couple of times as I wanted the meal to roast, not poach - this was hugely disappointing as I'm sure they don't usually seem to be pumped with so much water.

As you can see, we had leeks in white sauce (with lots of grated nutmeg) as an accompaniment. The Toulouse sausages had a satisfyingly meaty texture and flavour and were stuffed full of garlic and herbs (unsurprisingly, after smelling them in my fridge). Despite the excess liquid produced, I like them. And as I said, I try not to think too much about what goes in them anyway. Maybe one day I'll make my own so I can be sure.

This has to be a meal I'd consider if I ever have to choose my own last supper, although I bet I'd probably forget it and choose steak instead.

And for lunch on Friday, I had...

Penne pasta with pesto, pinenuts and parmesan. And veg, but that doesn't begin with a 'p' so I thought I'd put that in the next sentence. Alliteration - every writer's friend. The veg included an onion, a courgette and a tomato. The pasta was brown, so I felt full for longer - I'm assuming I did as that's what you're supposed to find with brown pasta. I just like the more fibrous flavour and consistency, if you cook it al dente - a bit like brown rice versus white rice, as brown's just more interesting.

Anyway, I was full and felt better. I've got a cold at the moment, and as my mother always told me, 'feed and cold and starve a fever'. I tend to feed both, but I'm sure it doesn't matter.

Mmmm, veggie fajitas

This is just such a good, quick lunch. I suppose it's not really fajitas as it's not served on a sizzling plate with grated cheese and all the extras (is that what makes a fajita a fajita?), but it's warm tortillas wrapped around salsa, sour cream (or actually natural yoghurt, as it is here), warm veg stirfried with cayenne pepper, lots of garlic and sometimes some lime or lemon juice or chillis. Such nice flavours and there's something wonderful about eating a warm, soft tortilla, filled with hot and spicy food, from your hands with salsa and sour cream and the cooking juices running down your fingers. I gave myself a bit too much veg this time and it all collapsed a bit so I ended up eating it with a knife and fork and denying myself all that pleasure. It was still good though.

Update on the week's eating - Sat supper to today

We were out for dinner with friends on Saturday evening. We went to Mem & Laz, a cheap eaterie in Islington. I've only been there once before and had a fantastic aubergine nest for starters (around £3 or so - a large aubergine slice filled with roasted veg, covered with melted mozzarella) and fishcakes for mains (£6ish), and my boyfriend had a trio of deep-fried cheeses (perhaps mozzarella, brie and camembert) with cranberry sauce followed by sea bass, which came with virtually nothing at all.

We've now learnt to order the more middle-eastern food on the menu, particularly after our experience on Saturday, which really wasn't very good. I'd smelt someone cooking steak just down the road from the restaurant, so there was only one meal on my mind. They did cook it as rare as I'd asked for, which seems quite unusual these days, but it was lacking flavour and they served it with just a pile of average chips, a couple of mushrooms and a grilled tomato - no salad garnish or green at all and I felt I needed some. For £10 something, I'd expected a little better and I wished I'd had the stuffed aubergine. My boyfriend's prawn linguini was rubbish too (tasted like a Heinz shapes tomato sauce). The soup seemed ok, but could have done with some more bread, and my friend who had the kofta with rice seemed to have made the best choice as it looked good. I know to choose aubergine next time.

Sunday lunch wasn't a traditional one, although we did have it last Sunday too - a cleansing salad with anchovies, as pictured above, then another round of chicken fajitas in the evening, sadly not pictured. On Monday evening we had spaghetti bolognese, using a pot of bolognese from the freezer that I'd made on the lasagne evening last week. Tuesday, I was out for Vietnamese in Old Street with the girls. I had bun with prawns which was nice, but I thought it didn't taste of very much at all, and spring rolls to start, which were the same - maybe I was coming down with the cold I've got now.

Last night, I was out for drinks and we shared some nachos (not v. healthy) and I had some toast when I got in to soak up the booze, but couldn't sleep after that. Note to self - don't shove two slice of toast down you just before going to bed. These veggie fajitas were my lunch yesterday - there was a massive pile of veg (courgettes, peppers, onions and a few mushrooms). Oh, I think I'm going to have to have that for lunch again today, with a tortilla or two and heaps of salsa. So addictive.

Succulent roast chicken

On Sunday night we went to my parents' for roast chicken. I wasn't feeling very well so I had a smallish portion, although looking at it there it really isn't so small. I was really unhappy not to finish it, although the gannets around the table swooped on my discarded sausages and spuds as soon as I was finished. The chicken was so juicy and delicious there was no need of gravy and the mixed vegetables which had been roasted underneath the chicken (it was on a rack above the veg with the bacon slices laid across it) added the necessary meat juices and moisture. As you can see, we also had green beans and roast potatoes. Fantastic.

Late dinner of cold sausages and veg

Last night I went out for a couple of drinks with work people, then met my boyfriend in town. He'd already been home and cooked up some chipolatas (Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Ultimate Pork Chipolatas) which had been defrosting gently in our fridge. He grilled the sausages and stirfried some veg (onions, courgette, mushrooms, a green pepper, garlic) then left my portion in a covered bowl. So I got home about 11.30, a little worse for wear, and had this delicious meal waiting for me. Mmmm, I love cold sausages. I dipped them in some tzatziki and some salsa and added a bit of that to the cold veg for some extra flavour. Great.

This is what you need before a Saturday night out...

Something to line the stomach. Wholewheat penne - keeping you full for longer - a rustic-style tomato sauce with a bit of chilli, herbs and garlic, lots of veg to make it interesting (peppers, onions, courgette etc) and cubed mozzarella, added at the last minute so it's melting gently. What do you get? A delicious mass of filling, flavourful, warming food, served a little messily in a bowl for easy eating. That's home-cooking. And I didn't even crave pizza/kebabs/curry on my way home. Ideal.