As anyone knows, when you’re on holiday dinner is truly the main event. The meal you fantasize about in the weeks leading up to your trip, budget carefully for and research excessively. After a hotel breakfast and on-the-hoof lunch, this is when you’ll crack open a bottle of wine, help yourself to the bread basket, order a starter (or two), and decide on the most delicious, most indulgent thing on the menu. After all, whether you’re exploring your temporary home at length or just lounging by the pool, holidays have a way of stoking the appetite.

One of the things I like best about small Italian towns is the traditional quirky layouts. The main piazza and cobbled street are always lovely, but it’s the bewildering network of back alleys, with stone steps that lead up and down and turn back on themselves, that really sets the scene. You’re never quite sure whether the impossibly narrow, twisting alley you’re walking along is in fact a public street, or whether another turn will land you in the middle of someone’s living room. But this unknowable quality is part of the charm, and in my experience, the most rewarding restaurants often lie at the end of these rainbows.

On our first evening in Amalfi, Andrew and I followed one of these mysterious alleys to a wonderful dinner. In a tiny piazza tucked between the Duomo and a smaller church, we dined on bruschette, smoked and grilled local cheese, homemade pasta and fresh seafood. Bakery-fresh bread, charmingly served from a paper bag, was perfect for mopping up sauces and absorbing the wine in our stomachs.

Subsequent dinners were just as rewarding. From the perfectly cooked sea bass at a rooftop restaurant on Amalfi’s main street to the cheese-stuffed, deep-fried anchovies we had as a starter at our hotel, it was gastronomic pleasure at every turn. A single disappointing dinner in a neighbouring town couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm for Amalfitana cuisine, and even that had its rewards. (Dining next to a church while the choir practices inside? Almost worth the dull gnocchi and watered-down wine.)

One of my all-time favourite Italian dishes is handmade pasta with local mixed seafood. On the Amalfi coast, that pasta is more often than not scialatielli, a long, thick-ish noodle similar to fettuccine or linguine. Prepared with cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs and a mix of shrimp, clams, mussels and squid, it’s as close as you’re likely to get to holiday perfection. I only ate that specific dish once this time around, but Andrew enjoyed it four (!) times.

We didn’t once have dessert in a restaurant, but there’s a good reason for that. Andrew and I have a very simple, very straightforward rule when in Italy: you must eat gelato every single day. It can be respite from the afternoon heat or a post-dinner treat, but the rule is finite. Missed a day? Well, I hope you still have room after all that food, because today you’ve got to have two to make up for it.

I know it’s not the prettiest Valentine’s Day heart around, but considering the random and misshapen assortment of vegetables I had to work with, I think it’s pretty cute.

My day kicked off with a batch of cinnamon buns; lying in bed this morning, I realised that I hadn’t make a proper “baked breakfast” in a while, and today seemed the perfect time to break this poor habit. Of course, I didn’t have time to pull together my favourite Sticky Buns, so instead turned to a recipe from Fine Cooking. Fastest Cinnamon Buns are made without yeast, meaning they’re great for those last-minute breakfast emergencies.

After we were sugared, showered and dressed, Andrew and I headed out to the market together. It might have been a cold, grey day, but we had a great time choosing out food for the week ahead. The celeriac and Bramley apples will go toward a surprising soup. I tried a similar one at work this past week, and was blown away by the rich, sweet and tangy flavour.

The leeks will be used as soon as I’m finished typing this post. Tonight’s dinner is a Leek, Lemon and Parmesan risotto a deux- simple to make and delicious to eat. The broccoli has no firm destination yet, but I always find something to do with my favourite vegetable.

Care to fill me in on your Valentine’s Day plans? Cooking anything special today? What about the week ahead? Oh, and before I forget…

Look, I tried. To the best of my ability, I attempted to hold off the holiday season until next month. It’s only mid-November, and nobody really wants to be bombarded with Christmas recipes yet. But through a (misguided) desire to review my copy of Nigella Christmas on Kitchlit, I accidentally opened the floodgates. Because reviewing means recipe-testing, and recipe-testing means recipe-posting. So here I am, waving the white, red and green flag in surrender: it’s started. Bring on Christmas!

These days, it’s not that cool to like Christmas, is it? We’re meant to spend the weeks leading up to December 25th complaining about it, rather than celebrating it. It starts too early, it’s too commercial, it has no meaning anymore, it isn’t inclusive enough. Though I don’t consider myself a particularly Christmas-centric person, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t one of my favourite times of year. Yes, it’s stressful as anything, but all the worry takes a back seat when there’s a blanket of snow outside, a cheesy holiday special on TV, and the smell of pine needles, candles and home baking in the air.

