We finally finished the tub of mascarpone today. I made the pasta bake on monday. The sauce was based on a small quantity of Heston-style cheese sauce with half of the mascarpone mixed in, along with one egg. I added fried veg, diced chicken, and cooked macaroni (from about 300g of dried). Everything got mixed together and put in a pyrex, sprinkled with mixed seeds and grated cheese, then baked in the oven for about 40 minutes.

We have 2 pyrex dishes and if we make a pasta bake to fit the larger of them, it is enough for 4 portions so it lasts us for 2 days. We had the second half today.

The final last bits of the mascarpone were actually eaten with a chocolate eclair for pudding, after we got back from the shops. The eclairs weren't planned. They were reduced at M&S because they had reached their sell-by date.

We bought a big tub of mascarpone the other day which means we have had to find enough ways to use it before it starts to go off.

The first use was nice and straightforward: We dolloped a bit on a toasted hot cross bun.

Today I made a chicken and butternut squash risotto following the standard risotto method: I fried some diced squash, finely chopped leeks, garlic, and a pinch of dried chilli. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but when we have a glut of chillies, I make my own dried chilli. I slice the chillies in half lengthways then put them on a sheet of kitchen roll in a small metal tray, which I then put on the radiator for a week or so. I then smash the chillies up using a small food processor.

Back to the risotto. After adding the chilli I added risotto rice and home made chicken stock. When the rice was roughly half cooked, I added some diced cooked chicken and a generous pinch of salt. When it was all fully cooked I added a generous heaped tablespoon of the mascarpone and stirred it in. The risotto was very rich and creamy and the mascarpone seemed to help keep it fairly firm, instead of going sloppy which can sometimes happen when I use ordinary cream cheese.

Tomorrow I will make a pasta bake. The mascarpone and a beaten egg should hold the pasta together well so it doesn't collapse too much when I serve. I will find out tomorrow.

A couple of days ago I had a go at making Heston's cheese sauce. The big difference between his recipe and a traditional one is that you don't start with a roux. The sauce base was white wine and chicken stock, instead of milk. The wine was reduced then the stock was added and heated. The cheese was finely grated then mixed with cornflour before being stirred into the wine/stock mixture.

The end result was a very smooth sauce but the stock flavour was a bit too strong. I will experiment further but next time I might use milk and wine or milk and stock.

My next new recipe was a sourdough bread. This was based on the recipe from the Fabulous Baker Brothers TV series. I made the starter last week using spelt flour, and fed it each day with a bit more flour and water.

I made the dough yesterday and left it to 'prove' overnight before baking it this morning on the pizza stone at gas mark 8. For a first attempt I am reasonably happy with the results. Since the starter was fairly young, the 'sourdough' flavour was quite light but it was a good loaf. I have just realised that this is probably the first loaf of bread I have made completely on my own.

Next time I might make the dough a bit stiffer since I think this one was a bit wet and sticky. The bread had a big hollow bit in the middle, like a giant pitta bread, so we sliced it in half horizontally and made a fried egg sandwich for our breakfast.

We were watching the latest episode of How to cook like Heston on Channel 4 and he was demonstrating his method of making a cheese sauce and then using that to make a macaroni cheese. I was in the middle of cooking a chicken, sweet potato and butternut squash curry but I thought "I'd rather be eating that instead".

This afternoon we made some cupcake (or to be more accurate, Emma made them while I helped weigh out the ingredients). The cakes contained:

• 3oz margarine
• 4oz sugar
• 8oz flour
• 3 eggs
• just over half a tub of glacé cherries

They were baked for about 15 minutes at gas mark 6 and left to cool before being topped with a chocolate buttercream.

We both really enjoy roast chicken so when Heston Blumenthal's latest TV series (How to Cook like Heston) covered chicken in last week's episode, we had to see it. He presented a novel way of cooking a chicken which began with an overnight soak in brine, in a similar manner to cooking a ham. The actual cooking was done at a very low temperature (gas mark ¼) instead of the usual gas mark 6.

We didn't plan our chicken roasting in advance and hadn't done the brining, so today I just did my normal roast chicken recipe. The only real similarity with Heston's is that we both remove the string which trusses the chicken so the heat can get to the legs and side of the breast better. I filled the cavity with a few cloves of garlic and a sprig each of thyme and rosemary to give a bit of extra flavour to the meat. I rubbed vegetable oil on the skin and sprinkled some stock granules all over.

We have a roasting tray with a rack inside and a lid, so I put about half a centimetre of water in the bottom of the tray, sat the chicken on the rack, put the lid on top and put the chicken in the middle of the oven at gas mark 6 for an hour. The water will create plenty of steam which will keep the meat moist while it cooks.

