I'm back... with lentils, yes, you did read it right - lentils

I have decided to embrace the pulse. Having hated beans, chickpeas and the like ever since I became aware of Heinz's most popular blue-tinned product, I thought I would never see the day when I would actually like eating pulses. However, I'm trying to learn to like them and with this in mind, made a lentil salad today. Olive magazine landed on my doorstep this morning with a big thud and as I idly flicked through the pages of a mini-Italian recipes supplement, a salad caught my eye. Usually I'd see 'lentils' in the ingredients and immediately move on, but this time I decided to try it. It's a really easy recipe - green lentils from a tin, drained and rinsed (they flop out of the tin like rotten catfood), mixed with a quick salsa verde, a bit of chopped chorizo, roughly chopped charcoal-grilled artichoke hearts, and sprinkled with crumbled feta, cherry tomatoes and a drizzle more salsa verde. Easy. It was a bit too garlicky, and I can't pretend I love lentils yet, but pretty good. And it would make a nice extra for a picnic, if the torrential rain ever lets up.

I've not blogged for the past few months and I have missed it. I just needed a break - and I started a new job where I work pretty long hours so I haven't had the inclination or the energy to open my computer when I get home. I hope to keep it up though - I've missed documenting my meals. And I've just come back from Glastonbury, where a friend said I should have photographed my meals (mostly good, some very good, some bland or rubbish) and I realised the thought hadn't even crossed my mind - what a shame and what a wasted opportunity. Maybe next year.

A good English fry-up...

can rarely be beaten, except maybe by steak. Perhaps I should do an English breakfast with steak too - that would be cool. This was my fry-up this morning, which we had about lunchtime, so I guess I could call it brunch. As you can see, it has a fried egg, crispy sausages and ubercrispy bacon, grilled tomatoes (drizzled with balsamic vinegar for extra sweetness) and mushrooms and onions. I put a bit of cayenne pepper with the mushrooms and onions and a small clove of garlic for some extra kick. My other half had baked beans too, but I'm not a fan of them so I didn't. Neither of us like fried bread either, or black pudding particularly, so for my taste, all the basics were here. Maybe some potato waffles or chips would have been good too - but a bit unnecessary, I think. I had ketchup on the side, of course - how could you have a fry-up without Heinz ketchup? Impossible.

Monday salad and stirfry

It's been a healthy day today but god I could do with an unhealthy snack RIGHT NOW. After I'd been to the gym (yes, for the first time in 2007 - it was horrible) I had a slice of toast with wholenut peanut butter, then for lunch I made a salad with the rest of the spinach, watercress and rocket and some Sainsbury's mixed salad (I like the cabbage crunch), cherry tomatoes and carrots, a raw mushroom (haven't had one of those for ages), some of the obligatory pumpkin seeds (they'll be obligatory until I finish the packet and it's a big one) and a John West tuna with a twist, (the lime and black pepper version). It was nice.

But at about 5.00 I had to have two slices of toast with peanut butter - I was starving and cold, and I fancied comfort food, but a cup of tea hadn't helped.

I had quite a late supper of tuna steak, marinated with soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and ginger on stirfried veg with a dash of soy sauce and a dash of sherry vinegar in it to give it some flavour. It was tasty and I tried to make it more rare than I have before but to be honest I didn't really notice much difference apart from what it looked like. I think I prefer the lime and chilli marinade I've used on previous occasions, but it was worth trying. Bloody hell I'm starving. Can somebody find me a big chocolate cake please?

Saturday supper - a not-so-healthy meal

We spent most of this afternoon going through papers and cupboards and tidying as our flat needed a proper blitz. My dad rang in the evening and told me about two curries he's had recently - I was starving and that didn't help matters much. So we nearly got a takeaway to reward ourselves after all the work we'd done. But we had a Vietnamese on Thursday and we try not to have them too often, and reluctantly I cooked a pasta supper.

To save time I used a Sacla tomato and marscarpone sauce, which we had with extra onions, green pepper, courgette, garlic and a few halved cherry tomatoes. At the last minute, when I drained the wholewheat pasta (which I now prefer to white pasta, unless I'm making a cream-based sauce - I think you need something spicy to stand up to the stronger, more fibrous flavour of the wholewheat variety), I added a big load of cubed mozzarella (hence the not-so-healthy meal). I grated parmesan on the top and added a bit of black pepper. I thought it was a bit flavourless, but I've still got a bit of a cold so I hope that's why. It was big and warm though, which was just what we wanted.

Friday food (a) pork and pumpkin seed salad

For lunch on Friday I had this rather unappetising-looking meal - a cold pork salad. I'd defrosted the pork to have on Thursday night, but when I got round to cooking I really felt knackered and couldn't be bothered, and my boyfriend couldn't either, so we got a delicious takeaway from the local Vietnamese (singapore noodles, crispy beef and squid in tamarind sauce). But I'd defrosted the pork, so before I went to bed I cooked it up with some onions and garlic, a touch of sherry vinegar and soy sauce and, after cooling, left it in the fridge for the next day.

