13.05.08: Pork piccata and butternut squash + sweet potatoes

Comfort food: Ramsay's veal piccata in pork chop form, with a capery, garlicky, herby creme fraiche - white wine sauce accompanied by butternut squash and sweet potato cubes (look familiar?) spiced with ras-al-hanout. The simplest of salads with Sweetfire beetroot looks on.

SHE SAYS: Saucy! Great flavour, but my chops were pretty tough - took forever to brown. Mmm, me love the capers. V. pleased with my idea for seasoning the veg cubes - I'd made a mix of nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom, but it was way too strong. Then the ras caught my eye, and now I know.

HE SAYS: What a lovely sauce, of course! Could've been a little more liquidy, but still delishy. The butternut squash and sweet 'tator cubes worked well in their new boiled incarnation but the chops were too tough to call this meal a Tuesday nite classic. Sweetfire beetroot never fails to dress up any salad, end of.

01.03.08: Pork piccata with roast potatoes and a speshy salad

A decadent Saturday night special: He made a pork piccata, including creme fraiche, capers and white wine, adapting the recipe from Ramsay's Fast Food, while She roasted potatoes in duck fat and plopped a delicious sweet potato, green bean and goat cheese salad from Mei (a tiny cake cafe in Putney on Upper Richmond Road) in a bowl with a few extra salad leaves.

HE SAYS: Gotta start with the sauce: dee-lish! Could have done with a few pieces of bread to mop up. The pork cutlets were a good substitute for veal - I would have used it, but Waitrose was closed, and they're the only ones who sell it around here. It takes a while to get them golden brown, but it was worth making the extra effort. Did I mention the sauce? The white wine, capers and creme fraiche...what a combo. Anytime a sauce requires you to deglaze the pan with wine and scrape up all the remnants, you know you're in for a treat.

Enjoyed the salad for the sweet potatoes and green beans, but although I like feta, I didn't like this cheese - too goaty. The roasty potatoes were tasty as usual, and seemed very fancy with the duck fat infused with five-spice. Would pay top dollah for this meal.

SHE SAYS: The sauce was divine - we licked not only the plates, but the pan AND the spatula. Pork was a perfect substitute for veal, and certainly cheaper. The duck fat endowed the potatoes with that unbeatable crispiness, and I was happy to discover Mei's salad was as yummy as it was gorgeous. Agree the cheese was v. goaty, but I like that.