24 March 2007: Quickly

In celebration of today's return to proper spring weather, after last week's snow, a lunch salad of crumbled tofu fried with ginger and garlic, tossed with coriander, mint, basil, red pepper, cucumber and rice noodles, in a dressing of lime juice, fish sauce, palm sugar and chilli flakes.

This is tragically the only photo I've got of a combination we've been working and reworking for dinners recently: smoked fish + vegies + couscous. Tragic because the lighting's bad and the fish is overcooked, but take it from me it's a winning number.

First thing, throw some ripe cherry tomatoes into a baby roasting dish (we have a cute one 15 cm x 10 cm which is perfect), and put them in the oven, turning the oven on to 180 C as you do so. They'll take 10-15 minutes, depending on how big they are, and how fast your oven is.

The smoked fish can be anything- we've used mackerel, trout and salmon. Remove it from the fridge an hour or so before eating, if possible, so that you only need to leave it in the oven for 5 minutes. If it's cold and you need to warm it for longer, make sure that you add something moist while cooking (lemon juice, for example), to stop the drying you see in the photo. In any case, put the bits of fish on a piece of alfoil, add any aromatics you like (sprigs of dill, slices of lemon, etc), fold into a packet, and put in the oven until just warm.

For two people, put 120 g of couscous in a bowl, and cover with 250 ml of boiling water. Stir, cover with a plate, and leave to steam for 10 minutes.

Cook whatever veggies you're going to have. We've tried steamed broccolini, mange tout and pieces of sweet potato, green beans boiled till just tender, spinach just wilted in a pan. It's good to use a couple of different types of vegetables, but I try and keep it to one pan, by, for example, steaming the sweet potato over the pan that I will cook the beans in at the last minute. Less washing up is good.

When everything's almost ready, uncover the couscous, fluff with a fork, and stir through lemon juice, capers, and chopped herbs - dill, flat-leaf parsley and lemon thyme is a good combination. Plate and eat.

This sounds like a long list of instructions, but they're all easy and they get me dinner on the table in under 20 minutes, which is what I need at the moment.

One of the reasons we're so busy: we're moving back to Australia at the end of May. So much to organise! So much to finish up at work! So many people and places to say goodbye to.

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