It’s been a funny old week, this week. We’ve spent it being very busy – laying carpets, going to work, induction evenings at son’s new school – there hardly seemed any time for anything else.

Meals this week have been a mixture of the “quick & easy”, through the “severely retro” to the “new and (hopefully) interesting”.

Owing to the combination of working and carpet laying, the “quick & easy” meal was taken care of by Pasta Amatriciana. Now I can’t be the only one who is sick to death of the Fusilli Tricolore, currently on sale in it’s millions of packets, can I? That stuff just bores me to tears and was, regrettably, the pasta of choice for recipes such as Pasta Bake and the Amatriciana. Such was the level of boredom, I scoured the pasta shelves for something new – and wound up with pasta shells. Yes, I know it’s just the same stuff (albeit not tricolore), just a different shape, but it changed our view of dinner from “oh god, it’s that again” to “yum, here comes dinner”.

However, I can see that even the novelty of Pasta shells is going to wear off fairly quickly – so if anyone has any bright ideas (long, thin pasta such as spaghetti or tagliatelle are out, for various reasons) I’d be glad to hear them!

I think the Amatriciana is my favourite pasta sauce. Maybe I’ve just had too many Spaghetti Bolognese’s and Pasta Bakes in the past, but there’s something about the richness of the tomato & basil base, with the gorgeous smoked bacon, all pepped up by the warmth of chilli that just rings my bell. Add some lovely grated parmesan and I’m happy!

Now, under “severely retro” was a dish that I remember from my childhood and have reproduced with varying degrees of success in the eighties. However, I’d left it alone for a very long time and suddenly remembered it, vowing to “give it a go” again – but this time, with fresh ingredients as opposed to tinned.

This retro marvel was celery in cheese sauce. Or Celery Mornay, I suppose, if you want to put a label on it. I paired it up with Gammon slices, new potatoes, carrots and peas and am pleased to say it was a bit special.

I began with two celery hearts – which proved ample, if not slightly too much, for two adults and one child. I sliced off the dried up root and ran a vegetable peeler over the outside of the bigger sticks, to remove the strings. Then, I cut them in half and laid them in a suitably-sized casserole dish.

The next step was to make a white sauce – you can either buy a packet sauce or make one via the roux method – and add to it a few good handfuls of a strong grated cheddar cheese, a pinch of cayenne pepper and a half a teaspoon of English Mustard powder. Whisk these in and pour the resultant mix over the celery. Top it off with a mixture of breadcrumbs and more grated cheese, then bake in a moderate oven for 45-60 mins, depending on how much celery you’ve used.

Our son was severely dubious about this celery dish, however, after a cautious first forkful he declared it “yummy, actually” and demolished the lot. Isn’t it amazing what a cheese sauce will do for an otherwise unpalatable vegetable? *chuckle*

The “new and interesting” was brought about by my being fed up with producing the standard roast potatoes, roast parsnips, broccoli, carrots, blah, blah .. for Sunday roasts.

I had bought a chicken for Sunday and was looking for something new to make to go with it. One of the cookery books I was given by my neighbour, is an Italian book by Linda Doeser. In it, she gives a recipe for “Aubergines with mozzarella & parmesan” or, apparently, “Parmigiana di Melanzane”. This intrigued me, as I’ve only ever cooked with Aubergines once before and my son adores Mozzarella. It had the additional benefit of being the kind of dish that you could serve alongside some roast chicken, without having to serve anything else.

Of course, being Aubergines, it required a bit of fiddling around – slicing, dousing in salt, leaving to drain, rinsing, patting dry – however, we came to the conclusion that all this palaver could have been dispensed with. Simply using the sliced Aubergines wouldn’t have made the overall thing so salty, although I do accept that it may have come up bitter. I guess I’ll just have to make it again, and see!

So, having baked your Aubergines for a while, you proceed to make a tomato & basil sauce. Thereafter, you layer Aubergines, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and grated parmesan into a lasagne dish, winding up with a layer of parmesan and breadcrumbs.

Dot the surface with butter and bake for 25 minutes.

The end result was a glorious melange of rich Italian flavours, which went very well with the roasted Chicken and additional afterthought of garlic bread. It certainly made a very pleasant change from all the roasted accompaniments!

Now on to tonight’s challenge – getting my son to eat liver. Wish me luck!