I’ve had a lot of support this week. With my co-parent working away all week, my Mum and Dad helped out a lot, so I didn’t have to worry about dinner most nights this week – such a luxury! And for the other days, the leftovers came in very handy (as did the brownies made last weekend).

This week is also a busy one, and calls for more simple cooking. I’m going to try Yotam Ottolenghi’s butterbean stew from last weekend’s papers, but with beef shin instead of oxtail. I have chicken stock from last night’s roast chicken to make into risotto. And there are still quite a few leftovers too.

I ordered a copy of The Food Lab this week too, planning it as holiday reading (!) but I think it might be a bit too big to take away! It’s a doorstep-like tome covering every sort of food science question and experiment. But unlike other examples of this approach, Kenji Lopez-Alt, from the website Serious Eats, focuses on showing you the outcomes of his personal kitchen experiments, and only talks about the science when it’s a route to a better version of a dish you want to eat. This makes it very practical, whilst illuminating lots of kitchen puzzles. I’ve already learned about pre-salting eggs for scrambling (it makes them more tender), and using vinegar to keep boiled potatoes together, and the importance of properly emulsifying your vinaigrette to stop the salad from wilting. I’m looking forward to getting into some of the chapters in more detail soon.

Recipes:

Pretty much nothing cooked to a recipe this week, with Mum providing meals Sunday – Thursday.

Without a recipe:

• Pasta bolognese
• Roast chicken with garlic and thyme, roast potatoes
• Salad with carrots, kohlrabi and croutons, and a yoghurt-mayonnaise-lemon dressing.
• Slow-cooker chicken stock

Reading:

Not much spare time for reading this week (though I did managed to watch some David Attenborough and Mary Beard on TV).

• Nigel Slater picks 15 of his recipes, one for each of the Observer Food Monthly’s 15 years.
• I’m not sure I can imagine an occasion that merits both Claire Ptak’s chocolate glazed doughnuts *and* a chocolate babka (to use up the leftover dough!) but they both look fabulous.
• A lovely piece about Anna Jones in the New York Times, and an implausible-sounding salad: Kale, Coconut and Tomato.
• And reading The Food Lab.