Last night we had a pungent tomato sauce to go with our pasta. Earlier in the day there had been mention of the French word for prostitute putain and its ability to be slipped into any sentance without causing offense.

So the sauce seemed appropriate, it was a remembered recipe from an old Delia Smith TV series on summer food puttanesca sauce. A sauce with some fire in its belly, deep and pungent, for sorting you out late at night.

It was easy to make. Onions and fennel were cooked down in olive oil. Peppers and garlic were added. The whole lot was stirred as it was cooked on a high heat to stop it from sticking.

As it cooked I added some anchovies that had been stuck in the back of the fridge for the last six months, capers and chopped black olives. The house started to fill with a good smell.

I let all this cook until it started to mesh and then added a couple of bags of tomatoes. I stirred them in so that some of them had a chance to keep their shape.

The thick sauce was then left on the oven whilst we went to a party for the opening of Homebaked in Anfield. There can be few worthwhile things than the reopening an hundred year old bakery bringing good bread to people that matter.

We were at the bakery for just over an hour. Plenty of time to listen the band Silent Sleep who were very good.

We then came home and boiled a vast pan of water for the pasta whilst the sauce was reheated. The pasta then went into a wide flat white bowl and the sauce was slathered over. I got it right so there were still half tomatoes that had held their shape and which pulped in the mouth molten and full of flavour.

Seven for lunch so we had falafel, lamb and stuffed pitta and flat Arab bread.

The food came from either the grocer on Oxton Road or The International Store. The falafel came out of a pack which came with its own scoop for shaping the small patties before they were dropped in hot oil. They are very easy to make. Simply pour the granular powder into a bowl and then stir 100 ml of water for each packet used then leave for an hour.

The mixture seems too wet to be able to hold its shape in the hot oil but somehow it does and they came out about an inch across, crispy and light.

I fried off the lamb at the same time. Chunky chops on the bone seasoned with salt, pepper and a touch of cayenne. I pulled all the nuggets of meat from the bone and piled them into a bowl for the table.

We ate it with slices of carrot, red onion, tomatoes, roasted red pepper and yogurt and hot chilli sauce.

One of the dishes I cooked on Saturday night was a small bowl of ox-tail stew. There was some left and three days latter it was perfectly unctuous.

The stew itself was very simple to make. A small pack of ox-tail pieces from Wards was all that I needed. The rest came from the cupboard.

I fried off the pieces of ox-tail in olive oil and added a chopped onion, carrot and garlic and fried it off some more. At that point I could have stirred in a spoon-full of flour but I forgot and just tipped in a half bottle of red wine. There were some pieces of chopped tomatoes on the side so I threw those in as well and then seasoned with salt and pepper. That was all left on a low heat for three hours until the meat was falling away from the bone. I boiled off some of the sauce before we ate it.

There were four pieces of ox-tail left and I finished them off this evening warming them up slowly in a pan on the hob. By the time they were heated through the sauce had turned into a dark, almost black, syrup that clung to the pieces of thick pasta I ate with it. I was very good indeed.

So for lunch today I again went in search of something that would keep some of of the family happy some of the time.

When I announced that it was going to be a form of chilli there were mutters of discontent. I was allowed to carry on so long as the rice did not have black bits in.

So we ate Mexican tinga poblana taken from Diane Henry’s Food from plenty.

We almost had the highlight of the meal before most of the cooking was done. A chorizo sausage peeled, crumbled and then fried in bacon fat until crispy. There were children crowding round asking for another bit. The sausage was crispy with all of the taste.

The sausage that survived went into a large pan and then in the  frying in pan in which I had cooked the sausage I fried off in batches a cubed shoulder of pork. As the batches took on sufficient colour they each went into the large pan with the sausage.

I then fried off two chopped onions. As they softened I stirred in some ground cumin and garlic and that all went into the large pan as well together with sufficient chicken stock to cover (the large chicken from last weekend still giving).

The large pan then went onto the hob to simmer for a while,

In the meantime the oven had been on high and inside a kilo of halved tomatoes with some sugar, salt and pepper had been roasting and browning.

The dish came together when I poured the tomatoes and their juice into the large pan with the softening pork and stirred in some chilli.

We ate it with soured cream, rice and sliced avocado. A despite the misgivings the kids ate at least some of it.