So, I had half the pork/onion mixture for lunch on Friday with a pack of Sainsbury's crispy salad, sprinkled with pumpkin seeds and pinenuts, some cherry tomatoes (I have no idea why I arranged them around the plate 70's style) and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil and balsamic vinegar. It was big, quite filling, and tastier than it looks.

NYE supper of prawns and Dover sole

Wow, our brains are going to be healthy in 2007 with this amount of seafood. We had an early supper to line our stomachs and allow enough drinking time. The starter was big prawns, simply cooked with garlic and ginger (see them in the pan below), served with a bit of the bread from the day before to mop up the juices and a squeeze of lemon. They were meaty and so, so tasty. Prawns (and scallops) are easily my favourite seafood - not the tiny, flavourless supermarket prawns, but big, fresh prawns like these that pack a bit of a punch.

For mains we had our big Dover sole, grilled with lots of butter and dismembered by me (sorry - I forgot to photograph it before I served the fish on our plates) with lightly mashed new potatoes smothered in garlic and olive oil (I'd chopped the garlic earlier in the evening and left it in the olive oil to flavour it and save time later - I was quite proud of that trick!), simple leeks and I thought I'd add some colour by finishing off the cherry tomatoes with a bit of balsamic vinegar.

We didn't have any pudding - having had a load more to drink and danced around we just forgot, I think, although we had bought some cheese to nibble on later.

Scallop and bacon salad - healthy?

This was our scallop and bacon salad. It felt pretty healthy. I love the contrasts of delicate scallops with crispy, salty bacon and salad. Just thinking about it is making me hungry.

Veggie pasta supper

On Thursday night we'd had a big tapas meal with my family, and we guzzled a lot of Spanish wine. The tapas included bruschetta with smoked salmon, white anchovies and pimento pepper, asparagus wrapped in proscuttio, marinated garlic cloves, king prawns wrapped in bacon, then in a sliver of courgette, served hot, meatballs in a tomato sauce, omlette and new potatoes lightly mashed with lots of garlic and olive oil. Sadly, I didn't take any photos, and I was far too drunk to blog about it later. But we had lots of the tomato sauce from the meatballs left over and I took this away with us for a quick supper. On Saturday night we had it, with aubergine, red onion, yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes, more garlic and penne pasta. Very filling.

Boxing Day lunch

This was a 'light' (hehe) Boxing Day lunch, in anticipation of this evening's turkey curry. It's a massive platter of seafood salad - and no, this wasn't all for me - it fed six people, with seconds. The salad contained romaine lettuce and mixed, locally grown salad leaves, cucumber, tomato, avocado, a few sundried tomatoes and marinated garlic cloves, smoked trout and smoked mussels from the local farmers' market and tuna and was served with wedges of lemon and mum's homemade bread rolls.

It's twenty to five and I'm still stuffed and have no idea how I'm going to find the space for some of my brother's turkey curry tonight. Let's hope it's a late one.

Salmon fishcakes from The Barnsbury Grocer

This morning we went to visit our local butcher to buy a joint of beef for the weekend - more on that later. Caught in a massive thunderstorm, we ran home to drop the meat off in the fridge. It was incredible, two minutes later the rain had cleared, so we thought we'd go to the Barnsbury Grocer to get some cheese and other bits. We wanted quail's eggs, for a change, but they didn't have any. But we got some interesting looking, oblong white bread, some brie and some hard sheep's cheese, a few feta-stuffed chillis (creamy, with a delayed kick - lovely).

We were going to leave it at that, when we saw some salmon fishcakes in a dish in their fridge. They looked lovely - all fat and filling - so we got two each. When I got round to cooking them (shallow fried in olive oil for about five minutes on each side) I realised one each was easily enough - partly beacuse that's all that would fit in the pan. I simmered some green beans, then drained them in a colander, slipped some cherry tomatoes into the warm pan with a touch of olive oil to warm through, then mixed them with the beans and some wild rocket to made a pretty, warm side-salad. And wow, the fishcakes were fantastic - that sort of fresh, quick, good-quality, ready-made food just can't be beaten.

Another prawn stirfry

It was about 9.00pm and we'd just got in and were starving. We needed fast, tasty, hot food - and within about 6 minutes we were eating this steaming hot, healthy prawn stirfry. We shared a block of sharwood's fine egg noodles, bubbled in boiling water for 3 minutes, cooked up a sainsbury's stirfry pack with extra broccoli, the end of a yellow pepper and some old and slightly squidgy cherry tomatoes, a pack of wonderful Taste the Difference king prawns, and a sachet of blue dragon chow mein sauce. My boyfriend cooked it all too - just lovely.

Sweet chilli prawn salad

After consuming much more pâté than we had intended - it was just so moreish - we needed something fresh and zesty for our Sunday supper, and we had some big prawns in the fridge which we fancied eating. So I made this quick and easy salad with baby spinach leaves, halved cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced organic carrots, sliced yellow pepper and the prawns scattered artistically, I hoped, over the top. I made a tangy sweet chilli dressing (about 2 teaspoons of Blue Dragon sweet chilli dipping sauce, a couple of dessert spoons of sherry vinegar, about 4 dessert spoons of olive oil and some seasoning), poured it over and got stuck in. Lovely.

