Winter is really here now. I think it took its time arriving, but there’s no real doubt now. Even in our sheltered corner, there’s thick frost on the ground each morning. I’m thankful there’s no snow though – we’re not equipped for it!

Recipes from this week:

• Vegetable chili, more or less from the Baby Led Weaning cookbook
• Smitten Kitchen pizza dough
• NY Times fish tacos, made with fish fingers 🙂
• Honey & Co. – Pomegranate molasses chicken

Cooking without a recipe:

• Chicken curry (Spice Tailor sauce) and dal
• Pasta and sauce

And this week’s reading (which includes tidying up some old articles too):

• BBC News documents some of the changes to the consumer price index shopping basket, used to track food inflation.
• The Piglet tournament of cookbooks pits some of the previous year’s best cookbooks against each other to find a winner. Each head-to-head has its own judge, who cooks from both books. Always entertaining, this year’s list includes Diana Henry’s ‘A Change of Appetite’ and ‘Smashing Plates’ by Maria Elia.
• Bee Wilson’s column in the Telegraph continues to be worth reading. This week: on spiralizers and specialist kitchen gadgets more generally.
• A New Yorker piece discusses the rise of ‘fast casual’ eating – chains like Chipotle and Shake Shack. In the UK, I’d probably put Byron and Wagamama in this category too.
• I like the look of this brunch dish from pinch of yum – a bit like shakshuka bolstered with spicy fried potatoes.
• I wasn’t a huge fan of Ruby Tandoh during the Great British Bake-off series she featured in, but her food writing is smart and her recipes in her Guardian baking column more interesting than most. This piece brings together several of her favourite recipes from the column.
• McSweeney’s is a destination for intelligent comedy writing, and I very much hope there are more in this series: The Great Cookbook breakdown, Part 1