Prue just came round for dinner. Since she's been round here a fair number of times and I've already cooked her pretty much everything I know how to cook, I thought I'd stretch myself by making up something new to add to my repertoire.

This is a nervous business, as elise – my last guinea-pig – will probably remember. I get slightly edgy anyway when I'm cooking a dish for the first time; significantly more edgy when the first attempt is cooked for a guest; and quite a lot more edgy still when it's a recipe I only just assembled and I've no idea yet whether it'll work or not.

Fortunately, it did, and unlike my last new recipe I didn't even have to take notes on how to improve the next attempt. Lemon pepper chicken breast served with lemon, pepper and peppers risotto[1], and the whole thing Just Worked right down to the timing. A few more successes like that and I might even manage to stop being so nervous about the whole business :-)

[1] Arrgh. Putting peppers (as in the multicoloured crunchy vegetable) and pepper (as in the powdery hot stuff) in the same recipe tasted nice, but is a linguistic nightmare.