I had a few days of holiday to use up before the end of March, so I took two days off this week to do some work on the blog. I hope to move the whole thing to a new design soon, and to add some new feaetures – watch this space (but don’t hold your breath!). It also gave me the opportunity to spend an extended time in the kitchen, without toddler interruptions.

On Tuesday I put two ham hocks (bought from the farm shop near my mum and dad’s house) in the slow-cooker. The meat slipped easily from the bones after spending all day in the pot, and that was dinner, with some boiled potatoes, wilted Savoy cabbage, and a little bit of spring onion sauce from this Mark Hix recipe. On Thursday afternoon, I squirreled myself away with Adele and Kendrick Lamar to make soda bread, bergamot marmalade, ham hock soup and tea loaf.

This week, I also got two new food magazines: the latest issues of Bon Appetit and Delicious. I currently subscribe to both, but this month showed a particularly stark difference, and I why I’m moving from the former to the latter. Bon Appetit is the main food magazine in the U.S., since its stable-mate, Gourmet, was shut down. I used to enjoy reading about American food trends, which are usually ahead of the UK, and hearing about different cookbooks and restaurants. But it’s become so on-trend, I no longer find it interesting. I think I’ve bookmarked just three recipes from this issue, one of which is simply a serving suggestion for a platter of spring vegetables with olive oil. I feel less and less like I’m in the audience for this one. When ‘delicious’ arrived today, however, I’ve immediately started planning meals and dishes, and have a version of their Easter roast pork in the fridge tonight.

Recipes:

• Ham hock soup – Henry Dimbleby in the Guardian’s Cook supplement
• Bergamot and cardamom marmalade – adapted from a number of recipes, including David Lebovitz and this one.
• Earl Grey tea loaf – from ‘Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding’
• Broccoli pasta – Rachel Roddy’s ‘Five Quarters’
• Oatmeal soda bread – adapted from this beautiful post about poppy seed soda bread and lemon curd. It’s been perfect with both the ham hock soup and the marmalade.

Without a recipe:

• Meatballs and tomato sauce over rice
• Beef stew leftovers
• Slow cooker ham hock with potatoes and cabbage
• Friday night pizza

Reading:

• The Moth podcast: Three Chefs and a Meal – includes a lovely story told by Chris Fischer of Beetlebung Farm, about serving a particularly important meal.
• Crisp cinnamon shortbreads from Fanny Zanotti in frozen Sweden
• Broccoli melts from Smitten Kitchen
• Molly from Orangette on cooking with her three year old
• Bee Wilson reviews a new book about MFK Fisher, and an old book by her, recently published.