27.09.08: Leftover soup and open-faced bagels

After being generously plied with an excellent pork-roast lunch by friends in the afternoon, we had little energy or appetite for full-on evening dining, so splitting the one bowl of leftover fusion broth and topping up with an avo-tomato bagel half seemed just the ticket. He added another bagel half with Marmite and a slice of mature cheddar just to be sure late-nite hunger pangs would not interrupt a dreamy sleep.

HE SAYS: With ma belly half full this assortment of tastes managed to fill in the blanks of dinner with opposing flavas and textures. It was nice to have a second helping of the great soup from earlier this week and the avo and marmite bagel combo helped tip the balance of washing up vs. taste and satisfaction strongly in the latter's camp.

SHE SAYS: Just enough, and nourishing. I think I've said this before, but this soup is not the kind of thing that improves with a nite or two in the fridge - the flavours and consistency are too delicate to develop much. Still good, and with the highly-prized quality of being a heat-n-eat option. Plus, avocado on toast with a bit of salt has been my idea of perfect food since 1993 - and the addition of some rich cherry toms only gilds the lily.

02.09.08: Asian fusion broth with rice noodles and grilled chicken

She is really patting herself on the back for finding this one: Jamie Oliver's fusion broth with dry-grilled chicken plus ginger, Chinese greens (bok choi), and rice noodles. Salad of pear, radish, and spinach, watercress etc. welcomed a celebrity cheese tonite: herbed feta from Spitalfields on Sunday, seasoned with a brined chili.

And check out those grill marks!

SHE SAYS: I knew we'd be having a few decadent meals this week and chose this as a lighter in-between. But the virtuous brothy bowl turned out to be a full-bodied flavour attraction that I would gladly make regularly in the colder months. (Serendipitously, it's quite cold out there tonite.) simply boiling ginger and garlic with top-notch boullion, and drizzling just a little light soy sauce over, made this so slurpworthy, and dry-frying the chicken added big, outdoorsy grilled taste - not easy to achieve on a tiny, indoor stove. The market feta lived up to expectations as salad star, more creamy than crumbly, with subtle, pleasingly metallic chili notes.

HE SAYS: Like a Thai noodle soup, this bowl of wonderfulness hit the spots that needed it most: rich savoury broth, generous chunks of grilled smokey meatness, unfussy plain noodles to surround the flavas and a chili, ginger and garlic kick to grab your attention. This was another summer winter warmer and I savoured every last bit, going back for seconds and thirds. The feta couldn't be better(ed) in the salad and we ate every last delish little bit of it.

12.05.08: Prawn and veg stirfry

Mixin' it up on a Monday: babycorn, carrots, Chinese cabbage, brocca, green onions, chili flakes and prawns tipped over rice noodles face of with a leaf salad dotted with avo and olives (come of them garlic-stuffed!).

HE SAYS: Long time since we had this, I enjoyed the baby corn which was blackened a little, giving them a sweet overtone but the rest of the veggies got lost among the strong flavour of soy sauce. Harissa was an unorthodox solution to this problem and notched it up from a 5 to a 7, while the salad's lemony garlic olives shot it from a 7 to an 8, in my humble a-pin-onion.

SHE SAYS: It had that hot-wok grilled flavour I was going for, but it was otherwise a little bland and improved mightily with a small dose of my ho-made harissa. Rice noodles were blameless and the salad encouraged casual picking out of the zesty olives.