Steak, spuds, peppercorn sauce.

Another E-Diet Recipe today. Called for fillet of steak with peppercorn sauce, served with boiled potatoes and a salad. Had forgotten to buy potatoes and had bought onions instead, so have mountains of onions, but not potatoes. Rushed out to buy potatoes and planned on cooking some dwarf beans we had in the fridge. I admit these dwarf beans have never impressed me much, but I keep on buying them because you get quite a lot, and they're a fair bit cheaper than the other beans in that section in sainsburys.

Well we got a couple of bits of organic fillet steak from asda on saturday, only small, but I hammered them out so they were a bit more presentable. Got the big frying pan dead hot and slapped them on. They cooked fine. The controversial bit here was the sauce, which was a (I guess) traditional peppercorn sauce - peppercorns simmered in white wine (though I usually use vinegar), but instead of adding cream, this low fat recipe added natural yoghurt. Quite what this was supposed to achieve, I don't know, but I think it make the sauce pretty rubbish.

I tend to think that - contrary to the diet-peddler's stories, yoghurt does not make a satisfactory substitute for cream. Cream is a fairly neutral richness, like butter, and it is undeniably positive. People only ever think it's bad if it reminds them of calories and cholestorol and things like that. You don't often hear of chefs striving for a nice yoghurty consistancy in their soups, or to have their braised veg all lovely and margeriney, and so these proper "full strength" dairy products are irreplacable.

Well, I'm only a novice so what do I know. Anyway, tried it, and the result was a fright. I deglazed the frying pan with the wine and I hoped this woulda give the sauce some cojones. Didn't really work though, the sauce tasted strongly of yoghurt, overpowered the steak and didn't offer anything appetising to dip the potatoes in.

On the upside, the potatoes were very nice and cooked just right, unusually. I've found potatoes a tricky one to get the hang of. Still haven't. I assume this is just luck. Roasted or fried I can handle, boiled, no. I think I just don't have the kind of empathy with a boiled potato as I do with a roasted one.

Additionally, the steak was pretty disappointing. We had this legendary organic mince once from asda, and that was the minciest, meatiest mince I've ever had. It really tasted of something. But that was about a year ago, and then asda re-packaged and re-marketed its organic range, pushed the prices up and we haven't had anything remarkable from them since. I know fillet steak isn't famous for its flavour, but the last stuff I got I bought from the butcher down on Easter Road and, you know what, I raved about that dinner then. I told people what a nice dinner I'd had and everything. I wished I had some kind of online food journal in order to spread the word. A few steaks later I was still extolling the virtues of the simply-cooked steak. I said things like "You can't go far wrong with a good steak".

But I'm quite saddened to say that this meal has gone "far wrong". The meat was unremarkable, the sauce quashed any hope of redemption.

The morale of the story is, roughly speaking, diets suck.

Fish and chips, chops, toad in the hole, curry at Salique's and outstanding mashed potato.

E-Diet seems to have taken a bit of a back seat recently, thanks to a combination of a lack of paper to print them, and our trip to London. The lack of paper meant I couldn't create a shopping list and had to do all the shopping myself. Terrible I know - buying nice food is always a terror. I bought butter mostly.

The sojourn into London to see my brother and attend Community Care Live! (not me, clearly) disrupted our already stalled diet with all kinds of eating shenanigans. Dave cooked us some very nice chops with a kind of caramalised onion sauce which was extra tasty and I ate every bit of, fat and all, that's how rock I am. The real revelation however, was the amazingly smooth and creamy mashed potato.

Dave made this with a food mill that he called a potato ricer. I concede the point that anything that rices potatoes is a potato ricer by definition, but I still think a "potato ricer" is like a big giant garlic press, rather than this spinny thing. Anyway, I want to get one. I've looked at getting one for a while, initially prompted by trying to make a kind of red pepper sauce by mashing up lots of roasted peppers and squashing them through a sieve. Obviously this didn't work and the result was barely like the sweet sauce I was aiming for. The Olive Branch used to serve this sauce with their sausages and sweet potato mash, and both me and Pinky Ponky Poo went crazy for it. Sweet mash and Crombies sausages became our favourite dinner but I missed the sauce. So I tried and didn't have much luck, and thought, well, there must have been a way of making purees and the like before blenders were invented, and after a little research came up with the food mill as the answer to making sauces from vegetables. I wanted it for de-seeding and skinning tomatoes too, because this is a job that is initially quite fun, but quickly becomes a right pain in the arse.

Ok, anyway, exceptionally smooth and delicious mashed potato. I was a bit disappointed that he served mash because I had already planned to serve mash with my dinner the next night (I was paying for my board in dinners). As it happened, both dinners were similar in sauce and sides. I made a cracking Toad in the Hole with Onion Gravy that I made rather over-sweet with too much wine. If I'd had time I'd have boiled it a bit longer or added some more stock. Incidentally I bought the beef stock from that Harrod's place for two quid a bottle. It wasn't even concentrated. At the time I thought it cheap, but it seems less so in retrospect. And I made mash, and it was righteous too, so my belle demanded I purchase a food mill for making mash in future. So I will.

