Wednesday
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Leftovers day. A small celeriac: sliced it thinly and fried it in butter and oil. Used too much butter, thinking it would be absorbed, but it wasn't; must try again with less oil. Tasty but not crispy.

Fried four Richard Auler streaky rashers (to produce bacon fat) and seven kiln-smoked dry-cured organic rashers. Delicious. Then heated leftover pesto mash in the bacon fat. Again, ration of fat to goods too high, though it all got absorbed.

Tuesday
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Cold roast beef, salad, brown bread. Yum.
Monday
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Something half way between an omelette (six eggs) and scrambled eggs, with fried smoked lardons (so called) and oven-dried tomatoes.

Sunday
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"Pork tomorrow", said I, having misread the label.

I'd had a 6lb piece of meat in the freezer, and I took it out on Friday night to unfreeze. The butcher's label said "tender loin", shich I assumed to be pork, but as soon as I unwrapped it it was clear that it was beef. But never mind.

About 40 minutes at 230C, then down to 160C. Meanwhile steamed some peeled potatoes and some parsnips. When the interior of the meat got to about 58C, I removed it from that oven and shoved it into a resting oven at just over 50C. Then, having shaken the potatoes and parsnips, I put them into the bottom of the roasting tray (the beef had been on a rack) with extra dripping.

I put a cauliflower in the steamer. Wife made Bisto gravy for Small Son; I made onion gravy (taking the best part of an hour, but it was delicious) for everyone else: soften a sliced onion in butter, then shake in some flour; let that cook for a bit. Add some sloshes of cooking marsala; stir; leave it for a bit. Add a heaped teaspoon of mustard; leave it for a bit. Add (but by bit) about a quarter of a litre of onion stock (made from a Kallo cube). Near the end, stir in some grated parmesan (an idea I got from a website somewhere). Very good too.

The final veg was radicchio. I had picked up a head at Steve's stall, without really looking at it, thinking it was red cabbage. He pointed out that it was radicchio, and the idea of wilting came to mind. A website suggested marinading it a bit first. So I cut it into quarters, shoved it into lemon juice and some oil and garlic, and let it sit until everything else was almost ready. Then a few minutes over high heat, some time on each of the three sides of each quarter, and there it was, the bitterness gone and the flavour and texture delicious.

Whole dish went well except that the potatoes, though full of flavour, were not crisp.

Managed two glasses of fino before and two of Fleurie with the main course.

Wife had very kindly prepared a pear and raspberry crumble (using some of our garden produce), which was delicious with cream. After we had tidied up, we had some of the whiskey-flavoured coffee I'd been given free at the market (a new stall: they roast coffee and I'd bought some of their other blends).

Saturday
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Small SOn being home for the weekend, and with a mate, our meat consumption has shot up: steaks yesterday, lamb today, pork tomorrow.

Today's lamb was a Guard of Honour, and it worked reasonably well. I saw it in the butcher's yesterday: it's two racks of lamb pointing towards each other, the ends of the chop bones trimmed of meat and interlaced, and stuffing in the gap between the racks. Mind you, I think the stuffing may be a bad idea. It's surrounded by bone, which doesn't transmit heat very well; the meat would have to be very well done (which is undesirable) before the stuffing reached the requisite temperature for killing off any nasties. Maybe I'll make my own stuffingless Guards in future ....

Anyway, stuffing apart, I think I got the rack about right: medium on average, a bit on the well side at the ends, a bit short in the middle, thus catering for everybody. That was just over half an hour at 230C and about the same at 160C, followed by about ten minutes' resting in a 50C oven.

With the lamb, I served

- mashed potato (milk and butter) for Small Son

- mashed potato (pesto and single-estate olive oil) for everyone else

- microwaved broccoli for Small Son

- sugar-snap peas, cooked in water and butter: slightly too much butter, I think, but it was OK

- leeks, sliced and sweated in butter

- a sort of Cumberland Sauce made with unmeasured quantities of redcurrant jelly, port and some of the zest of a clementine. Very good it was too.

Whole thing worked well and all components were ready on time, which is always a minor miracle.

Friday
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Small Son home. Went to butcher for one large and two small T-bone steaks. Also baked potatoes, microwaved broccoli, mushrooms fried in butter.

Thursday
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Soup first: parsnip-and-fennel-and-apple-and-onion.

Then pasta: that stuff that's slightly wider and somewhat flatter than spaghetti. Heston Blumenthal recommends two litres of water for 200g of pasta (which is about right for two people) and TWENTY GRAMS OF SALT. I usually use no salt; I weighed out 20g and looked in horror as this mountain of salt formed. I put in a small amount.

Ragu from freezer, with Parmesan. Quite good.

Spoke to Jack McCarthy butcher today: possibility of venison and other goodies next week.

Wednesday
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Not hungry myself, so boiled a potato and heated some shepherd's pie mix for wife.

Tuesday
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Intended as a quick meal: parsnip and fennel soup with toasted-cheese-on-toast.