I started the spaghetti sauce this morning, and it is ready! Add a salad, some bread with (fresh) garlic and basil freshly browned in the broiler, some fresh fruit for dessert and I'm ready to eat. I'm starving!

**Later**

Oh my gosh! That was delish!

Courgette and pesto 'tart' here today, (courgettes freshly harvested from the garden), accompanied by green salad (from the garden as well), vinaigrete (my 7 year old's speciality, he makes it himself and chooses what herbs he wants to add - anything from parsley, chives or walnuts to whatever else he finds in the veggie patch: basil, thyme, rosemary, coriander etc ...), and some tomatoes.

Home-made whole-grain bread goes with everything here, by the way. We go through a loaf (or two) every day (more if I made more)!

I reckon within a week to ten days I'll be eating green and butter beans - they look almost ripe to me.

Last night was a rib of beef on the barbeque, with boiled home-grown potatoes (and butter, of course)! Simple yet delish!

For dessert it's likely to be sponge cake and jam covered in custard, or rice pudding and jam.

(I was given 2kilos of blackcurrants yesterday, so I now have 14 pots of jam sitting on the shelf beside the raspberry, strawberry and blackberry jam already there). No wonder I have so much weight to lose!

When I met you in St Malo I thought you were such a lovely person now I think I just hate you!

You can sew, beautifully, you can cook, you can do scrapbooking and other artistic things. You really are the pits! I bet your home is spotless too!

LOL awwww, keep thinking I'm a lovely person, it's much more flattering to me

I *sew* and I *cook*, but that doesn't mean I do it well!!! It's more of a necessity thing than anything else! With five to look after, and a husband whose job has been anything but stable this last six years, money has often been (is often) tight. I've learned to make-do with what's going.

Now, as for the cleanliness of my house - do you think I have time to clean up properly when I spend all my time doing anything but the housework? I hate cleaning up (but I also hate mess). Hard to reconcile the two, eh?

Scrapbooking, etc, is my little bit of escapism/indulgence/luxury, since it's hard to get books in English here and I dislike ordering 'unseen/un-dipped-into' books over the internet. I don't consider myself artistic at all, but it's fun anyhow

Doing home made lemon chicken on a bed of rice with a bean sprout salad

what I'd like to see here are links to all your recipes! There are really some great ideas for meals in this thread.

I had fried rice because I was working, but the rest of the family had roast lamb.

Tonight's meal will be chicken korma, with some rice and a tomato and mozarella salad.

Tonight it's pub grub as it's quiz night but tomorrow I will be cooking minted lamb with crushed new potatoes and pea puree.

Tonight we had a beef stir fry similar to this one here but with our own combination of vegetables including broccoli, mushrooms, cauliflower, spring onions, red capsicum, celery and chinese cabbage. Very nice.

Taco salad. Easy to make, and so yummy.

Last night was chicken breasts, mashed potato and sweet potato with caramalized oinion and roast vegetables. Best of all was I did not have to make it. We went to no 1 daughter for dinner and it was yummy.

I had Pancit Canton but steamed and it was good as always. A really versatile meal as you can use any veg and any meat.
http://pinoyfoodblog.com/recipes/noodles/pancit-canton/

Oh, my. I'm so 'common', when it gets right down to it . I'm making a boatload of chili today (but I'm using some lima beans in it, which makes it a little bit 'different', I guess). I make the weirdest chili ~ but folks seem to like it plenty. I wonder, always, what sort of damage I've done to their digestive system once I serve it, though ...

Your 'common' sounds downright exotic to me! I've never made chili, and as for lima beans, what do they look like?

tonight i shall be doing my fav pasta dish, which has diced chicken breast, diced ham cheese sauce and chorizo sausage,with melted grated cheese on top

Dead easy to do is filling an appertising. Cook pasta as per norm cook the diced chicken. make a cheese sauce.

When pasta is cooked mix the diced ham and chicken breast in with the cooked pasta pour in cheese sauce and stir so pasta coated, then put in a oven proof dish put the chorizo sausage on top sprinkle the grated cheese on top and place under grill to chesse is melted and golden brown then serve, with some crusty bread or garlic bread whatever your preference

Homemade pizza last night, with an egg thrown on top for good measure. Probably barbecue tonight, if the rain holds off.

It being 39 degrees out I thought I would make a nice hearty, warming beef stew! Amazingly it was quite good .

Hope you didn't catch a chill after that lot

It's a bit like eating ice-cream in the depths of winter, isn't it? A ridiculous but welcome change

Cornish pasties - almost like Mum used to make...

Oooh Auntie1, now I am drooling! I miss them so much. I really must take the trouble to make some. I miss the ones my Cornish Gran made, so much.

Have stuffed two chicken breasts with thread noodles and spring onion and some mozerella cheese they are in fridge chilling when i am ready to cook will wrap them in some parma ham and cook in oven for 45 minutes, will make a sweet chilli sauce and cook either rice or pasta to go with it.

Tonight it's pot roast with potatoes, onions, and carrots served with green beans and a nice salad.

A favourite dinner tonight, stir fry - hot and spicy with chili, ginger, chili, garlic and more chili. Did I mention hot and spicy?

I have just returned home from a wedding reception so am quite full. The menu was crab and avocado, guinea fowl, creme brule (but I had ice cream) then wedding cake and in the evening there was a buffet so I dived into a fish cake, asparagus wrapped in Parma ham, mini toasted BLT sandwiches and more. I passed on the chocolate fountain!