Split up like that, it sounds like like a whole new language but hopefully you will parse it as a positive statement. We had roast beef for dinner tonight (and thus cold meat for a salad tomorrow and sandwich material for Monday and perhaps Tuesday). However I also needed to get the aubergine we had in last week’s veg box cooked up before it started to go off, so made use of the second shelf in the hot oven to roast it up.

Method? Split in two, cross-hatched across the flesh, sprinkled with sea salt and partially crushed cumin seeds before being generously drizzled with olive oil and slid onto the bottom shelf in a roasting tin. Result? The roast beef was pretty good but the cube of aubergine I helped myself to while clearing up was in the “to die for” category.

The plan was to use it as an adjunct to meals this week; I think tomorrow may well yield a beef, lettuce and roast aubergine salad for lunch. Can’t wait or, as they say in my kitchen, au ber gine!