One of the first things I learnt when I was doing a fish cookery course at Billingsgate, London’s wholesale fish market, was that if you drop a knife, don’t try to catch it. Let it fall to the floor. Well, I’ve just had to put that into practice in my own home. At the time I thought, well, no, intuitively you’ll try to catch it. Now I intuitively keep my hands, legs, feet and anything else well clear. I think I’ve taken a chip out of my kitchen floor though. We’ll keep quiet about that, lest the husband goes bananas.

This week, with another set of houseguests, I am running low on food. They are eating me out of house and home. You think you’ve got enough food in, but somehow it all gets scoffed. So we’ve been having some odd meals but I like those meals. I end up making salads out of no fresh vegetables at all – i.e. a drained tin of borlotti/butter beans (or other pulses), herbs from the garden (yes even in November) some chopped capers, gherkins and sun dried tomatoes from the fridge and perhaps some jarred (as Jamie Oliver puts it) chargrilled peppers, cut into strips.

There are always Swedish meatsballs in the freezer to be zapped in the microwave for a few minutes, stirring them round half way through so they all get evenly warmed and piping hot (or you can fry them for a crunchier outside). Incidentally, just as I was typing crunchier then, it made me think of my 8-year-old daughter’s spelling test this week when they were learning edgy, edgier, edgiest. When is an 8-year-old going to use the word edgiest in a sentence!?

Recipe wise, I just started making a banana cake then remembered we have no eggs so switched it to a shortbread:

Recipe: Oat & Strawberry Shortbread

Ingredients: (makes about 15 squares)

125g butter, room temperature

100g sugar

125g flour (plain)

3 tbsp rolled oats

1/4 tsp cinnamon/cardamom

1 tbsp strawberry jam

100g toasted mixed chopped  nuts (optional)

Method: Preheat over to 180 degrees celsius. Mix the butter and sugar in a  food processor (or cream by hand) then add all the other ingredients. Form into a ball then flatten onto a greaseproof paper-lined baking tray. Bake until golden brown (watch it like a hawk!) then lightly mark into sections or squares. When it’s cooled a bit cut into pieces and have with a cuppa.