I should own up- Christmas is on my mind today for a specific reason. Tomorrow, Toronto will host the 105th annual Santa Claus Parade, a Christmas tradition I regrettably won’t be enjoying this year. I used to watch this parade every November as a child, and understood it as the harbringer of the holiday season. I’d sit (far too close to the TV), and watch the whole spectacle in giddy excitement.

The parade was still a part of my holiday celebrations years later, when I moved to Toronto for university. My best friend and I never went to watch it in person (what, in the cold?) but still took it as a sign that Christmas was upon us. We’d put on some festive music, hang the red cranberry wreath on our apartment door, switch on our fibreoptic Christmas tree (hey- don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it), and settle on the couch, homemade mochas in hand, to watch the parade.

So when I found the flat completely bereft of anything sweet yesterday, I wanted to bake something that would fit my mood. I realise that oatmeal cookies hardly seem Christmassy -at least not in the way that gingersnaps or shortbread would- but I’ve always loved them. The crisp-chewy texture is crowd-pleasing, and the presence of oats make them feel more wholesome than other kinds of cookies (if only). These ones have just enough festive colour (white chocolate, red cranberries and green pistachio) to seem seasonally appropriate.

If you’re not quite ready to ring in the season yet, consider using pecans or walnuts instead of pistachios. The original recipe called for pecans, and while I think the pistachios add a certain festive charm, I bet they’d be just as good with another nut. Meanwhile, I’ll be enjoying these as-is, and watching clips of my parade on YouTube.

• Holiday Oatmeal Cookies
• adapted from Nigella Christmas by Nigella Lawson
• makes 30 cookies
• 150g plain flour
  75g rolled oats
  1/2 tsp. baking powder
  1/2 tsp. salt
  125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  75g dark brown sugar
  80g caster sugar
  1 egg
  1 tsp. vanilla extract
  100g white chocolate, finely chopped
  75g dried cranberries
  75g shelled pistachios, chopped
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Prepare 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper (or be prepared to bake in batches, if you only have one.)
  
  2. Whisk together the flour, oats, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
  
  3. In a large bowl (or a stand mixer), cream the butter and sugars together for 4 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat to combine.
  
  4. Add the flour mixture in 2 additions, beating after each one to combine. Finally, fold in the white chocolate, cranberries and pistachios.
  
  5. Roll tablespoonfuls of dough with your hands (a messy job- the dough will be sticky) and place on the prepared baking sheets, leaving 2 inches between each cookie for spread. Bake for 15 minutes, until the cookies are pale gold in colour. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheets, before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

I admit it: I’ve been a lazy, lazy blogger these past few days. I offer you, my lovely readers, the above vegetables as a peace offering. Forgive me?

I returned from my North American adventure on Tuesday morning, with the best of intentions to jump straight back into the blogging game. Working against me, however, was a bad cold (am I the only one who routinely gets ill on long-haul flights?), jet lag, a refridgerator devoid of nutritients and a decided lack of culinary inspiration.

You’d think that after ten days of family dinners, restaurant meals, and plane and train foods simply appearing before me I’d be itching to get back into the kitchen myself. And in a way I was; it was the pausing, photographing, writing and editing part that outdid me. It’s not as if I haven’t eaten since my return to the UK, and I’ve saved up a few recipes I’d like to share, including a curry from my new Nigel Slater book and a squash-topped pizza with a rather interesting dough recipe. These will be appearing here over the next few days, along with whatever I can rustle up from the veggies above.

I bought those Brussels sprouts specifically for this gnocchi and sprouts dish from the wonderful blog Seven Spoons. I’m not sure I’ll be attempting the gnocchi (we have a love-hate relationship), but the idea of crispy sprouts with walnuts and parmesan sounds heavenly.

If you can believe it, that’s my first-ever pumpkin. Of course I’ve bought them to carve before, but until recently never thought of them as something that you’d actually want to eat. Having had my first taste of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, though (yes, my first; mock me if you must), I’ve changed my tune. This little guy could become some autumnal scones, but there’s also a Nigella recipe for pumpkin and goat’s cheese lasagne that I’ve had my eye on for a while.

The savoy cabbage and broccoli have no definite plans yet, though I’ve been dreaming of a creamy broccoli and cheddar soup for a while now. Whenever I can’t think up a way to use cabbage, it ends up in this recipe from Orangette. I’ve mentioned it before here, but have to reiterate how delicious and simple it is. Andrew likes it too, which is always a bonus.

Enough about me- how have you been? Got any grand cooking plans for the week ahead?

That will surely change tomorrow, though- I’m off for ten days of family, relaxation, and yes- wonderful food. (Though my Mum still can’t get her head around my vegetarianism- I have a feeling I’ll be doing rather of a lot of “picking the meat out” over the next few days.) My trip back home covers both Canadian Thanksgiving and a good friend’s wedding, so hopefully I’ll have some delicious stories to share when back in London on the 19th.

Until then, bon appétit!