After the hour was over, I removed the lid and let the chicken carry on cooking for just under an hour to let the skin go crispy. The end result was a well-cooked tender chicken with thin crispy (and tasty) skin. The juices which collected in the bottom of the tray, along with the herbs and garlic, will be used later on when I make a chicken stock.

The chicken legs and wings (along with some of the crispy skin) are going to be blitzed with some mayonnaise and a sprinkle of salt to make a sandwich spread for tomorrow's lunch.

Tonight we joined some friends at a restaurant called Rhubarb, in Leamington. A few of us decided to have Tapas for starters: I had the calamari and Emma had the breaded prawns. Both were very good. The calamari were piping hot, tender, and quite a generous bowlful.

For main course, Emma chose the prawns and monkfish in a thick slightly curried broth, which was ordered from the specials board. I chose the braised lamb shank and chorizo cassoulet, also from the specials. Some people's meals seemed to be a bit on the small side and came without vegetables but I couldn't complain about mine. There was a decent amount of meat, which was very tender and fell off the bone with minimum effort. The cassoulet was very similar to a spanish chorizo and vegetable casserole I used to do years ago, which was based around chicken stock, herbs (oregano and mint if I remember correctly), paprika and chorizo.

Overall, the restaurant was ok but the lack of vegetables, side dishes or accompaniments was a bit strange. For example, no bread rolls were served with the starters, even for the people who ordered soup. Prices were reasonable but food quality and serving size appeared to be a bit variable.

One problem with my new office is that you aren't allowed to eat or drink at the desks. Another problem is the nearby communal seating area and kitchen are being refurbished so there's quite a long walk to the next nearest place where I can sit and drink.

My old office was near the department kitchen and I used to keep a good selection of teabags and loose leaf teas on my desk. I am now reduced to keeping a selection of teabags in my bag for those occasions when I manage to take a tea-break.

I found an interesting tea related chart on the Tea Appreciation Society website which lists a number of interesting tea related facts. Among them are the ideal temperatures for different styles. I already knew that green and white teas should be brewed at below boiling, but I didn't realise they only had to be at 65-70°C and 65-70°C respectively.

At the moment I have the following teas in the house:

• Gunpowder tea: One of the most readily available green teas, and usually a reliable option.
• King Bladud's Blend: A black tea, named after the legendary king who founded the city of Bath. These first two teas were bought from the tea and coffee stall in Bath market.
• White tea: from Whittards. A mild refreshing tea.
• Te Med Blåbärssmak: A blueberry flavoured tea from Ikea.
• Tesco Loose Leaf Tea: Claims to be leaf but is actually more like tea dust - the contents of a teabag but without the bag. OK for when I want a decent strong cup with milk.
• Earl Grey: Teabags, made by Clipper.
• Redbush: Teabags, from Tetley. I have had various flavoured redbush teas but usually prefer the plain ones. A redbush flavoured with orange which I bought from the German Market in Birmingham a few years ago was quite nice though.
• Darjeeling: Asda own brand 'Selected by you' Teabags. Nice light flavour, better without milk.

Most of the time I drink tea without milk, which is handy in work since at the moment there isn't anywhere to keep any. I first started drinking it milkless when I was at university in Aberystwyth. Milk would go off before I had chance to use it so I just stopped bothering buying any. Now, when I have milk in tea, I prefer it to be semi-skimmed. For some reason, skimmed milk seems to make the tea taste worse, and full milk is a bit too creamy for tea.

The year before last I tried to cook (or at least eat) a new different recipe each week. I probably won't be able to do the same thing again this year but I will endeavour to try more new recipes, since last year we weren't as adventurous with our cooking. I do enjoy cooking different foods but we are both going to be very busy this year, which is why I am not going to make any promises.

Last night we cooked a roast chicken so today I made a chicken stock using the bones, along with some herbs, peppercorns, garlic and the outer leaves from some leeks. Tonight I decided to make a risotto using the stock and remaining chicken. Since we had fish in the freezer and saffron on the shelf, this morphed into a paella. Although we do have some paella rice, I decided to try my normal paella recipe but using the small orzo (or risoni) pasta instead. I tried to stay faithful to the risotto method but I added the orzo to hot stock, instead of the other way round, which is more usual for risottos.

Ingredients and Method

• Dice and fry some vegetables, including red pepper, leek, courgette, garlic.
• Put the fish in a pan of boiling water then turn the heat off and let the fish cook in the remaining heat.
• Add a couple of cups of chicken stock to the vegetables and bring to the boil. Stir in a few strands of saffron and add a cup of pasta.
• When the pasta is cooked halfway, add a cup of shredded chicken and a squirt of tomato puree, along with any seasoning.
• When the pasta is cooked, stir in a tablespoon of cream cheese followed by the cooked fish.

