so its been a year. For our final entry we went for the now traditional new years eve meal. We cut it fine this year, having gone out and visited a cousin in town till late … we jumped in a cab and headed back home. It was an unfussy dish to blow out the year with.

I’d ordered some steaks from our butcher in Devon, and in the morning before we left the house we’d dumped the steaks in a freezer bag marinading in scotch, salt, pepper and olive oil. When we got in I peeled and chopped some desiree potatoes into thick chips which I parboiled in salted water. I then drained these and drizzled them with olive oil, seasoned, and put them on a grill pan in a hot oven allowing the heat to get to the underside of the chips. 15-20 minutes later as they started to go golden brown I put a stone-baked garlic bread in the oven, put some baby carrots and fine beans on the boil and started to fry off some sliced oyster mushrooms in a frying pan. I then added a halved beef tomato which was seasoned with oregano salt and pepper and continued to fry the contents of the pan until the mushrooms and tomato had caramelised, at this stage I decantered them to to a foil dish and put them in the bottom of the oven.

With the pan seasoned I added the steaks which were given a few minutes on each side till it was rare cooked. The assembly was then just a case of fitting it on the plate. Desert as you can see was an indulgent shop bought chocolate desert with heaps of ice cream.

And with that … you have our year of meals.

same florence nighting-chef, different location. Jess was still pretty ill after her bout of flu, only care duties had now been transfered from her parents back to me. I’d smuggled a huge bag of turkey stew back from the family hovel. With vegetable suet, flour and water I whipped up some dumplings and placed them in a saucepan with the stew, slowly bringing it to the boil. To thicken the quite light soup I added a packet of soy beans, a handful of red lentils, and some more sliced turkey. No more turkey please, no more.

Jess is ill, my dads ill, my mum is playing airport transit service for my brother to make sure he gets his flight to Budapest for the new year. Ergo Nick’s stuck in suburbia cooking for three, and hungry like a fox.

I won’t beat aroudn the bush I recycled a recipe, plain and simple. The prawn and dill tagliatelle. Zest and juice of a lemon, a whole heap of oil and pepper fry the prawns, add it to hot pasta and some diced french beans, serve with an exquisite and lazy M&S garlic bread.

Devour the christmas pudding remnants for afters. job done.

Ask me not what goes in it … I fear that these entries have become a little more abbreviated since I returned to the homestead … reason being I’m far happier exploring the expanse of the drinks cabinet than messing about in the kitchen this week.

From what I can ascertain … a whole heap of turkey, winter vegetables (brussels … obviously) and stock. What makes this meal for me is the honest, down to earth artery clogging dumplings. Plain suet flour and water boiled with the soup completely makes the dish and reminds me I’m home.

its almost been a year since this diary cooked off, and the one meal that marks for me the change in my cooking habits has been the humble curry, having not had the sauce from a jar route for a good few months i was open minded …

It wasn’t all bad, it rejuvinated the dried turkey and was oddly peppered with sausages courtesy of my dad, but it lacked all the complexities of flavour that our huge bean based monstrosities conjour up. It was served with boil in the bag rice, naan breads and popadoms. Interesting … interesting.

a meal that always evokes memories of toad from toad hall, stuck in prison enquiring as to what he is actually eating … bubble? and … squeak?

Essentially the best bits of yesterdays dinner, sliced, diced, and fried served with a salad in the futile attempt of balancing the calorie suicide that was the bulk of the meal.

this one my dad handled.

starter
prawns, smoked salmon, crisp salad and fresh rolls with home made thousand island dressing

main course
turkey (no surprise), stuffing balls, sausages in bacon, roast potatoes (nicely seasoned) brussels and petit pois.

desert
plenty of my nans three month old christmas pudding with brandy and cream plus optional fruit salad.

note to self. Stop wrapping stuff in bacon. At 6pm I was told that I was cooking dinner and that with the shops shut it would have to be something involving potatoes cod and bacon as we didn’t have anything else in. I wrapped the cod loins in bacon arranged them in a baking dish, scattered the beans alongside the cod and drizzled with olive oil. I then microplane grated a lemon over the tray, ground some pepper, and squeezed the juice of the lemon over the fish with a small splash of vermouth. I allowed this to stand while I parboiled the peeled potatoes in salted water, cut them into slices, arranged them on a baking tray and drizzled with sunflower oil, some scattered dried rosemary, salt, and pepper. I placed the potatoes in teh top of a preheated high oven. Once one side of them was crisp, I put the fish in on teh top shelf, flipped the potatoes, and put them on the middle shelf. By the time the fish was cooked the potatoes were perfect. I served the fish on a bed of the potatoes with a small side salad.

i got home to discover we had some chorizo in the fridge, there was an absolute abundance of other food, but that was ‘for Christmas’ a quick trip to the supermarket later I’d picked up some tortillas, mozarella and a jar of sun dried tomatoes. I sliced the mozarella, diced the chorizo and sundried tomatoes finely and shredded some basil over a tortilla in a dry frying pan, placed another on top and then dry fried it until the cheese had melted, turning once.

with my parents picking me up for Christmas I thought it was high time to introduce them to some laternate foods. we opted for Kazaan. A round of shish-lamb, shish-chicken and falafel wraps, accompanied by tabouleh and esmé salad with lots of Turkish bread proved a delicious and quick way to dispatch our respective hunger pangs.