Valentine's Day cosy supper in

Wow, it's been some time since I've blogged. I hate that. Everything else has just taken over a bit recently - I've got a new job, I'm working from home too, whenever I get the time and I guess it's just even harder to find the time to do this. I've not stopped eating and cooking though, so I've taken the photos of food I've eaten over the last ten days (not all of it) from my camera and I'll try and remember what, when and why I was eating...

Here's the first. This was our Valentine's dinner. It was seriously lacking some green - I think we were going to have salad on the side but we didn't quite manage it. I don't buy steak very often, but every time I do I think we should eat it every week. It's just the best taste in the world. I was trying to use a few pans as possible, so I griddled the flat mushrooms, onions and tomatoes, then kept them warm and griddled the steak. Meanwhile, the salad potatoes were simmering, then I lightly mashed them with a drizzle of olive oil and a big clove of garlic (this is fast-becoming my most used potato accompaniment - it's just so quick and easy and goes with everything). It was good. Then we had something else I hardly ever buy - chocolate ice-cream (Ben & Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie) - that was great too. I'd get bored of chocolate ice-cream if I had it every day (maybe) but when you don't have it for ages, it's even better than you can imagine. This may not have been the most romantic of meals, but we liked it.

Oily fish on a Sunday

On the last few Sundays we've had a salad with oily fish for lunch and it's felt good. Today, we had a proper lunch so only needed a snack for supper (particularly after our mega-meal last night). So we finished off the meat and veg left over from our steak fajitas yesterday with some delicious Waitrose organic brown bread and marinated herring, for the oily fish bit. I think this Sunday oily fish thing we've got going is pretty good - it'll keep our essential oil count up, anyway.

The best approximation of fajitas

The best fajitas are steak. There's no contest. It's just a great meal. We made ours today with onion, peppers, a courgette for some green, thin-cut frying steak, the juice of a lime, cayenne pepper and lots of garlic. They were great, as always. I'm sure they're not particularly authentic, but they're great just as they are, with salsa and flour tortillas.

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.

Boyfriend's Birthday Beef

This was my boyfriend's chosen meal for his birthday - organic steak with potato waffles and the obligatory tomatoes, mushrooms and salad (not pictured as it was in bowls, but as you can see we needed the green). And one of the best things about this meal was that only 2 pans were used. I love a good dinner with very little washing up. One pan was the roasting tin for the waffles - the other, a griddle. I started off with the steak in a hot griddle to get the chargrilled lines, flipped it over and added the tomatoes. When the steak was still rare I put it to rest in the warm grill (only warm as it was above the hot oven) while I cooked the mushrooms and let the tomatoes stay hot in the corners of the pan. When the mushrooms were done I served it up all with mustard butter. I wish I had the excuse to have expensive steak more often - I love it. Beef is best.