This Sunday night dinner was inspired by a number of things. The butterflied leg of lamb, marinated in sour cream and oregano and then roasted in the oven (you can do it over a braai, if you have one) came from 66 Square Feet. I’ve had this book for a while and it is by a South African living in New York. The book captures a year in her terrace garden, and the various menus that result. I did a massive ‘spring’ clean on Saturday, which included reorganising the shelves in the kitchen. Squandering at the bottom of a pile of cookbooks was this one. I paged to the August chapter and was immediately inspired by the lamb, and the tomato fig salad. (There is a summer menu suggestion they both appear on.) I couldn’t find any figs so I just riffed a tomato and herb salad with an avocado that desperately needed to be eaten, and some toasted flaked almonds. The sweetcorn was grilled on the open flame on our hob (also needed using). The potatoes were inspired by this post from Olia Hercules (of Mamushka). I will try these again, as I may have let the butter burn slightly so aspects of the base were too dark to eat.

For dessert, I made chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches. The chocolate chip cookie recipe was from The Violet Bakery Cookbook. It is amazing. I only baked 8 cookies yesterday but the rest of the dough is (portioned) in the freezer so that I have cookie therapy for bad days. The ice cream is a no churn (and flipping delicious) chocolate chip and vanilla from the current issue of Delicious magazine. Sunday food wins.