Slow-roast shoulder of lamb with cumin and paprika; roast aubergines with lemon and garlic; roast carrots with butter and cumin; spiced onion yogurt sauce; rocket salad with lemon dressing; homemade flatbreads

Haven't updated this blog for ages! There have been countless amazing meals, but I've just not been bothered to blog about them. Last night's roast lamb, however, simply couldn't go unreported. I'd been intending to get lamb chops and do them in Thomasina Miers' Eastern spiced butter (from her awesome book Cook!), but this being Germany, to buy lamb chops for 4 people would have cost me 83 Euros. That's right, 83 Euros. I couldn't hide my shock when the butcher quoted that price, which set him all a-huffing, so when I asked for a shoulder instead he tried to save face by warning me 'You can't fast-roast that, you know! You can only cook it slowly in a stew!' Well, I wasn't going to be taken in by that when my allies Hugh and Thomasina had already assured me that shoulder of lamb is perfectly suitable for roasting, if perhaps on a slightly slower, cooler roast than you'd use for leg.

So I bought the shoulder (not exactly a snip either at 23 Euros), and, once home, covered it in a slather of ground cumin seeds, hot Spanish paprika and lemon zest, with melted butter as the marinade vehicle. Later on, I roasted it for 4 and a half hours on what my very strong fan oven calls 130 degrees (probably actually a good deal hotter). As accompaniments, I roasted carrots in butter and cumin, and aubergines with whole garlic cloves and lemon. Meanwhile I fried some onion rings and chopped garlic on the stove's lowest setting for ages (about an hour and a half) with cumin, coriander and cardamom, then poured in a pot of yogurt at the end to make a delicious sauce (this is from Nigel Slater's book Real Cooking). I made a simple rocket salad on the side to mop up all those delicious juices, and tried out making my own bread for the first time, using the recipe for 'Quick flatbread' from Casa Moro which promises that it's easier to bake your own than to go down the corner shop and buy some pitta (not that that's a possibility in this neck of the woods anyway). And sure enough, it was easy, quick and delicious. For dessert, fresh lychees.

Coniglio alla griglia

I've had rehearsals until 8pm most nights this week and Sam has had less work on than usual. Result: I've had a row of incredible dinners cooked for me! Indeed, as I write, delicious odours of frying plaice are titillating my nostrils. This is a luxury I could get used to (although I'd better not...)

The highlight so far was last night's barbecued rabbit. Sam marinated it in garlic, rosemary and lemon (he's more into classic flavours, I'm more into exotic ones, so we balance out well). Then he cooked it on the barbecue and served it with a 'salad' of white beans with barbecued red peppers (you grill them until soft, then put them into a clingfilmed bowl to steam, then remove the blackened skins), and some rocket leaves simply dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (I recently got fed up of crap quality oil and vinegar, and invested in the real thing from the Italian deli). For a starter we had barbecued asparagus with pancetta - simple and bursting with flavour. (For all its faults, Germany doesn't half produce good bacon - knocks spots off anything you can get in Britain.) For dessert we had fresh peaches, juicy and sweet, the first of the summer.

Chicken fattee!

This was something really, really special. We had my dear friends Pierre and Eric to stay for the weekend, big foodies both, and we decided to spend their last evening cooking this amazing Lebanese recipe from my new cookbook, Casa Moro. You roast a chicken with lemon and cloves, butcher it into the 8 pieces, then layer it up on a platter with rice (jazzed up with fried onions, spices and chickpeas), tomato sauce cooked with a cinnamon stick, fried aubergine, garlicky yogurt, toasted pine nuts and coriander. The result is a grand ceremonial feast.

We followed it with an orange and cardamom-scented pistachio tart, also from Casa Moro, served with vanilla ice cream. This probably wouldn't have been the first recipe I would have chosen from the book, but Pierre was mad keen, and he was right. A buttery pastry case is spread with a gooey, fragrant pistachio paste flavoured with orange and cardamom, then baked til it forms a delectable crust. Hard work shelling all those pistachios, but eminently worth it.

There's nothing like an evening spent in the company of true friends. I can't wait to see Pierre and Eric again.

Pan fried salmon with new potatoes, peas and broad beans with pecorino, and wild garlic mayonnaise

Another winning idea from Skye Gyngell (except the wild garlic mayonnaise, which was my idea). We got some wild garlic (what the Germans call Baerlauch) in our organic vegetable box and decided this was the thing to do with it. To be honest, I wasn't wildly keen on the mayonnaise - it tasted strongly olive oily in a bit of a nasty way (maybe I used crap olive oil). But the rest was pretty sensational - especially the pea and bean salad with pecorino from the Italian deli, which is one of my favourite summer side dishes.

Meringues with rhubarb and strawberry compote

Nigella's meringue recipe from Feast, served with stewed strawberries and rhubarb. A lovely summery dessert after a barbecue (which didn't get photographed, but I can tell you that the three different marinades of chimichurri, harissa, and rosemary/lemon/garlic were pretty stupendous). Would have been even better with vanilla ice cream but you can't get any in our crap local Rewe.

Skye's cream of spinach and nutmeg soup

(The actual colour was a far brighter, more intense mossy green.)

Good old Skye. This is classic French cooking - simple, but crafted with such care and attention to fine detail. Basically all you do is cook a load of spinach until it just wilts, fry some diced shallots in butter, then blend it all up with chicken stock and pour in some creme fraiche (still can't be arsed with the accents I'm afraid - just too aufwendig on a computer keyboard) and grated nutmeg. It's actually more time-consuming than it sounds, as are most things involving a blender I find, but well worth the effort.

Rigatoni with roast tomato sauce

Roast some cherry tomatoes with olive oil and balsamic vinegar for an hour or more on 160 or so. Then pour into drained rigatoni with a sprinkling of fresh thyme and plenty of parmesan and basil. Bob's your uncle.