Some like it cold

A plate of cold food: fried leek and courgette, raw red pepper, chunks of vegetarian sausage, boiled potatoes, couscous, a falafel

I have never liked hot weather. Last week's record-breaking temperatures saw me sweltering with a broken fan, wearing a damp tea towel as a cravat (which colleagues were usually too polite remark on during Teams meetings) and letting climate anxiety get the better of me.

Unable to distract myself with going for a walk, I tried children's televsion. But even the Clangers thwarted me with a storyline about an extreme weather event: a strong wind blew away all the musical notes!

One thing that I did manage to enjoy was eating with minimal cooking, having in a rare moment of foresight cooked extra of various things the weekend before to be kept in tubs in the fridge and picked at, cold, in various combinations as wanted. The result was surprisingly satisfying and tasty.

My other Saturday success of that weekend was a cheat's version of banana ice cream. This is easy, fairly healthy and vegan, though it does require a food processor and space in the freezer.

Method:

1. Cut bananas into chunks and freeze them.

2. Blitz the frozen banana chunks until you get the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. I added a spoon of maple syrup and a sprinkle of cinnamon at this stage, but couldn't really taste them later.

3. Store in a tub in the freezer until wanted.

Cheat's banana ice cream with proper strawberry ice cream (from a shop) and poached pears, with glass of ginger beer for #ConfinedCocktails

A scoop (or two) was very welcome on the Terrible Tuesday.

I like cold food but it's also nice to have some hot dinners occasionally, so I'm pleased that recent days have allowed that.

Hot food: penne with salmon, kale and cream cheese