We have people coming for supper next weekend and unusually we have thought about the food a good week in advance. There was to be no pudding as such just bowls of fruit and cheese.

But then we saw a recipe for a pistachio, almond and carrot cake in the same Observer Food Magazine I seem to have been cooking out of over the last few weekends. It is another recipe from Sabrina Ghayour’s new book Persiana.

I was very good this week. I saw the book in Waterstones when I was in there one lunch time and managed to resist the temptation to buy. I was probably helped by the fact that they had the Morito book as well and I couldn’t decide which of the two I wanted most. So they both went back onto the table. I suspect I will have one of them at home by the end of next week.

I have had a practise run at the cake this afternoon.

The cake was straightforward to make. Just one bowl, starting with eggs, sugar and vanilla extract beaten together, and then adding ground almonds, desiccated  and cinnamon and then melted butter, grated carrot and chopped pistachio nuts. It all went into a cake tin and then into the oven where it is now.

Lunch was pitta bread stuffed with pieces of lamb coked in garlic and cumin and long thin green chillies. There was a plate of chopped veg and some of the mint flavoured yogurt from last weekend.