lemon roast salmon with chilli and cucumber salsa verde, giant sweet potato chips and broccoli

I’m going through a bit of a salsa verde craze at the moment. Of course it helps that we have more flat leaf parsley than I could dream of uses for. I’d never made it until I read a recipe in a sweet little book called ‘Recipes and Lessons from a Delicious Cooking Revolution’ by Alice Waters – it’s one of the Penguin paperback ‘Great Food’ series that makes a nice contrast to big glossy photo recipe books (which, of course, I also love) because it’s tiny and light and cheap and feels like an novella in the hand. Her recipe, which I’d guess is pretty standard, uses olive oil, grated garlic clove, lemon zest, chopped capers and chopped flat leaf parsley. I also added a tiny super-hot red chilli and some cucumber. One of the disadvantages of cooking a family meal is that you can’t just throw in hot chillies with wild abandon but I guessed (correctly) my guys wouldn’t be getting stuck into the salsa verde part of the meal any time soon.

Had with salmon roasted with lemon halves (squeezed over then roasted in the tray). Giant sweet potato chips baked with olive oil, garlic gloves and some wedges of beetroot that needed using up. Steamed broccoli and sweetcorn.

ginger poached chicken noodle salad (with honey roast beetroot, broccoli and mango and toasted sesame, mint and honey dressing)

Poached a whole chicken with some lemon and slices of fresh ginger (which I seem to remember seeing Donna Hay do). Bonus – got a couple of batches of chicken stock!

Roasted up a tray of beetroot coated in olive oil and honey with a few gloves of garlic. Steamed some broccoli, chopped up a nice ripe mango, cooked some thick rice noodles and rinsed them in cold water. Shredded the chicken, mixed everything up (except the garlic which I crushed into a dressing with olive oil, sesame oil, honey and mint)

sausages with honey and rosemary roast pumpkin, pepper and zucchini with broccoli and fresh corn dressed with oil and shaved parmesan

Got some nice fat ‘old english’ sausages from Island Bay butchers – mix of beef and lamb, and they boys favourite pork and maple.

Chopped pumpkin, zucchini, small sweet peppers, rubbed in oil, honey and rosemary leaves – roasted for about 30 – 40 mins.

Cooked broccoli and fresh corn and cut the cobbs off – shaved some parmesan over with a lug of olive oil.

tuna fishcakes with lemon parmesan greens and avocado and tomato salad

A happy collaboration of things that needed using up; boiled some new potatoes (a good couple of handfuls) skin on, mashed em up, grated in some onion, chopped parsley, paprika, lemon juice, salt and pepper (coated in gluten free crumbs) pan fried in butter for about 10 mins each side. Steamed broccoli, more zucchini from garden (getting at least one a day now) and shaved it raw, cooked a load of peas and mixed all the greens in olive oil, lemon juice and shaved parmesan. Chopped avocado and leftover cherry toms.