Stayed in the City Hotel in Brick Lane for the last night (Friday) and went for a walk down the road to look for something to eat in their famous restaurants. I was surprised by the number of curry touts out on the street, offering discounts and free drinks and things to get us into their establishments. We stopped to chat to a bloke to recommended a few good places that don't need to advertise in such a crass way and he said there were big moves afoot to outlaw the touts entirely. This can't be a bad thing since it is pretty tiresome. I personally hate being sold to and hate being ushered along, like I'm somehow unwelcome unless I'm providing cash. I want to be able to walk down a street, look in windows and at menus without being harrassed to go inside or move along. So on this chaps recommendation we called into a restaurant that didn't need to do that; Salique's, a bangladeshi place on one of the streets just off Brick Lane.

I had a Lubi Gosht which erred just on the right side of hot and had deliciously succulent little lumps of lamb in it, and a nice pint of beer. My dining companion had a good looking couple of sticks of tikka lamb which she reported was very nice. The price came as a surprise as it seemed a fair bit cheaper than our usual, but at £40 for the two of us (with samosa, rice, naans, beer), I don't know how different it really was in retrospect.

I enjoyed it, and I like that area a lot. All those try-hard bars and boutiques selling crepe paper shirts for £1500 and the like, the impression is of some clique-defining creative urge being indulged. We passed by a little bar, perhaps a gallery, in which a band was playing lightly along with a drum kit made of wine bottles hanging on pieces of string. I couldn't hear it, because it was only big enough to fit about 6 people in, and there were over a dozen people smoking outside, craning their necks to get an ear in. Really quite painfully hip. I expect it was bunk.

Right, got some salmon steaks from Asda the other day, had some kind of herby butter stuffing. Made wedges from some old potatoes (cut the sprouts off, don't tell anyone). Cooked the fish in foil for 20 mins; blanched the chips for 5 mins sloshed in oil and finished off for half an hour in the oven. It was ok. But not enough, so we had chocolate for afters. My menu preparation skills have no equal, it is true.

Marks & Spencer's Organic Milk Chocolate and Toffee Biscuits

These taste very like Dime bars, and are delicious.

Sausage fusilli

Imagine how thin I must be now, the last thing I ate was those biscuits last May. Well, I made this dish today which I enjoyed a lot, and was quite interesting. It's a recipe from "Cooking with Jamie", and even though I know I have no reason to feel ashamed about that, I do anyway. Perhaps I have issues. Maybe I need help.

I got this book before Christmas from the Book Man (who isn't even a man) for £10 or some other good price, because it looked like it had some good cooking background in it, specifically a good section on salads and dressings. Salads and dressings are something I cannot understand because they aren't cooked, and I can only cook. Or chop. Or cut, or roast or fry. When a recipe says "season to taste" I don't really know what to do, and just add a wee bit of salt and a bit more of pepper. Critical taste is a sense that is very under-developed in me I think, or at least, it's something I don't have much faith in my ability to interpret. I have a very loose grasp of what substances create what flavour, and hoped this book might give me a bit more insight into the technical side of flavour and taste. I should probably do something like only eat salads for a fortnight so I have a good base with which to experiment. Maybe one day I will. Anyway, I hadn't made anything from the book til this afternoon.

This sausage fusilli was sausagemeat fried with crushed chillies and fennel seeds, with white wine, oregano and lemon juice, then tossed with lots of pasta. I thought it was very tasty indeed, and I was interested specifically in where the lemon juice went (the final dish had very little lemon to it), what fennel seeds tasted like (I don't think I've ever eaten fennel before and wasn't keen on the smell when I crushed them up), and how the chilli fitted in. It's a tasty bowl with strong ingredients that work well together. The flavours don't overlap, in that I could isolate a few different tastes as I ate, but each one distinctly, rather than just a big mash that tastes herby/meaty/stocky.

I should be a more critical eater, but usually I get so little out of eating everyday food, that I forget to eat with my brain and my tongue and just leave it up to my teeth and my gut. So much food is only fuel, it doesn't reward greater examination. I wonder how to engage more honestly with this material?

Miso Soup

For some reason I'm intrigued by this stuff, Miso soup. Perhaps it's the life-giving anti-oxidising, breast-cancer fighting properties I read about it all my favourite womens magazines (just look at the pictures?...), perhaps there's something about my occidental orientalist outlook that mysticises even simple bean soup (the same impulse that makes me think I'm cool because I eat my lunch out of an imported Zojirushi bento box), but I've got a few different packets of this stuff in my cupboard, and, up until a few days ago, I hadn't ever tried it.

