183: Warm soused mackerel, p68

Last mackerel recipe ticked off the list - but not our favourite, unfortunately. The fish was beautifully moist, being soused in the vinegar and wine, and lovely herby flavours came through, but we both decided we prefer the crispness given to mackerel when grilled or pan fried, rather that letting the skin end up a bit soggy. Plus T hated the smell of the vinegar, thought it smelt like old socks, bizarrely (I didn't think it did, but the smell was very vinegary, almost eye wateringly). Hey ho. Lovely served with the sauteed potatoes, but again, one fillet was enough for each of us, not two as suggested.

Only 10 recipes left to go!!

179: A squid in the fryer, p276

I like squid a lot, but this wasn't a success. I don't have much luck when recipes call for ingredients to be tossed in flour - worse still when they are coated in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs, turns into a sticky cleggy mess. A Cleggy Mess being nothing to do with the current government, of course. Ahem.

These (not so) little baby squids were fresh from the fishmongers two bus rides away, to whom I dashed away from work early tonight (red mullet tomorrow, hurrah!). Undercooked squid is disconcerting, overcooked is pretty horrid (like eating rubber bands, as Nigel says in the book), and I skillfully managed a bit of both here. The combination of ingredients promised much but sadly my execution of this recipe was a bit of a let down. A lighter touch, no flour, stirfrying, and a good squeeze of lime would have made all the difference. Oh well, you win some, you lose some!

171: Roast pork sandwiches, p286

Sainsbury's sells pork belly - who knew? I've been popping to the butcher, going into Waitrose, searching for the damned stuff - and then happen to go into a branch of Sainsbury's whilst on a shopping trip, off my normal beaten track, and there it is - not even on the butcher's counter! Hurrah!

It's tasty but not convinced I like it... it seems so wrong to eat so much fat...

Not the easiest recipe, although it seemed simple enough - the herby oniony mix smelt amazing (and tasted pretty good at the end) but didn't want to stick to the meat and, after halving the recipe, 'tucking' it around the meat didn't really work, I had to kind of squish it around one side of the piece of belly. It still started to burn a bit, even with stirring. But hey, how wrong can a roast piece of meat, sliced up and served hot in crusty rolls with a handful of leaves go?

169: A herb butter for grilled chops, p24

Apologies for the lull - been a busy few weeks, but I have been chugging through the recipes, promise!

Lovely jubbly, easy peasy, most difficult bit is remembering to have the butter out on the side in the kitchen so that it's not too solid to mix up with the other ingredients. Lashings of flavour, and all the juices make a delicious sauce which stops the pork from being too dry... if like me you accidentally leave it under the grill for a bit too long... :)

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.

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!

130: A salad of red mullet with lime and ginger, p246

Delicious! What a weekend for food! Along with the clams, I also purchased two red mullet from Sandy's. Quite pricey, and with four red mullet recipes in the book to get through, lets hope red mullet doesn't have a short season...

I was a bit nervous about this one, and probably will be about all the red mullet recipes actually, it being pricey and me not having cooked it before - it's a bit worrying, trying not to ruin it! However, this was easy peasy, and the fish took 2-3 mins on each side in a pan before it was cooked just so - was very pleased! The 'salad' comprised a cooked up Vietnamese style mixture of thinly sliced carrot and onion, with allsorts of lovely flavours - the lime juice, chilli, white wine vinegar, ginger and star anise being particularly notable. It went beautifully with the fish, which was meaty enough to hold it's own against the salad, yet delicate at the same time. And again, T, who I expected to leave most of the salad (not liking carrot or onion much, in any form), cleaned his plate!

122: Roast pork with grapes, juniper and Vin Santo, p308

Parents visiting for Sunday lunch today, so followed the Nigel souffle-opener with another four recipes from the book...The fat on the pork loin wasn't scored and it was really difficult to cut into it, even with my sharpest sharpest knife, grrr, so the spice mixture ended up kinda rubbed all over the meat and balanced on top :)

Was a bit hesitant about the juniper berries, can't stand the taste of juniper (yes, that includes gin too therefore...) and this smelt very junipery during cooking, but luckily the end taste wasn't too strong and overpowering. Although it was definitely there... And the dry marsala - yum! Definitely a good thing, and combined with the grapes (which were pretty blackened by the end of the cooking), made the most amazing deep, rich, tasty gravy. Served with roast potatoes as per the recipe, and the baked onions and lemon mint peas as in the next couple of recipes...

108: Grilled pork steaks with vermouth and fennel, p380

Yummy tasty garlicky rosemary-y marinade this, nice and thick, and made the pork steaks deliciously juicy and tasty after 5-10mins on the griddle pan. Definitely a marinade to use again. Fennel was interesting... as stated previously, I don't really like fennel, but clearly Nigel does... however, softening it in butter and then braising it in vermouth got rid of the overwhelmingly aniseedy taste I don't like, and gave it a lovely soft taste instead, but at the same time retaining quite a lot of crunch and texture. Not bad at all :)

84: Roast tomato soup with basil and olive oil toasts, p251

A supreme recipe! This has to be one of the best - and it's SOOOOOOOOO EASY, you wouldn't believe. Definitely a keeper. And I don't like tomato soup! I don't! Can't stand the bought stuff, don't much like it in restaurants, but this was something else. Mmmmm. And it's a cold, chilled soup. And it's still super tasty, full of flavour, and filling, doesn't have much in common with a light, gazpacho-style palate cleanser.... It's such an easy thing to do, but I'd never have thought of adding the stock to the roasting dish and boiling it up on the hob like when making gravy (added bonus of cleaning the dish at the same time, and not losing all those tasty bits...). Tasty tasty tasty.