Insalata Tricolore - Zizzi, 73-5 Strand, WC2R 0DE

Well, we've just returned from a bloggers' lunch to welcome a new colleague at Zizzi's on the Strand. There were seven of us in all, and we had 4 pizzas, a calzone, a pasta dish and a salad between us. Mine was the salad - an insalata tricolore. It looked lovely - green and healthy, with cherry tomatoes, slices of avocado and tiny balls of mozzarella nestled in the spinach leaves and a pesto dressing. But I was slightly disappointed with the amount of mozzarella - I think I had six miniture balls - not really a main-course size. The avocado was all perfectly ripe - which was very welcome - but it was slightly flavourless; there were plenty of halved, sweet-tasting cherry tomatoes, but there wasn't anything like enough pesto dressing. All-in-all it was fine and looked pretty, but it wasn't anything to write home about. And by the end of the meal everyone else was stuffed, but I was still feeling a little peckish - that'll teach me not to choose a salad next time...

Oh, also, they got my order wrong and brought me a crayfish and snowpea salad instead of the tricolore, so I had to wait several minutes for my meal while my fellow diners were tucking in. This was unfortunate - we'd all had to wait an inexplicably long time for any drinks or food to arrive. I wasn't too bothered about it, as these things happen, but I thought they could have made a better salad as I'd had to wait so long for it.

The Barnsbury, 209-11 Liverpool Road, N1 1LX

12/10/06

I have eaten here a few times before from the lighter bites section of the menu and it has been consistently fantastic. Twice I've had a stack of moist aubergine, mozzarella, beef tomato and portobello mushroom drizzled with pesto and garnished with a few sprigs of basil (it was so tasty the first time I couldn't wait to have it again) and I've also shared a crayfish pasta in a creamy sauce and some crunchy, perfect chips - all can be thoroughly recommended. As can the good value bar snack of 'chorizo al inferno' (two skewers of chorizo lapped with flames from booze in a dish underneath, accompanied by a couple of chunks of bread), although it would be helped if the liquor was more palatable than the paint-stripping, toxic variety which looks much nicer swirled with the chorizo juices than it tastes. Anyway, I went back again last night on a bit of a whim. Aware that I salivate regularly as I remember the aubergine stack, when I saw the 'turkish-style aubergine' starter on the menu I couldn't resist. And I'm glad I didn't. It was just lovely - a substantial slice of aubergine cooked to a squidgy texture, topped with a portobello mushroom and a mix of spices, tomato and unidentifiable veg, set on a plate prettily decorated with dabs of creamy sauce and chutney. We shared it and it didn't last long. While my boyfriend chose the scallop starter as a main course with chips (well presented and perfectly cooked), I decided on the herb-encrusted, English (local - woo-hoo!!) rump of lamb with fine green beans and sweet potato mash. I asked for it as rare as they would let me have it, and that's how it came. Wow. Beautifully tender, sliced halfway through to show the pink meat contrasting with the crispy exterior - just how I like it - on a pile of beans surrounded with a dark and rich balsamic sauce, it looked great and tasted even better. The sweet potato mash was a little too thin and smooth for my liking, but the flavour melded with the lamb, sauce and beans very nicely. All in all, it was delicious. I was seriously full and couldn't even finish my boyfriend's chips... unusually for me. And we had a fresh and fruity bottle of Sauvignon Blanc which went down well, particularly with the scallops, and wasn't too budget-busting at around £14. The only annoying thing was that our section of the restaurant was too dark to really see the food (or photograph it successfully - we only had a 2 megapixal camera phone with us). But I won't let that stop me going back. The Barnsbury is not cheap, but it serves top gastro-pub food with charming and friendly service. Mmmmm. Yum, yum.

Sweet and Spicy Sunday

10/10/06

On Sunday I realised the fridge was almost bare. I had to go shopping but I simply couldn't face it. I also knew we had some big cooked prawns that needed eating and some fruit left over from my fruit basket. It was like Ready Steady Cook - what can I make with what I've got? We were starving so I decided to concoct something simple, sweet and spicy - and fast. I sliced a yellow pepper and stir-fried it with slightly old and floppy pak choi and fresh ginger in some chilli-infused olive oil. Meanwhile I chopped up a few rounds of the big pineapple and the end of a pack of cherry tomatoes (I didn't have a lot to work with!). I squeezed the juice of a lime and poured it in to the wok, adding the prawns, pineapple and cherry tomatoes to warm through and a pinch of crushed chillis at the same time. It smelt and looked surprisingly nice, but it needed something else, and I suddenly knew where I was headed - a South Asian-inspired soup. I sloshed in half a can of coconut milk, grated some nutmeg on the top and some black pepper, left it simmering for a couple of minutes and voila! It was ready. It may have been hastily shoved together from a mishmash of fridge and cupboard ingredients, but it was delicious. I knew I should get my camera to record its colourful prettiness, but I'm afraid I couldn't wait to eat it. Yes - my greed won. I am ashamed. Next time, maybe I'll have the willpower to wait...