It is the second Saturday of the month which means that Wirral Farmer’s Market has been on in New Ferry. I went down and used it as an opportunity to construct a very good steak sandwich for my lunch

The steak came from the Dolwen Farm Shop. I had asked for a couple of rump steaks but they were out of those so I had to make do with sirloin cut straight from a great slab of deep red meat. There was a pleasing heft to it in my bag.

Along with the steak I bought some smoked streaky bacon, a fat free range chicken, dirty potatoes and carrots, two partridges and three long French style baguettes.

Back home the partridges went into the freezer. They will no doubt make an appearance next weekend. I then set about constructing the steak sandwich.

I started by going out into the garden and picking a good handful of the rocket that is still growing like a weed around the veg plot. The fact that I have let some of it go to seed means there will be plenty next year. Now in the early autumn the green serrated leaves are peppery enough to bring a tear to the eye.

Back inside I put an heavy iron ribbed pan over a high heat to get smoking hot. The steak was cut into three thick strips and salted and peppered. One of the baguettes was cut in half and stuffed with rocket. A drop of oil was swirled round the bottom of the hot pan. Smoke billowed and the strips of steak were laid to spit and sizzle in the pan with the hot oil. I turned them over after a couple of minutes and they were done in five.

I took the pan off the heat to let them rest for a few minutes more and they were then stuffed into the baguette along with some sliced onions and tomatoes.

It was very good and didn’t need anything else apart from the electronic wash of John Grant’s new album in the background.

I may have mentioned over the weekend that I had some Spanish ham to use up. Having sliced most of what I could from the ham I went at it with a stumpier knife and ended up with two piles not counting the bones. The first pile was of yellowing fat and the second was chunks of ruby red meat.

I used some it up last night.

I started by cutting pieces of the fat into small cubes half the size of my thumb. These went into a heavy pan with some hot olive oil and were left to sizzle whilst I cut up some of the chunks of  of meat into similar sized cubes. These were then added to the pan with the sizzling fat and were given a stir.

A large onion was then finely sliced and added to with the fat and the meat along with some garlic and chilli, a bay leaf and plenty of salt and pepper.

Once the onion had soften a tin of chopped tomatoes was stirred in and allowed to bubble for a few minutes. Finally a couple of tins of white cannellini beans were drained and stirred in. They all cooked through whilst I fried off some boiled potatoes to eat with them.

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We could have been sat in a Spanish taverna as we ate it taking in the smell of ham fat and burnt potato.

Last Sunday’s Observer had a free food supplement (although nothing is really free) giving us what they thought are the 20 Best British Recipes. It was cobbled together from the writings of various well regarded food writers in staunch favourites such as Simon Hopkinson, Jane Grigson, Elizabeth David and Fergus Henderson.

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But what caught my eye was a picture of a full traditional rib of beef standing proud with a pile of Yorkshire puddings to the side. I made a mental note that I should be picking a small one next time I was down at The Farmer’s Market.

It turned out I needn’t have bothered with the mental note. We were out for a late lunch on the Sunday celebrating a 25th Wedding Anniversary. As we walked into the house our noses took in the smell of a finely cooked roast.

An hour later we were at it around the table and I was given a sharp knife to have a go at the carving. I suspect there wasn’t a great deal of finesse about it but that didn’t effect the taste and it looked better than the picture from the paper.

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Almost as good was Bakewell Tart that finished off the meal.

An excellant way to ease into autumn.

So after a month the ham stand is free of its ham. The bones are in the fridge downstairs and there are two Tupperware containers – one filled with the cutaway fat and the other with chunks of ham too tough to cut into slices.

I am now working on recipes to use up left over ham.