To be honest, I don't feel any less ambivalent about it now that I have. It's so weird, such odd fodder. The aroma of it is unlike anything I can place, and it tastes half meaty, half grown, half something else that I'm not sure about. It boggles my mind. It's like a by-product of proper cooking - the book will say "discard this liquid". Initially it turned me right off, god it smelt filthy. I ate a little with a spoon, then, according to instructions, I put down the spoon and slurped at that oddly churning dish with my mouth. This was nicer, I admit, and almost attained the level of "nice". But not so fast. There's something so biological about this dish, something fermented and corrupted, something wild that it'll take more than one sup to convert me.

Why am I even trying? Why try hard to like something when all your initial reactions are to throw it out with the tatey peelings? I'm ready to say "I have no idea! I'm a mine of contradictions!", but obviously it's so that I can reveal my miso soup starter hot from the base of my Zojirushi bento box and when people turn their nose up, then I can feel like some kind of fucking underground, independent, eclectically educated worldly wise "more various than thou" twat.

Raspberry and coconut buns

Getting mad propz from all those who have experienced the cakes of wrath, these are another of the recipes from Waitrose's fine recipe cards. The "best ever", highly recommended by all.

I feel a bit embarrassed, because everything I ever write is waitrose this and waitrose that, and I don't even have any loyalty to waitrose: I don't even capitalise it sometimes. I wonder if I could make some money off this through corporate sponsership. Euphy.co.uk brought to you by Waitrose? J.Lew are you listening?

The "skinny" as the kids say:

284ml pot buttermilk 200g light brown sugar (I used caster sugar) 75ml vegetable oil (I used groundnut oil) 1 egg 75g desiccated coconut

1tsp vanilla essence 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 300g plain flour 150g fresh raspberries

Put the oven onto 190°C (gas mark 5). Mix the liquids and the sugar and coconut together well. Sieve in flour, bicarb and baking powder. Combine gently. Fold in the raspberrys. Spoon into muffin cases. The recipe says this makes 20 buns, but I made 10 big fat muffins with it. I can't see it making more than a dozen. Bake for 15-20 minutes. I went for a little bit longer since they were bigger, but only really til they looked golden on their pretty tops.

Lancashire Hotpot

Our oven has broken down. It always made bad noises when it warmed up, but then.. it stopped with the bad noises. The hobs and the grill still work ok, but since it's gone kaput, all I've thought about is lancashire hotpot. Which, to be fair, is never very far from my mind on an ordinary basis, but the preoccupation in this context has seemed even more like strong evidence of a vindictive and cruel universe. Anyway, I think Lancashire hotpot is pretty hard to beat as far as a dinner. I am so nostalgic. Here is my recipe:

1kg lamb, diced, tossed in plenty of generously seasoned flour 500ml chicken stock 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 2 large onions, sliced fairly thin

2 carrots Booky garny. 800g floury spuds, sliced thinly

Oven should go onto 150° (gas mark 2). Fry the meat in two batches in a big frying pan in a couple of tbsps of olive oil. I don't know why I use olive oil for some things, and sometimes use vegetable or groundnut oil. Just doing what I'm told. When the meat is well-browned, transfer it to a 3.5l casserole, and put the stock and worcestershire sauce in the frying pan and get any stuff off the bottom of the pan (there's a good name for that stuff, but I can't remember what it is. I never get much anyway, what with non-stick pans and that - I feel I am missing out somewhat and that makes me a little sad). Simmer it for a minute or two, then put it in the casserole, wipe out the frying pan and add some oil and the onions and carrots and fry until they are beginning to colour, then tip them in with the lamb, season well, mix up and add the bouquet garni.

Arrange the potato slices on the top, seasoning between each layer. When you've run out of potatoes (I normally get about 3 layers), drizzle over another half tbsp of oil and season again. There's a lot of seasoning in this. Cook in the oven for 1 and a half hours (or for as long as you want), but take the lid off an hour before serving so the top can get brown.

This recipe reckons it serves 6, but we much be greedy fat pigs because we get two servings each out of it. This dinner is flipping gorgeous, tender, tender meat. Tasty, splodgy, soft, gorgeous everything. If I was on death row, and about to be killed, I'd ask for this for dinner. And not just because cooking it takes a long time and would afford me the chance to make a great escape to freedom (I'd have been framed, naturally, a innocent victim of a vindictive and cruel universe).

Made some beautiful bowls at pottery last week - The first pieces of actual stuff I've made that I can use! One is a big serving bowl, the other is smaller, and can be used for breakfast. They are finished in a rather rubbish way, but I've contrived to use both of them almost every day since I brought them home. Pottery rocks the house. I am sad because it's the easter holidays and there's no pottery for two weeks! NOOOO!!