1 recipe: onion tart (P136); 1 rotw: millionaire shortbread; 1 experiment: arab-style sweetmeats

First, the shortbread. From a Guardian recipe, and a special request from Hwngo in return for starting running again. 1 square = 1 40-minute run. Which means I'll either go shortbreadless or have to fit a run in sometime tomorrow.

It is almost impossible to buy unsalted peanuts after 7pm here: Sainsbury and Tescos both nada. I wonder why: is it a response to increasing peanut allergies, or the perceived unhealthiness of this very fatty nut? In the end, I resorted to buying salted peanuts and soaking them in water until they didn't taste of salt anymore.

I have learnt a few things from this recipe. You can beat up peanuts in a pestle and mortar reasonably successfully (the magimix is unwell and I keep forgetting to buy it a new fuse) . The base expands to about twice its original size and smells truly deeply disgusting when it first comes out of the oven (but only for about half an hour), and it's a bad idea to slip and drop most of a can of cold cream into a panful of hot sugar. I think there may be toffee lumps in my caramel; the not-so-innocent should be warned...

The experiment worked nicely. I had some leftover pastry from the onion tart (more soon), some dates and apples hanging around and some grated pistachios (yes, really; from a Greek supermarket in North London) in the cupboard. Thin slice and dice the apples, rough chop and de-stone the dates, mix with some lemon juice and a little sugar, then divide the mix out into small pastry cases (think exotic mince pies). Bake at 180 for about 20-25 minutes, then devour because you've been so excited about cooking that you've forgotten to eat supper. Relax.

The onion tart is meant to be a surprise but of course won't be if Hwngo reads this before I arrive. I thought it best to take extra supplies (am doing Smoked Haddock Baked with Potatoes and Cream tomorrow) lest the poor thing have to suffer his own gourmet cooking. I mean, chocolate, cream and butter could happen. Oh. They already have. Whoops.

ROTW: Mackerel Souffle

One souffle. I think it's my first ever, although I have a niggling memory of attempting one in the crooked house (two feet different in nominally- parallel wall lengths in a single room).

That was... fun. Usually cooking is calming or meditative or sometimes badly stressing, but this one was fun. Probably something to do with all the changes; lots of stirring and whisking and grating going on. Nutmeg especially is a cool thing to grate: you think you've just run it over the grater a couple of times and nothing's happened, and then you lift up said grater and a whole pile of magically- grated nutmeg is just there waiting for you. Some foods are just special like that. Like the eggs: I had a box of Old Cotswold Legbar eggs in the fridge (I have a soft spot for rare breeds, although they're hardly rare now I can buy the eggs in Tescos), and was pleasantly surprised to see that inside those pastel- blue shells are lovely deep orange yolks. The only down was beating the eggwhites. Hwngo showed me that using a stick blended really works on this, so I used mine, and nada. White fluffy mixture, but not a peak in sight. And I couldn't rescue it from there: after 10 minutes of fighting it with a hand whisk, I gave in and made the mixture anyway. Then anxiously watched through the cooker's glass door for half an hour.

I wasn't expecting texture. I've always thought of souffle as a smooth dish, a rolling hill of smooth curves forming a chef's hat shape over the top of the dish. But there it is, in photographic evidence: a textured top (and one that, ta-da, didn't sink when I took it out the oven!). It tastes good too: like the best of soft omelettes collided with a soft cake; worth missing my yoga class for even. The nutmeg and fish balance off each other beautifully, and the only regret I have is that I wasn't a little more adventurous with the pepper; I've been a bit too heavy-handed with it of late (the pestle-and-mortar full of pepper is probably a hint about my culinary proclivities) but I think this dish could take it. Peppered mackeral souffle, anyone?

And I promise when I have both eggs and mackeral in the fridge, the last thing I'll think about cooking is a kedgeree...

Plans for today

Today is a good day to buy and cook a chicken to the next book recipe (poulet poche). And to attempt an rotw (lemon meringue pie) at the same time. And maybe consider buying a straightjacket in advance.

I was so out-of-sorts that Hwsgo cooked the chicken instead and we missed the lemon meringue completely. He was ever so sweet, and re-did Simon's roast chicken recipe for us; we bought a big bird (2.4kg, the smallest they had) at Allen Martin Meats; it was a good bird, but I think a little too large for the recipe; we got good firm flesh, but not quite as infused with lemon and herbs as the earlier one had been. The really really good thing was the banana shallots that Hwsgo packed around the baking tray (with roast potatoes; also good, but not as spectacular); they picked up the butter sauce, and caramelised into melt-in-the-mouth sweetness. We also finally found a use for the comedy turkey baster that's been sat in my kitchen drawer for the past year: it really does work, and it saves an awful lot of fishing around in the baking tray with a spoon.

