Seared tuna steak with lemongrass, garlic and cherry tomatoes; new potatoes, broad beans

I got this lovely tuna steak from the fishmonger in the market on Sunday, intending to have it for dinner that night, but impromptu dinner invitations from friends on both Sunday and Monday nights meant that I couldn't eat it until today. It was still delicious though - seared on a hot griddle with chopped garlic, ginger, lemongrass and cherry tomatoes, with a good squeeze of lime juice to finish.

Mezze plate

Got these lovely soused anchovies, gigantes, houmous and harissa at the market yesterday. Another delicious summery lunch on the balcony to look forward to as I spent the morning ploughing through difficult philosophy of language essays. Thankfully the building works outside are now a lot quieter than they used to be!

Spaghetti with ham, broad beans, cherry tomatoes and crème fraîche

Another rambling, mixed-up 'whatever's in the fridge' type meal, thrown together with the ubiquitous garlic (a restrained two cloves this time) and lemon juice. As usual, I made enough for two people, then proceeded to munch my way through the whole lot (what you see in the picture is only the first helping...) I have an overripe mango which I ought to have for dessert, but can't bring myself to eat anything else just now.

Poached salmon, new potatoes, freshly podded peas, roast garlic

A pretty classic one, this. Had two friends round for dinner and we had this on the balcony in the evening sun with a glass of Trinity apple juice. Almost forgot to photograph it for the blog - hence the half-eaten photo!

Broad beans, bacon, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, basil, garlic, lemon

Today is Suicide Sunday, the beginning of May Week, which is traditionally spent drinking as much alcohol as is humanly possible. Needless to say that isn't so much my cup of tea (as it were), but I still spent most of the day drinking Pimms and eating strawberries in the Master's Garden at the TCMS Garden Party. And before that I went to a fair with some friends where I had a roast lamb wrap, a mezze plate and rather a lot of chocolate fudge. So come the evening I didn't really feel like eating anything much. A friend joined me for dinner and we made this lovely light meal with the broad beans and huge elephant garlic I'd just bought at the organic stall in the market. We blanched the chopped garlic along with the beans - a nice idea, although even less than the two minutes we gave it would have been better - then scattered it all over the salad, along with some torn leaves from my basil plant. A slug of olive oil and a good squeeze of lemon juice made it the perfect light meal for a summer's evening.

Grilled chicken marinated in garlic, lemon and rosemary

I picked some rosemary from my other source yesterday: the front garden of a house in a little street near me. For dinner tonight I put it in a marinade for some chicken fillets with plenty of crushed garlic and lemon juice/zest. A few minutes on the grill was all it took - then I served it with rice and asparagus.

Pasta with smoked salmon, asparagus and crème fraîche

I didn't think this simple supper would be worth posting on the food blog, but in fact it was one of the most delicious meals I've had in a while. (Well, actually, not that long, given the general standard of what I eat! But still.)

Not cheap, Marks and Spencer's smoked salmon, but it certainly is nice. I didn't really want it to cook at all, so I just threw it over the cooked conchiglie with a dollop of Taste the Difference crème fraîche (and I could). I then added the asparagus, which I'd steamed over the pasta water for the final couple of minutes of cooking. A good grinding of black pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, und es war soweit.

Bacon-wrapped chicken breasts stuffed with cream cheese, garlic and herbs

I needed to find a use for the cream cheese leftover from last week's rhubarb and strawberry cheesecake. (Sorry not to keep my promise to upload photos of that, by the way - the filling was extremely wobbly, so although it tasted amazing it looked a mess! Went all over the table when we tried to cut it.)

I remembered a dish my Mum once made which involved stuffing chicken breasts with cream cheese, wrapping them in bacon and baking them in the oven. So that's pretty much what I did, mashing some herbes de Provence, lemon juice and plenty of garlic into the cream cheese first. I had it with rice and the leftover grilled vegetables from lunch the other day, which I eked out with a tin of beans, some more fresh peas and the usual lemon juice and basil leaves - plus a few slices of chorizo as a random last-minute addition. It's rare that I cook a single meal without involving lemon these days.

A summery lunch on the balcony

A friend came round for lunch today, so I threw together this vegetably, summery spread of grilled aubergines, red peppers and onions (with garlic, basil and lemon) and a salad with fresh peas and cherry tomatoes. We had it on the balcony with fresh bread from the market.

Meditteranean fish stew with chilli and chorizo

Sam and I made this fish stew while I was visiting him in Cologne last week. We fried up onions, celery, garlic, chilli and chorizo, then added chickpeas, tinned tomatoes, red wine and fish stock (made from the remains of the trout en papillote from a couple of days before). At the end we added pieces of smoked mackerel. We ate it with German dunkelbrot and blanched cabbage with a squeeze of lemon juice. To say it was delicious would be an understatement.

Pasta with asparagus tips, fresh peas, ricotta and basil

As it says on the tin, really. The lemon-infused olive oil was a good addition.

Prawns with chilli, garlic and lime

I wasn't particularly hungry this evening after the piled-high plate of pasta I had for lunch. Plus I made an utterly delicious rhubarb and strawberry cheesecake this afternoon for a friend's birthday party tomorrow (photos to follow), and had a bowl of the delectable filling - cream cheese and whipped cream mixed with stewed rhubarb and strawberries, sugar and lemon juice - as a stand-alone mousse before dinner. (I was in a 'life's short - eat dessert first' kind of mood.) If I'd been hungrier I would have tossed these prawns through spaghetti for the ultimate 5-minute supper, but as it was I decided just to eat them neat. What I hadn't reckoned on was how much liquid they give off. Shame I didn't have any bread to mop up the precious prawny, limey, garlicky juices.

Spaghetti with fresh peas, cherry tomatoes, anchovies and garlic

Lunch today was another super-quick, fresh, summery affair, eaten on the balcony in the blazing June sun. Fresh peas and anchovies are two of my favourite things. (Garlic, of course, goes without saying.)