To serve, all it needs is a grind of fresh black pepper and a sprinkle of parmesan. I know that isn't the right way to serve a paella but we like it that way.

We were in Leicester doing some Christmas shopping, which included a walk around John Lewis. We had lunch at Carluccio's. We started with the Pasta Fritta, which was deep fried squares of herby pasta, and Focaccia All'aglio which was a really nice cheesy garlic bread.

For main course we decided to try the Tasting Trio from the pasta menu, for £20. We had the Penne Giardiniera, with courgette, chilli and deep fried spinach balls, and the Linguini al frutti di mare. Finally, I had the Gnocchi al ragu d'angello (lamb ragu) to myself. The food was good and impressive value.

Last time we went to the Bear Inn, I had a starter which consisted of an entire wheel of brie. This time I skipped the starter and went straight for the Winter Pie Platter for my main course.

The platter consisted of a tiny cornish pasty and 3 little pies (venison, chicken & mushroom and steak & ale), along with mash and mushy peas.

We first made a calamari pizza earlier this year but we ate it before I thought of taking a photograph. The sauce was passata, garlic, courgette and chilli which was liquidized then simmered until it had thickened.

The calamari was from Marks & Spencers and was chargrilled in a red pepper dressing. It was topped with lots of grated cheddar and shredded mozzarella.

(Crossposted from the Pizza Blog)

The plan was to make a curry with cubes of chicken, sweet potato and butternut squash in a spicy sauce. I started off by making the sauce:

Dice one sweet potato and a similar weight of butternut squash and simmer in a little water for about 5 minutes. Drain and reserve the water.

Chop and fry 1 yellow pepper, half a courgette, 2 cloves of garlic and a chilli pepper until the vegetables have softened. Add 1 teaspoon of curry powder and ½ teaspoon each of powdered ginger and turmeric. Add a few tablespoons of the reserved water from before and a cup of passata then simmer for a few minutes before liquidizing.

Dice and fry 2 chicken breasts then add the squash and sweet potato. Add the vegetable sauce, stir to coat, then simmer for a few minutes. Serve with rice.

The sweet potato had broken down almost to mash, which thickened the sauce much more than I expected. The end result was very nice though. The vegetable sauce was originally a bit too fierce but the thickened sauce had actually absorbed a lot of the spiciness and improved the flavour.

Tonight I made a mince and halloumi pasta bake, based on a recipe from the BBC food website. There were two versions of the recipe given, I followed the one by a member of the public instead of the Paul Rankin version, because the sauce contained egg and I thought that might set better. The only changes I made were to use 100g of halloumi in the pasta and sauce, 400g of macaroni, and 340g of mince. This was simply because of the sizes of the packs of meat and cheese, and the amount of pasta left in the pack on our shelf. I also used turkey mince instead of pork mince. It was quite fortunate I used less ingredients because the pyrex tray was very full by the time I layered everything in.

This is the first time I have used halloumi in a recipe, instead of simply slicing and frying it. Overall the pasta bake was very good. I might mix the sauce with the pasta next time so it holds together better for serving but otherwise it went well.

I still have a few home-grown chillies and tomatoes in the fridge and I felt like making some kind of chilli sauce out of them. A few weeks ago I came across a Chilli Jam recipe from the BBC Good Food website and I thought that might be suitable. I used to occasionally buy a jar of Tracklements chilli jam and the recipe looked like it might give similar results.

I scaled the recipe down a bit for two reasons: I only wanted to make a single jar, and I didn't have enough vinegar or red peppers. The original recipe called for garlic and root ginger, which I didn't have either so I left those out. I hope it doesn't affect the recipe too much.

I started off by weighing 150g of granulated sugar into a pan and added 100ml of white vinegar. I started warming this through gently while I chopped one red pepper and 5 small cayenne peppers and put them in the liquidizer. I peeled 100g of fresh tomatoes, popped those in with the peppers then turned the liquidizer on and blitzed everything to a fine mush. I then added that to the pan.

At this stage, I transferred everything to a small camping stove in the back garden since every time I boil up vinegar in the kitchen, the smell permeates the house and lingers for hours. I gently heated the pan until it started to simmer, then left it for about an hour, stirring occasionally.

When it had started to thicken (and had reached what felt like the consistency of a melted jam) I turned the gas off and let the pan cool slightly while I sterilized a jar by pouring boiling water over it. I emptied the jar, left it to dry for about a minute, then carefully spooned the jam into it.

I haven't tried the jam yet since it is still cooling down so I hope it works out ok.