More pheasant tonight. Hopefully

An rotw rather than a Simon tonight; a pheasant recipe adapted from a Guardian one by Hwsgo. Weight 168.8lbs; a loss no less, probably brought on by all that walking around London yesterday (I still have the high-heels blisters from it).

Meanwhile, since I've been recording my weight every day, I couldn't resist a graph of each month (thank you, Matlab): here's January.

Old ROTW: Winter Chicken

ROTW from 19th November 2007

Organic corn fed chicken of around 3 lbs
8 rashers dry-cured bacon or Parma ham
1 lb potatoes, peeled
2 bulbs of garlic in cloves, peeled
1/4 lb gruyere or mixed gruyere and emmenthal
white wine, butter, cream

Preheat your oven and an appropriately sized roasting tray to 190. Clean the chicken cavity. Stuff the garlic into the chicken. Boil your potatoes in salted water until almost cooked. Drain and allow to cool. Slice the potatoes into discs, season with salt and black pepper. Cut the cheese into thin slices and layer between the potatoes in a dish that can go into the oven.Place the chicken on the tray and cook for 40 minutes.Remove from the oven, cover the chicken in the bacon or ham, deglaze the pan with white wine, and cook for another 15 minutes. Put the cheesed off potatoes in the oven at this point too. When its all done, remove the chicken from the pan and rest for 5 minutes. Meanwhile deglaze the pan again with white wine, a knob of butter and a small pot of cream and serve the result as a sauce. Remove the potatoes, carve the chicken and serve with wilted spinach.

Old ROTW: Gnocci with Tomato Sauce

ROTW from 22nd October 2007

Chop and onion finely and fry in olive oil until just turning golden - make sure you get all the pieces translucent. Take a tin of good chopped tomatoes and add to the onions. Add any tomatoes you have lying around that need using up - you don't need fresh ones but you can use them if they are to hand. However you do need either 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar or one glass of red wine. Any wine you have to hand is good - don't open a bottle especially. Reduce hard stirring well until the volume has approximately halved or more.

The next step is painful but completely necessary. Sieve the sauce through a coarse sieve. Push the sauce through the sieve with a wooden spoon, and scrape the outside to ensure you have the stubborn bits of sauce that won't fall off. The resulting fluid should be thick and jammy. If not, reduce some more. Taste and if it's not really thick and satisfying, consider adding a dash of balsamic vinegar or some tomato puree. If you had good tomatoes to start with this should not be necessary, but it can rescue less good ones.

Once done, add pepper and just a little salt.

Boil water and do the gnocchi. Meanwhile grate some parmesan and tear half a dozen basil leaves. Add the leaves to the sauce, drain the gnocchi and serve, pour over the sauce, and add the grated cheese on top. You should not need much sauce as it's so thick and yummy. The rest freezes well.

Old ROTW: Goat's cheese, beans, bacon

ROTW on 21st November 2007

Cut bacon into pieces. Fry in butter and olive oil until crisp. Then add a can of beans or lentils (green lentils or flageolet beans ideally) and warm them through in the pan. Stir in the goat's cheese cut into pieces, and add the greens at the last moment. Serve on rosemary bread toast: freeze any excess.

Old ROTW: Carrot Cake

ROTW from 5th November 2007

Beat 4 egg yolks, 200g brown sugar and the rind of an unwaxed lemon together. Mix in 250g finely chopped carrots, the juice of the lemon, 200g of coarsely chopped walnuts, and 2 tablespoons of self-raising flour. Beat 6 egg whites firmly until very stiff. Put the whites into your cake tin and fold in the mixture. Bake at 180 for 45 minutes in an 8 inch tin.

For the icing, beat 125g icing sugar into 250g young goat's cheese (philadelphia will do if you can't find a good young cheese), then add the juice and rind of another lemon.

We made this with Slipcote cheese, and it was absolutely delicious.

Old ROTW: Posh beans on Toast

ROTW on 6th September 2007 was a modification of a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Soak your beans if need be.

Take one large peeled potato, a good handful of parsley, and 350g of white beans (chickpeas, haricots, cannellini it doesn't really matter). Separate the leaves from the stalks of parsley but keep the stalks, and tie them together. Simmer the beans, potato, parsley stalks and two cloves of peeled garlic until done but for at least an hour - with canned beans you will need a very slow
simmer: with dried beans it will take longer, you can turn it up, and you may need to add the beans at different times depending on what you have: dried chickpeas will take longer to cook than cannellini beans.

