Every time I make shakshouka, I struggle with getting all the eggs to the right degree of doneness. Very often I end up with some eggs almost hard-boiled while others still have runny whites. I guess it’s the time it takes to get them all into the stew. By the time I crack the last one into its place, the first one has probably had a full minute to cook.

Today I thought I would do something clever. I cracked all six eggs in advance into six cups so that I could then get them all into the tomato sauce really quickly. This way, I thought, they would all start cooking at almost the same time and be done at the same time.

And it made no bloody difference whatsoever. Again two of the eggs were well done while two others were still completely runny! I have no idea why they behave so annoyingly or what to do about it. It’s not like some are closer to the middle and get more heat.

Adrian really enjoys making pasta. I make the dough, he rolls it into pasta. He’s got the process down pat and turns out pasta for four hungry eaters in about 20 minutes. The pasta maker was a great buy.

We’ve been cutting our pasta dough into tagliatelle until now, but Adrian wanted fettuccine today. Cooking it was a surprise – it was done faster than I expected. The water had just come back to boil after I added the pasta and then cooked for maybe 2 minutes, and already the pasta was softer than I like it.

I’ve reached middle age and become lactose intolerant. Sharing the symptoms with you would probably be TMI, but suffice it to say, they’re not fun. I can still eat small amounts of dairy without any problems, but a few days eating, say, pasta in a creamy sauce will really mess up my stomach.

So I’m now buying lactose free stuff, somewhat reluctantly. It doesn’t quite taste like the normal stuff. Lactose free butter and cream cheese both taste kind of blander and sharper. I guess my taste buds miss the sugar. I guess I’ll get used to it.

What bothers me more is that there are so few organic lactose free products. I want my milk and butter to come from happy cows who are not pumped full of antibiotics and who get to spend their days outdoors. But I also still want my butter to be butter, not an artificial alternative.

I was happy to see that at least when it comes to heavy cream, there is an organic lactose free alternative. Too bad it’s one of those semi-fake ones, with a thickening agent compensating for the lower fat content (36% instead of 40%). Organic, thickener free, lactose free: choose any two out of three.

Once upon a time, several years ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for cheesy broccoli muffins. Since then it’s become a fixture in my recipe collection. The best part about it is how versatile it is. The cheesy “foundation” can be combined with just about anything. When I got tired of the broccoli and feta cheese flavour, I replaced them with grated apples and carrots and curry powder. When I didn’t have enough carrots at home, I made them with apples and curry and sweetcorn. When I wanted a Christmas-themed variation, I used feta cheese and frozen lingonberries. I’ve been thinking of making them with butternut squash, or perhaps with spinach, or why not both.

My favourite apple variety is Ingrid Marie. And fortunately for me, it is one of the few varieties of Swedish apples that is sold all throughout the winter. Aroma and Cox Orange have also been available, off and on, but I don’t care much for those.

I’m impressed that they manage to store these apples all the way until the end of March, and they’re still crisp and in good shape.

This seems to be the end, though. I haven’t seen any at either Coop or ICA in the last few days. I’m savouring the last one.

Adrian’s favourite breakfast is a cherry tomato omelette. I make one for him and me almost every weekend. Eric is not that fond of eggs for breakfast, and Ingrid we rarely even see before 11 on weekends, so it’s just Adrian and me.

I’ve never quite gotten the hang of proper French omelettes, which you are supposed to keep stirring all the time. When I do that, I end up with scrambled eggs… which we also love, but not when we want an omelette. The fact that our omelettes are made of at least 5 eggs probably doesn’t help. My omelettes are more like the Spanish and Italian ones: thick fluffy ones, filled with stuff, slowly cooked under a lid. But with tomatoes instead of potatoes.

Cherry tomatoes are on the “must always have at home” list only because of these omelettes.

Two of Adrian’s favourite foods are dumplings and spring rolls. He loves Asian buffets – not for the wide variety of food but for the chance to stuff himself with dumplings.

He’s been asking for a while now if we could make dumplings at home. I’m not very interested in meals that are more crafts than cooking. For the same reason I’m not very interested in making sushi, although I like eating it.

Eric was willing to give it a go, though. The whole project took hours. First, making the dough and the filling. And then all this rolling and filling and shaping… Adrian liked the first steps, but the assembly part was too tedious for his taste, so I had to step in and help out to get them done in time for dinner. It was pretty tedious; I can understand that he didn’t enjoy it much.

The result tasted good. But store-bought frozen dumplings are also good, and I’m really not sure if these tasted two hours better.

Adrian loved them though, and immediately started talking about making them again. If we ever do, we need to find a faster way of filling and shaping them.

Adrian and Eric made swirl buns of various kinds: cinnamon, poppy seed, chocolate and orange peel. I like buns and all kinds of other cakes but the desire to eat them rarely grows strong enough to make me bake. I don’t even know why. It’s not that I dislike baking, or find it difficult. I just… don’t do it. How nice it is to have family that does.

Several of the games that Adrian plays have a mechanism where you can collect things that don’t matter much for the main game play. In Animal Crossing there are collections of bugs and fish and fossils. In both Zelda BOTW and Pokemon Sword, there are (among other things) recipes to collect to fill your recipe books. Inspired by an apple curry in Pokemon Sword, Adrian wanted us to make one in real life. I would never have thought to make an apple curry, but it turned out quite nice. Adrian even decorated his portion to match the picture in the game.

Adrian enjoys both cooking and baking. When he bakes, it’s always something chocolate-based: a mud cake, brownies, or chocolate chip cookies. This time it was cookies.

Mixing the sugar and room-temperature butter took him over half an hour, but he didn’t give up and got it done all on his own.