A flurry of cooking is about to take place, in preparation for our first all-comers Sunday lunch this weekend. These brownies are the first in line. Now I’ve posted a photo, I guess eating them all before Sunday is no longer an option! There was also a roast chicken last Saturday evening, which provided the backbone for the week’s eating – chicken pie, and risotto with the stock. There were also a good number of meals from the freezer, plus mopping up odds and ends of leftovers from last week.

Recipes:

• Beef shin ragu (for weekend lasagne) – from Slow Cooked
• Vaguely Vietnamese slow cooker pork – NY Times
• Dulce de Leche brownies – David Lebovitz

Without a recipe:

• Leftover pork and bean burritos
• Pasta with leftover beef stew stretched into pasta sauce
• Chicken pie
• Asparagus risotto
• Roasted rhubarb with orange – served with custard

Reading:

• These ‘cook once, make four meals’ columns in the revamped Guardian Cook supplement are very useful. This week we had roast chicken, chicken pie and risotto from one bird.
• A great piece in Lucky Peach from Michael Laiskonis on Maillard reactions. For instance, I’d never really thought about the fact that dulce de leche isn’t just caramelised sugar, but also browned milk, which is why it tastes different than a straightforward caramel.
• The Telegraph tries out a number of egg-poaching gadgets. It turns out the best way to poach an egg … is to poach an egg.
• Jenny from Dinner A Love Story lists her five favourite food podcasts – all but one were new to me, and have been added to my list.
• Radio 4 has compiled a list of radio clips about food, some only a couple of minutes long, from all sorts of programmes. Lots to enjoy here.
• Very intrigued by Niamh’s recipe for a Grenadan Coconut and Chocolate curried chicken.