This week means back to normality – Other Half back to work, and baby and I return to our classes and what passes for a routine around here. This weeks’s cooking has necessarily been a bit less ambitious than last week, when there was more help around. I’m starting to perfect the art of a dinner that I can get started while her Dad settles her, and that will coast to a finish without me when I tag in.
Some of the things we’ve been eating in the last two weeks include:

Recipes:
Great Grandma Turano’s Meatballs from Dinner: A Love Story
Diana Henry, A Change of Appetite – Tarka Dal
Sabrina Ghayour, Persiana– Spice-perfumed shoulder of lamb
Niamh Shields – pork & prawn patties
Nigella Lawson, How to Eat – roast topside of beef, eaten in sourdough sandwiches
David Tanis, One Good Dish – Very green fish stew
New York Times – Cabbage & potato gratin

Without a recipe:
Risotto with grilled chicken & roasted veg
Burrito bowl with rice, black beans, sweetcorn, avocado and leftover beef.
Onion pilaf
Mushroom & pancetta pasta
Endive, orange & walnut salad

Baking:
Batch of Green Kitchen Stories Banana granola
Using up the last of the mincemeat with Poires au Chocolat Mincemeat Squares

In other reading:

• Sweet potatoes with everything at the moment:
  • Roasted whole, with coconut and curry powder (Shutterbean)
  • With wholemeal flour in a carrot-like cake (Ruby Tandoh in the Guardian)
  • Mashed, on toast, with broccoli (Bon Appetit)
  • With miso sesame dressing that I can’t get enough of (Smitten Kitchen)
• Talking different kinds of sense about ‘detox diets’:
  • Hadley Freeman being very funny but also talking about the real dangers of fetishising food control
  • And Oliver Burkeman sensibly pointing out that even if some of the claims are highly suspect, taking a break and eating more consciously for a bit can be a good thing.