Pork and apple burgers, lentils and peas

It's been ages since I've posted to my food blog! I've been in Germany with Sam and we've been cooking all sorts of delicious things - trout en papillote; tagliatelle with fresh peas, asparagus tips, ricotta and mint; a Meditteranean fish stew with chilli and chorizo - so I've got a backlog of entries to write. I'm waiting for him to email me all the photos that I took on his camera.

Anyway, tonight (my first night back), I had two of these lovely pork and apple burgers from the butcher in the market. I didn't have any potatoes, so instead I had them with lentils (cooked up with onions, carrots, garlic and bay leaves) and freshly podded peas. Some 'chilli jam' from the farm shop set it off nicely. I also made a delicious rhubarb and strawberry stew, which I plan to feature in a cheesecake that I'm going to make for a friend's birthday next week.

Cupcakes!

These are Nigella Lawson's wonderful Burnt Butter Brown Sugar Cupcakes, which I made for a tea party. They are extraordinarily delicious. Recipe can be found here: http://esurientes.blogspot.com/2005/04/burnt-butter-brown-sugar-cupcakes_03.html

Chicken with tarragon, white wine and cream

Ironically I forgot to include the ingredient for which I decided to make this dish in the first place: my roast garlic purée! But it was still delicious. I browned the chicken legs in butter and olive oil in my trusty Le Creuset, then fried onions, mushrooms and garlic in the juices. Then I added the white wine, cream and tarragon leaves, returned the chicken to the pan, and simmered it all up with the lid on for 15 minutes or so. Lovely.

Chocolate apple betty

The first sweet thing to make it into my blog! I went round to a friend's house for dinner last night and brought this as dessert. Lucky that I took the photo before I went out, because it looked somewhat the worse for wear after 10 minutes' bumping over the cobbles in my bike basket!

This dessert was a real random mishmash of things that needed using up. First on the list were some apples that I'd bought at the organic stall in the market last Sunday, but which were already on their last legs by yesterday. I thumbed through my recipe books and found a recipe in Nigel Slater's 'Real Food' (a great book) for 'chocolate apple betty', which is like an apple crumble but with breadcrumbs and brown sugar instead of crumble, chocolate pieces dotted around the apple, and a mixture of melted butter and golden syrup poured over the top before baking for goood measure! In place of the breadcrumbs, I decided to crumble up the remaining three ginger cookies that I'd bought at the same organic stall and sprinkle them over the top. Apples, chocolate and ginger - what could be better? There weren't enough ginger biscuit crumbs to go round so I bulked it out with some of my granola from the farm shop, which is basically oats. Naturally, I retained the butter and golden syrup topping. We ate it with Haagen Dazs dulche de leche ice cream.

Between the two of us we polished off about two thirds of it, but my friend insisted that I take the rest back home with me, suggesting I have it for breakfast the next day. A nice idea, but it would take a braver woman than me.

Salmon and leek pasta bake

The warm Spring weather has vanished, and with it my appetite for fresh, summery meals. Tonight I fancied something homelier. I also needed to do something with a gigantic leek that had been in the vegetable drawer of my fridge for a rather long time. So I made this pasta bake with some smoked salmon from the farm shop. I bound it together with a basic cheesy roux and topped it with breadcrumbs (another leftover) and more cheese, then baked it in the oven for half an hour.

Roast tomatoes, roast garlic purée and roast red peppers on toast

A lovely way to use up the last of this loaf of bread. I slow-roasted the halved garlic bulbs and the cherry tomatoes for an hour and a half with rosemary (from Whewell's Court in Trinity, where it grows abundantly), then mashed up the roast garlic with some extra olive oil and salt. Each was then spread on its own slice of buttered toast and a third slice topped with the remainder of the Spanish marinated red peppers that I bought in the market on Sunday. Funny how I'm eating virtually vegetarian these days and barely noticing it.

Spaghetti with anchovies, cherry tomatoes and lemon oil

Writing this blog is already teaching me loads about the way I eat and the way I want to eat. One thing that's astounding is how quick all these fresh, summery meals are to prepare. I'm currently writing this as I wait for the spaghetti to cook - because there's nothing else to be done! All I need to do is toss in the anchovies, cherry tomatoes, lemon oil and basil leaves once it's drained, and there's dinner. It's almost ironic that I should have a plate on the table in ten minutes flat when, with no 9-5 job or family to feed, I have the freedom to spend as long preparing dinner as I like. But sometimes that's just what one feels like. Now I'm going to spend the rest of my evening knitting and watching a programme about the history of Ethiopia on iPlayer. And probably, as usual, absent-mindedly munching on a few squares of dark chocolate while I'm at it.

Fresh peas, ricotta, bacon and mint

Only 3 out of my 9 supervisees handed in their essays on time for me to mark this morning, so there seemed no point in rushing lunch. I sat on the balcony podding peas, then blanched them and ate them with grilled bacon, a dollop of ricotta cheese and a few sprigs of fresh mint, with a lemon-zest-infused olive oil as dressing. This lovely summery dish was Skye Gyngell's idea. I'm planning to try out more of her recipes now that the summer months are here.

Spanish delicacies on toast with purple sprouting broccoli

The Spanish stall was in the market today, selling macerated red peppers and soused anchovies in their lovely vinegary cure. I bought a little pot of each, and had them on toast for dinner along with a few cherry tomatoes and basil leaves and the last of the purple sprouting broccoli.

Spaghetti with purple sprouting broccoli, lemon and garlic

The trouble with cooking just for oneself is that one doesn't get through the food one buys quickly enough. Some way down the long list of 'Things I'm looking forward to about finally living with Sam' is not having to have the same meal three times in a row because I'm incapable of making a portion any smaller, or find creative ways of using vegetables that have been festering in the fridge too long.

That said, I'm not really regretting having bought a huge bag of local purple sprouting broccoli at the market last week. Tonight it made a very nice ten-minute supper, steamed for a couple of minutes over the pasta water and then fried in olive oil which I'd infused with lemon zest and sliced garlic. Halfway through eating it I remembered the basil plant whose scent competes amicably with that of the hyacinth on my kitchen windowsill, and which somehow I still hadn't got round to using since buying it almost 2 weeks ago. A few leaves of that, a generous squeeze of lemon juice and some parmesan finished it off.