First ever, how I managed to avoid ever making one of these, I don’t know. We get through 18-24 fresh farm eggs in a week in our house and yet it took “Remarkable places to eat” on the BBC to make me want to cook one. Excellent mini series, I must say, there was an episode in Venice ( “Venetians are thieves”, said our Tuscan host Marco last month), in Edinburgh- loved it, as it featured The Kitchin, one in Paris and one in San Sebastian, which is where the tortillas were made.

I used a simple recipe from BBC Good Food, with half a white onion chopped and slowly fried in quite a lot of oil, till softened but not coloured. 2 medium sized potatoes chopped quite small, cooked until soft. Then most of that oil had to be drained before 4 beaten and generously seasoned eggs were added. I also chucked in a few cherry tomatoes from the green house and some green peas leftover from Izzie’s supper. It cooked under the lid for a few minutes then with a help of a plate I turned it upside down to finish the cooking. I served it with crusty baguette, a green salad and some parma ham. We both liked it, but I would put some more flavour in it, chorizo maybe, garlic, something strong.

Last Saturday we braved the rain ( summer’s been cancelled this year, by the look of it) and went to check out Daylesford Farm near Kingham, a place recommended by Christina. I knew nothing would be cheap there, but we still went and blew 60 quid. First thing I noticed on the car park was a Tesla charging station, that said it all about the clientelle…. 🙂

It’s all organic in there, apparently, nothing wrong with that, there’s a lovely selection of bread, there’s butcher’s, some fish, cured meats- at eye watering prices- as well some lovely stuff for home. My favourite place was a little cold cheese room. We got some of their own organic cheddar, some blue cheese and a small piece of a phenomenal truffle number imported from Italy, called Moliterno.

We had most of those cheeses on Saturday evening, laughing out loud in the face of the diet!!! But last night I grated the remaining piece of the truffle cheese onto the pizza, alongside mozzarella di buffala and parmesan. And finally, almost exactly a year after purchasing it, I used up one of my whole truffles from La Bottega di Tartuffo in Lucca. Time to do that was high, as I’ll be there next month again. Beautiful pizza, earthy with mushrooms, simple, cheesy. Top marks!

Hands down the best curry I’ve ever made. While flipping the pages of the latest Good Food I saw this recipe and wanted to make it straight away. Today I did and we both loved it, Izzie ate some too, but only because she was promised a dessert. Florek had seconds, I didn’t, I’m being good. Over 500 kcal according to the magazine, so I wasn’t pushing my luck. Worked out at 4pm though, needed to earn my curry!

2 garlic cloves, a chunk of ginger, 2 large shallots blitzed into a nice creamy paste. 3 chicken thighs chopped roughly and quickly browned off, then out of the pan, the onion paste in for a few minutes. This followed by dry spices- 1tsp each of cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and paprika. 2 tbsps of tomato puree. 2 tsps of sugar, 1 of salt ( could be skipped, 300 ml chicken stock was salty enough). 0,5 tsp of chili flakes. Once all this was happily combined in the pan and smelling phenomenal, chicken went back in, chicken stock too and slowly it cooked for about 30 minutes before chopped potato and a sweet potato went in. They were not in the recipe, but I love spuds in my curry. And some cauliflower too. And peas, added towards the end. 150 ml of double cream was recommended to be added by the end, but I used coconut cream half way through.

Toasted, flaked almonds, fresh coriander and naan breads from Sainsbury’s completed the picture. Very, very good indeed.

I have a new cookbook, Tim Anderson’s “Tokyo Stories”. The first recipe that screamed “MAKE MEEEEEE!!!!” at me was the hanetsuki gyoza. Made it accordingly, but skipped the crispy”wings” made with soaked cornstarch. I was starving, so was Florek, I left it out. Gyoza itself was super tasty, Florek, who’s not crazy on any pork dish had all all of his plus 3 of mine- I was pushing it already in terms of my diet…. :-/

Anyway, 250 g of fatty minced pork from Toby’s, 80 g of very finely chopped Chinese cabbage, 4 garlic cloves and a 2cm piece of ginger, grated. A handful of chopped chives- replacement for nira, I had no idea what nira was, but google did have an idea. Seasoned with salt and white pepper. All this nicely combined and wrapped in gyoza wrappers, gently panfried, then covered and steamed for 3 minutes to make sure the pork inside was nicely cooked. Served with a simple dipping sauce made with 4 tbsps of soy sauce, 2 tbsps of rice vinegar, a splash sesame oil and – not in the recipe, but I thought ponzu would work here nicely- good splash of lemon juice.

Excellent, not too complicated and will be made again.