168: Green curry of prawns and Thai aubergines, p118

'Small purple Thai aubergines' and 'pea aubergines available from Chinese and Thai grocers'? Hmm. Not round here, I'm afraid. Like Maggie Don, I eventually gave up on trying to find either, having looking and looked, and used a normal aubergine. Love aubergines, love their almost meaty texture and the way they make dishes taste rich but at the same time balance out lots of rich flavours. T doesn't like aubergines :( But he did try and actually ate quite a lot of this (and all the prawns and cherry tomatoes, of course).

Lots of lovely Thai-inspired flavours, and an easy peasy recipe, just need to make sure you have a little mini-blitzer/processor to whizz up the spice paste quickly and you're away. I skipped the coriander root in the ingredients list too, I'm afraid. Oh well :)

167: Lemon trifle, p140

A triumph! This one will definitely be repeated. Many times. It's already been requested by several people who were at the party in the Cotswolds we went to this weekend, for future parties. 

And I don't like trifle! I really don't like soggy cake/biscuit bases/etc in desserts and have never 'got' trifle and have therefore always avoided it... but this really was something else. A relatively small amount of the sponge fingers, with the inspired addition of lemon curd, and then the lightest, most delicious lemon custard on top, and a thick covering of whipped cream. The custard was wonderful - creamy and light but the acidity and zestiness of the lemon cut through and stopped it being too sweet or fatty. I could eat bowls of just the custard. Yum.

Decorated with orange zest and some little yellow and white sugar flowers I found in our Aunt's pantry, it was the first pudding to be finished at the party, out of a dining table full of desserts, and the people at the end of the queue for desserts didn't even get to see it. Hurray!

166: Raspbery vanilla ice-cream cake, p316

Hmm, not convinced about this one... used nice buttery Madeira cake and vanilla icecream from Waitrose, and lots of raspberries and mixed summer fruits (moo, miscalculated and didn't have quite enough raspberries so added some berries from the freezer). Perhaps the late substitution was part of the problem, but the fruit was rock solid when it came to serving - even after over 30mins on the work surface before slicing as per the directions. The fruit shattered as the cake was being sliced, the icecream was very nice (mmm, Waitrose...), the Madeira cake was, well, just very cold Madeira cake which started to crumble when sliced. Posh Arctic Roll gone a bit wrong.

165: Lamb-filled flatbread, p238

High praise from T, "You've certainly learnt how to cook lamb well during this [recipe challenge foolishness]" as he inhaled one of these wraps... :)

Wraps, or flatbreads? I was initially thinking of flatbreads as went with the taramasalata recipe last month, or perhaps pitta breads, until I read the recipe through and found that the last direction is to 'roll up' the flatbreads. Wraps! Or tortillas! Not flatbreads, surely? I used sandwich wraps. But think pittas would have been good too. 

Couple of pieces of lamb shoulder fillet, marinated in garlicky loveliness and then griddled on each side for a few minutes, before resting - leaving it beautifully pink inside and super tasty on the outside. With simple lemony rocket leaves, garlicky herby yoghurt sauce, and the meat, wrapped in tortillas and served. Messy (I can never work out how to fold these - I know the theory but in reality I always either tear them or they just keep falling apart and dribbling meaty juices and yoghurt all down ones front), but delicious. The sweetness of the meat, and the acidity of the lemon and peppery leaves, refreshing sharpness of the yoghurt, lovely jubbly, and a very nice Friday night supper.

164: Orange yoghurt water ice, p254

Another sorbet-y, granita-y, water ice from the book and this one, like the strawberry water ice which I made back in September, was a winner. Intensely fruity and sweet but not too sweet like the melon sorbet was. Easy to make, and like the strawberry water ice, it had a much better texture than the melon sorbet. Curious. I like the addition of yoghurt, giving a little creaminess to the ice, but without losing the tartness of the orange. Could try adding yoghurt to the strawberry recipe...

163: Stilton, onion and potato pie, p354

I hadn't read this recipe properly until now and had for some reason been thinking this was going to be an actual pastry pie or perhaps layered slices of sauteed potatoes at best. As a result I was thinking this would be a bit of a meh, vegetarian heaven recipe, but it turned out to be... super lovely creamy cheesey oniony yummy mash potato - yum! Blue cheese isn't my favourite - I've always wanted to like it more, but always seem to find it too tangy and strong, so I wasn't convinced about using stilton - or having to buy a chunk twice the size of what we needed... but glad I did - on serving the cheese had effectively completely melted into everything else and the flavour wasn't overpowering at all. The onions went deliciously sweet and gooey, and the potatoes super creamy and buttery. Not a low cal option but the most lovely comfort food... It didn't quite pass the 'complete meal' test for T though, but with the addition of a couple of grilled sausages and some steamed greens, it made the grade. I think I agree with him. Yum.