80: Roast chicken wings with lemon and cracked pepper, p138, and 81: Sweet and sticky chicken wings, p323

Two-in-one here - two recipes using chicken wings in the book, so I made both, and roasted the chicken wings (and thighs) in two separate roasting tins. Scrummy, tasty, sticky wings, as promised, but would definitely have benefited from being left to marinate for a few hours as the flavour was mainly on the skin and so the meat underneath was fairly plain - especially the lemony ones, where the lemon was a bit too subtle, we both thought.

Served with mangetout and homemade new potato oven chips.

75: Marinated feta and artichoke salad, p369, and 76*: Baked aubergine with sheep's cheese and mint, p245

Oooh, how did I get to 29 years old without discovering artichokes? No, seriously? Mmm! No deli open this afternoon near us so had to make do with a jar of artichokes, and whilst waiting for the bus home I was starving... spying the 'ready to eat' bit on the jar, I had a nibble... yummy yummy!
Anyway, enough of them made it home to be included in the first of these salads, a veritable marathon of Nigeing whilst the hub was out. Feta, artichokes, aubergines, cous cous, courgette, none of these are recognised foodstuffs in his eyes, so I took advantage of the situation to blitz four recipes in one evening, in a Mediterranean festa of food. And a heck of a lot of olive oil and mint. I halved or quartered the recipes to make enough for me and some leftovers which got all mixed in together to make a very nice packed lunch for work...

Got a bit frantic in the kitchen though, with four recipes on the go at once, but I made it... slightly cremated aubergine or not... These two salads were easy peasy and jolly yummy, and will be repeated - I'm imagining nice swanky al fresco dinners with friends, in the garden we don't have, on the BBQ we don't have. One day :)

Roasted/grilled/baked aubergines are one of my favourite unexpected food pleasures. T would not agree, but something quite amazing happens to aubergine when it's cooked it one of these ways. It dries out slightly on the outside and then the moist insides spontaneously collapse, and it creates a delicious silky, almost meaty taste. Love it. Toasted pine nuts too. Another unexpected food pleasure - how can something so simple and unassuming, and frankly not that exciting looking, add so much to a dish? And they have to be toasted! Madness. An untoasted pine nut is a definite disappointment, and is a mistake never to be repeated. Feta is good stuff too, but needs to be used in moderation as it's such a strong, salty, sour taste, which can overdominate other flavours too easily.

*This is one of the 9 'extra' recipes, listed in the start of month recipes but not set out as a 'proper recipe' like the other 184

63: A chicken roasted with new garlic and a fresh pea pilau to go with it, p184

Yuuuuuum. Can't beat a roast chicken. Especially not on a weeknight, what a treat! I had the cunning idea of chopping the legs/wings off and freezing them to use another day for other recipes, since it was only me and T for dinner - and having the added advantage of meaning the chicken cooked quicker too, about an hour plus 30mins resting. Perfick! Who says a roast is a faff and takes loads of time?

This was a very easy, quick way of roasting the bird, very similar to how I normally do it (upside down to start with, stops the breast meat drying out, and then right way up for last 30mins or so to crisp up on top), but rubbed with oil instead of butter as I usually use. Really super tasty, crisp skin - not sure that's a good thing though, as it means I eat more of it...

The new (green) garlic was amazing. Bit of a faff to parboil it first, and it ended up burning in the pan around the chicken anyway - not sure what I did wrong there, but it was a shame, and meant there wasn't much squidging of soft roasted garlic to be done, but it did manage to massively infuse the chicken and the gravy with incredible garlickiness. Yum! The gravy was amazing - mostly alcohol, and what wasn't alcohol was garlic :) Good times.

The pea pilau was a mini cheat... instead of fresh peas (in May?? Yes, I should be trying to be more seasonal... this recipe is from June in the book...) I used Bird's Eye's finest... but they were petit pois! And they are peas. Honestly, does it really matter that much? Hmm. Maybe it does? Ho hum. Ignorance is bliss. And the pilau was a different, but very good, accompaniment to the chicken. And the gravy. Mmm. Did I mention how good the gravy was?

32: Pork ribs with honey and anise, p300

Oooooh, proper meaty tasty Chinese ribs, with sticky very-star-anisey sauce.

Made a bit of a boo-boo, after defrosting the ribs last night, and getting all the rest of the ingredients in the bowl, I found that the big bottle of oyster sauce in the cupboard was actually another bottle of thick dark soy sauce. There's a fantastic Asian supermarket not far from us in Richmond, and they sell great big bottles of soy, nam pla, oyster sauce, sesame oil, etc which I stock up on from time to time - and which last ages, hadn't realised that one had run out. Ooops... So I improvised with nam pla and soy sauce, so fingers crossed it wasn't too far from the actual recipe.

It's a really easy recipe, mixed up the marinade this morning and coated the ribs with it, leaving them in the sauce, and roasting the ribs this evening for an hour. Served with basmati rice and steamed winter greens, that was it! Scrummy.