Tahini chicken and pumpkin salad

Marinade your chicken thighs (original recipe was breast but who grills breast FFS) in lemon juice, tahini and seasoning.

Bake your pumpkin slices (original recipe also to grill - grilled pumpkin is TRULY a bad idea) and layer over a salad with some nice tangy bits - original had mint but it wasn't nearly strong enough.

Make up some dukka with nuts and pank and seasoning.

Microwave up a pack of mini popadums to serve on the side.

Dress the salad, cut and put chicken on top, sprinkle on the dukka (or mix the dukka straight over the chicken after cutting. Or both.) .

Got good marks from the kids. A do-again.

Satay Pork Patties and Udon Noodles

Make pork meatballs with satay sauce and diced fried onions. Next time I might put some panko in them as they were a bit too soft to handle easily. Fry, set aside.

Fry up some suitable veg for Chinese style, add the rest of the satay sauce, add prepped udon noodles, serve with meatballs on top.

This won several hoofs up, so next time I'll try to take a pic.

Pork san choy bau

Trim a pork loin (or two) and slice thinly across the grain. Marinate in a sauce, on this occasion made from:

• plenty of honey 
• five spice 
• cumin 
• coriander
• hoi sin sauce 
• salt, pepper 
• chili
• soy sauce 

Cut up a bunch of veg suitable for a quick fry. Cook the meat on high very briefly, remove. Cook the veg (also briefly), combine the two. Serve on lettuce leaves, with rice, topped with peanuts and fresh coriander.

Chicken tikka pittas

A variant on the chicken and falaffel wraps meal that's not unwelcome. Marinate the chicken in tikka paste before grilling and cutting up to serve, with salad, pittas and a yogurt, mint and lemon sauce.

Ricotta Lemon Cake

Kinda chewy but zesty. I made a quarter batch of this only,in muffin pans, and covered it in lemon and sugar syrup. A bit dry otherwise.

500g flour
250g sugar
250g Ricotta
125ml lemon juice
3 egg yolks
3 whipped egg whites
15g baking powder
125g softened butter
powdered sugar
salt

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Whip butter and sugar, add and whip egg yolks, and lemon juice. I had to add a heap more milk because it all got very stiff. Combine. 180 for about 40 mins. After that I recommend soaking in lemon syrup.

Moroccan Lamb Filo Parcels

Three layers each of filo pastry, with cooked Moroccan-style lamb mince, fried with onion and pine nuts inside. Served with a mixed salad and a yoghurt and mint sauce.

This was the first time I made this (no pics yet) and I think it needs work. The original recipe said to add the onions in AFTER the mince, which I don't think went well at all. The spices need to be quite heavy, and I think a vegetable component like aubergine/spinach inside will do well to break up the heaviness of the lamb. I am thinking of making the filling fatter, and possibly putting in a small layer of Panko at the bottom, as in a strudle, to soak up excess fat.

Further updates when tried.