162: A lime tart, p32

Lots of limes! Lots of eggs! Lots of cream! And lots of sugar! Blimey... another low-cal pudding from Nige :)

I didn't even try to make the pastry. I feel no shame... However, I did miss the clues in the recipe, specifying that the pie tin should have 3.5cm high sides, so that even using my big pie tin and a large sheet of pastry the lime mixture was enough to have filled two pie tins. Which I don't have. So I baked the rest in small bowls to eat as little puddings, which seems to have worked :)

The tart was scrummy, although it looked worryingly like a cheese and chive quiche on serving - T prodded it suspiciously, thinking I was trying to con him into eating something from the banned list...  A custardy texture, with lots of zesty bits, but I have to say, I prefer my own lemon tart which is much simpler (2 lemons, 2 eggs, 150ml cream, 150g sugar), fits in one regular pastry case, and has a smooth, crisp filling. No bad at all, just not as good as mine :)

161: A pot-roast pheasant with celery and sage, p25

Recipe six this weekend, and the shops are stocking pheasant again, now it's in season - hurray! Unfortunately they all seem to come wrapped in bacon, so after searching for a naked one everywhere, I gave up, bought one with the bacon, and peeled it off before cooking. Don't think it affected the flavour of the meat in the recipe though.

This recipe called for browning the meat and then cooking up the other ingredients in a casserole dish before putting it in the oven... after the disaster of the pot-roast pigeon where one of my two Denby casserole dishes shattered into pieces, with about two litres of ingredients and stock flooding the kitchen, and therefore me discovering that Denby dishes aren't hob proof (doh!), I very carefully used the second one for this - I really need a Le Creuset dish for Christmas - if I can find anywhere to store one!!

There wasn't an enormous amount of liquid in this so although I pushed the pheasant down as much as I could, it was mostly sitting on top of the other ingredients so I was worried the meat might end up a bit dry but it didn't seem to and after 40mins in the oven seemed to be cooked just right - cooked through but still a little moist. The potatoes were perfectly cooked, the celery still slightly crunchy, and plenty of lovely yummy, vermouthy, sage-y gravy. Yum!

159: Seared beef with mint and mustard dressing, p271, and 160: Garlic prawns, p272

Oh my... the seared beef was amazing. Dedicated carnivores that we are, it was always likely to be a winner, but this really was divine! Our budget rarely stretches to fillet (or steak at all - it's usually a special occasion treat, much to T's dismay) and I couldn't justify the quantity this recipe uses, just for the two of us, so got a much smaller piece of fillet, around 200g. Wasn't sure how long to cook it in the oven for, 10mins for the larger piece in the recipe, so tried 5mins, then a couple more, and then a good 10mins resting and it was perfect - rare in the middle, with a thin roasted layer outside. And it cut like butter with my super sharp filleting knife. Gorgeous.

The dressing was a success too, creamy and minty, love making these mayonnaises now I've found they are so easy. Used my little mini processor so couldn't drizzle the oil in continuously, instead stopped every minute or so to drizzle another tbsp over the top of the mixture before blitzing again and it seemed to work just fine. Despite using lots of fresh mint, the mint flavour didn't really come through, so might try more in the future, or less mustard, but still delicious!

Finally for the evening, we had the garlicky grilled prawns. Again, the budget, and the number of covers, didn't quite match the recipe's requirements but I decided not to scrimp on quality and got four enormous fresh sea king prawns, each a good four inches long, from the Waitrose fish counter. Hardly need a recipe for this one and it's one of our favourite combinations, although normally if we add red chilli to add a fiery kick, so not much to say other than it was easy (no more than 5mins under the grill) and delicious - especially with lashings of melted butter and lemon juice on top!

158: A supper of grilled mackerel and more tomatoes, p222

The Nigel Slater Marathon weekend continues! Last night's dinner comprised no fewer than three new recipes, plus the leftover remoulade from last night. Rock on! I made no more than a half quantity of each recipe and T and I shared. This could be the solution to finishing the book by the end of the year!

First up was another mackerel recipe. Easy peasy and really rather nice - definitely one to repeat, for a light supper. The skin of mackerel is so beautiful, and these fillets popped under the grill for about 5mins were perfectly cooked, meaty but not heavy, with the skin crisped around the edges, and the acidity of the lemon cutting through their slight oiliness. Lovely. Worked very nicely with the creaminess of the leftover remoulade on the side.

156: Celeriac and walnut remoulade, p355, and 157: Hot and sticky roast quail, p353

Sorry about the break in service - we moved house! From a two bed flat to a two bed house - yippee :) Kitchen isn't enormous, but it's definitely bigger than the last one, and much better laid out - and at last we can actually fit all the food AND the crockery AND kitchen bits and bobs in there, with no need to use the spare room as a pantry anymore. Phew!

So... getting a bit behind on the book, oh dear... but must crack on! So - tonight we had two recipes, the first of which I wasn't really looking forward to - every time I've had a celeriac root in a veggie box it's gone terribly wrong... but it was another revelation! The creme fraiche, grain mustard and lemon mixture gave the matchsticks of celeriac a really nice tangy kick. Of course I couldn't get 'paper thin slices of Bayonne ham' so I used some nice thin slices of English ham, and instead of serving the remoulade on top of the slices of ham, I sliced it into thin strips and mixed it into the celeriac mixture. Only real fault was that I wouldn't add any extra salt if I made it again, as I found it didn't need it, but with the ham mixed in (partly so that T wouldn't just eat the ham and leave the celeriac...) it had all the saltiness it needed.

Served with the quails on the side, just one each, this made a nice, light dinner for us. The quail recipe was easy as could be and twenty minutes in the oven was perfect. The basting sauce was delicious - not too hot at all, sweet and sticky, and scrummy - and a nice foil to the crisp, refreshing zing of the remoulade. A success all round!