Remove the potato, garlic and parsley stalks and discard.

Finely chop the parsley leaves, two medium chillies and a pinch or two of fresh rosemary. Add a few leaves of chopped basil if you have it. Add the herbs to the beans along with a good glug or three of olive oil and the juice of half a lemon. Roughly crush some of the beans to make a paste with a fork and serve smeared thickly on toast.

Old ROTW: Cheescake

ROTW from 18th September 2007

Base:
60g unsalted butter plus extra for greasing
125g digestive biscuits

Filling:
250g Ricotta cheese
250g Fresh young goat's cheese
250ml soured cream
100g caster sugar
2 large free range eggs
2 large or 3 medium unwaxed lemons

Fresh raspberries to decorate or on the side

Preheat the oven to 160C
Grease a 22cm rubber dish. Diameter is not crucial.
Melt the butter on a low heat or blat in the microwave.
Crush the biscuits with a rolling pin. Add the melted butter and mix well. Tip into your dish and push down flat. Put in the fridge to chill while you do the next pit.

Put the ricotta and cream in a large bowl. Cut the cheese into small cubes and add. Crack the egg yolks into the bowl and mix well then add the sugar and whisk together. Keep the whites separate.

Grate the lemons and add the zest to cheese/egg mixture. Squeeze the juice into the mixture and mix well.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Fold into the mixture and add the lot to the base.

Bake for an hour then turn off the oven without opening the door and leave to cool. After another hour you can remove it.

Serve with fresh berries.

ROTW tonight: Seabass wrapped in Ham

Hwsgo has been showing signs of jealousy lately, that recipe- of- the- week (ROTW) has been supplanted in my affections by the Sara-Simon project. Well ROTW, I still love you, I still want you, and just to show my absolute adoration of you, I'm going to cook you tonight. And tonight's ROTW is:

Sea Bass wrapped in Ham

* gutted and deheaded sea bass of 700g or so
* parma ham
* really good olive oil (Ed: not Spanish oliveoil then...)
* green beans
* lemon juice
* salt and freshly-ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200C
2. Wrap sea bass tightly in parma ham. Leave no gaps.
3. Drizzle with a little olive oil and bake for 15 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, blanch some green beans for a few minutes in boiling water and then refresh in iced water.
5. Toss the beans with plenty of lemon juice, olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. An edgy alternative is to use preserved ginger intended for sushi.

It took me 3 supermarkets to find the ingredients for this recipe. First I tried my local Waitrose; yes, they had seabass, both heads-on and filleted, but after hanging round the counter waiting to be served, I gave up and went to Tesco at Gatwick. Now the big T is usually pretty good: decent wine selection, lots of choice in most sections. But the fish counter: urrgh. I could smell it from the next aisle: it wasn't pretty, and neither were the sad grey lumps pretending to be seabass. So unwilling to backtrack to W, I went to the slightly-smaller Tesco between my work and my house. And found exactly what I was looking for: two fresh, headless lumps of seabass. You don't always have to travel to get what you want, although I may re-try this recipe on a weekend when I can get down to one of the fish suppliers on the coast. I'm a little sad about the beans though. They're from Zambia, the only other choice in W today being Kenya. I really dislike upping my food miles, so I'll just have to add green beans to my allotment planting scheme, and wait until they come into season again. So how did it taste? The beans were wonderful; spiced without being spicy, and curiously tasting slightly minty. The fish was firm and subtle, but I really wasn't sure about the combination of bass skin and ham, and I did spend a lot of time picking out bones: I suspect something a little less blokey and a little thinner-skinned, like cod perhaps, would work better in this dish. I think I may have to try this again.

Meanwhile, weight this morning is 168.6lbs. A small rise, but considering the amount of food and alcool consumed over the weekend, not much to write home about. Unlike the tapas. We spent a happy hour or so bouncing from bar to bar in the Tapas street in Granada, having plates ranging from fried fish to ham to seafood arrive with every drink whilst working our way through all the local beers we could find. True foodie happiness, and a wonderful foil to the elegant dinner in Seville the night before. Today's food intake is a little more mundane than that: 1 bowl SpecialK and milk, 2 SpecialK bars, 1 bag baked crisps, 1 machine hotchocolate and 3 machine coffees. But then, I am trying to lose weight whilst working my way through a cookbook, and needs must...