Bento

You haven't been feeling great this week, so I made you a bento box for tea - spinach and cucumber salad, some steamed rice with peanuts, a little poached salmon, and a few slices of banana. And a little lake of soy sauce for dipping in the centre, of course.

Salmon pie (koulibiac)

I adapted this from a recipe in Olive - seduced by the pictures yet again. It's probably the easiest thing you could make for a dinner party, especially if you have guests who don't eat meat (but do like fish).

Apparently this is a traditional Russian pie, which is usually filled with salmon, or sturgeon. It makes enough for 6, especially if you err on the generous side with the rice.

You'll need

500g block of puff pastry (life is certainly too short to start making your own)
250g (ish) cooked rice
2 hardboiled eggs, chopped
zest and juice of 1 lemon
a very large handful of dill, chopped
2 large fillets of salmon

Stick the oven on at about 200 degrees C.

Cover the salmon with cold water, and bring to the boil. Simmer until the fish is nicely poached, and has turned pink throughout (it'll take maybe 5 minutes, depending on how thick your fillets are). Drain (you could keep the water for a fishy soup), and flake the fish into a bowl, checking for bones as you go.

Mix in the cooked rice, eggs, lemon zest and juice, and dill. The smell is to die for.

Divide your block of pastry in two, and roll each out into a large rectangle. Place one on your baking tray (on a silicon sheet or piece of greaseproof paper), and then carefully spoon the filling onto it, leaving a border round the edge.

Wet the edges/border of the pastry, and then place the other sheet of pastry on top. You'll need to press down the edges, so the filling can't escape. Cut a slit in the top to let the steam escape, and brush with a little milk to glaze.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown, and the filling piping hot.

Salmon and leek parcels

It's still freezing cold, with powdery snow everywhere. It'd be rather good for sledging except (a) it's about 1mm deep, and (b) Grandma and Grandad failed to bring the enormous wooden sledge with iron runners that Uncle Dom and I used to hurtle downhill on.

Tea turned out to be rather good, considering it was thrown together in 10 minutes after a hideously cold walk back from nursery in the dark.

You'll need:

salmon steaks (two large ones fed the three of us)
a couple of large leeks, sliced into rings
two large foil squares
a little olive oil
black pepper

Take your square of foil, and place half the leeks on top. Sit the salmon steak on top of the leeks, and drizzle with a little olive oil. Season with black pepper. Repeat for steak 2.

Stick in the oven at about 175 degrees c for ooh, half an hour or so - open up the parcel and have a look. If the salmon is pink all the way through, then you're in business.

We ate ours with a real ragtag of things today. I was going to do a lemony, oniony risotto to go with it, but discovered there was only one rice for one portion - so your Dad had that on the side, while we had some tiny star-shaped pasta, swished round in some pesto.

Salmon, tomato and pepper pasta

We ended up at the Tyneside Cinema today, watching the free news reel screening. I'd forgotten how magical it is when the curtain rises up to reveal the screen - you were entranced.

Tea was a bit of a leftover-fest. I used the three or four spoonfuls left of yesterday's peppers in a smoked paprika and tomato sauce and added a little more water and tomato puree to make enough for the two of us.

I then poached a little piece of salmon (Morrisons had some fantastic salmon trimmings last time we were there) in a little hot water for 4 or 5 minutes (you need just enough water to cover the fish). I flaked the fish, checked obsessively for bones, and added it to the tomato sauce, along with a little extra black pepper.

We ate our fishy pasta covered in grated cheese. Your tiny grater has been very popular.

Salmon with lemon and ginger

Another of the "oh, stick it all together in a foil parcel and it'll taste fabulous" recipes. Very useful, epsecially when you're in the middle of watching Shaun the Sheep, and want something quick to bung in the oven for tea.

You'll need:

a couple of pieces of salmon
a couple of inches of ginger
half a lemon, sliced into small chunks
lots of black pepper

Take two large squares of foil, and plonk each piece of salmon in the middle of one, skin down. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the top from the lemon chunks, and scatter them non-artistically around and over each fish. Peel and finely slice the ginger, and place on top of the salmon. Finish off with a good screw of black pepper.

Close the parcel so no steam can escape, and stick in the oven (at about 180 degrees) for around 20 minutes or so - it all depends on how thick your slices of salmon are. Once they're pale pink, you're onto a winner.

We ate this with noodles, stir fried with broccoli, onion and carrot. Chopsticks were quite popular...

Salmon and pea pasta

You used to love this for tea when you were tiny (especially when I made it with the little star or alphabet pasta). I made it for the first time in ages yesterday, and you hated the cheese sauce. You can't win...

Makes enough for one toddler:

a small offcut of salmon
a tablespoon of frozen peas
a little butter, milk and flour
nutmeg
a little grated cheese
pasta

Put the salmon in a pan, and cover with milk (you could also add a bay leaf at this point). Poach for 5-10 minutes until the salmon is cooked through (how long it takes will depend on how thick it is). Take the fish out of the milk, and then flake (checking carefully for bones).

Add a knob of butter and a little flour and some grated nutmeg to the warm milk, whisking until the lumps have gone. Grate some cheese into the sauce, and stir until it thickens.

Stick the peas and the pasta in boiling water, and simmer until cooked (about 7-8 minutes for pasta twists, a lot less if you're using tiny pasta shapes).

Add the pasta to the cheesy sauce, along with the flaked fish. Grind a little black pepper on top.

Grown ups like this too, especially if you use mature cheddar in the white sauce.