193: Nigel's delightful trifle, p234

The final recipe, and fit for a celebratory meal with friends, on New Year's Eve, to follow the goosehttp://mousemeals.blogspot.com/2011/01/192-roast-goose-juniper-sauce-and-apple.html! I still don't much like trifle, so wasn't looking forward to this one, but other people seem to love trifle, so I decided safety in numbers... and the Limoncello trifle from the book was amazing and the first trifle I've ever liked, so maybe, just maybe...

And it was a hit. Inspite of not being able to get blackcurrants (doh, it was December of course... I should have gotten some ages ago and popped them in the freezer if I wasn't going to do the trifle straight away), darling hubby whilst on his goose chase, found some mixed 'black forest fruits' in the frozen section - blackcurrants, blackberries, cherries, and black grapes. So we used them instead. Near enough :) How slapdash I have become!

The cream mixture on top, all though a faff (three bowls required - mix egg yolk and sugar in one, whip the cream in another, whip the egg white in another...), was divine - not too sweet, but light and fluffy, and picked out by several guests as being particularly noteworthy. And the cake below was a mixture of berry juice soaked and dry and fluffy. Very good indeed, and seconds all round.

Phew. So, it is done. Finished. The whole book, 193 recipes, in 365 days.

190: Mushroom lasagne with basil and cream, p348

Wow! A truly yummy, tasty, filling vegetarian main - and it was absolutely delicious! I'd been saving this one for my ex-boss from work since she's a vegetarian and I've been trying to get a good date for her to come round for dinner for most of the last year... finally made it, with a day to spare before the end of the challenge - phew!

And what a success. Will definitely repeat this recipe - even the confirmed non-vegetarian husband really liked it. I actually made the mushroom layer and the pesto last week whilst I had plenty of time, although both were quick and easy to make, and popped them in the freezer until assembling the dish and popping it in the oven this evening. The mushrooms went deliciously velvety, and the porcini mushroom liquor almost tasted alcoholic, like brandy or Marsala, whilst we were eating I actually thought the recipe had included alcohol and was surprised when I checked the book later on and found it hadn't. As per the book, I cheated a little and used bechamel sauce from a tub, although again I'd popped this in the freezer and it looked revolting - as though it had split - on defrosting, so I was a bit worried about it, but it was absolutely fine when cooked. The pesto was easy and lovely, can't beat homemade pesto, nothing like the bought stuff... although 50g basil seemed like an enormous amount - I bought a living pot of basil and used that (maybe 15g at a push, when I defoliated it and weighed the leaves), bought another (seemingly bigger) pot (which only added another 10g, annoyingly), and gave up there...

Excellent. Definitely a keeper, and one for all veggie guests in the future, at least once...

**Disaster! I know I took a picture of this one, but it seems to have gone awol. Rats**

188: Lemon ice-cream tart with gingernut crust, p375

A pudding was required to take to the inlaws for Christmas Eve and this fitted the bill nicely - after a rich dinner, the freshness of the icecream and the sharpness of the lemons made a welcome palate cleanser. The gingernut base was incredibly solid, maybe I didn't need to pack it in quite so tightly, but I was worried it would be too crumbly and wouldn't cut properly when sliced. Halving the recipe made a shallower tart, in one of my smaller springform tins, but it was plenty for five of us to each have a generous slice and there to still be nearly half left over for another day.

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... :)

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!

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 :)

152: Lemon amaretti pots, p162

An easy peasy, quick pudding to make - a good one for future dinner parties when there's not much time... and anything with lemon curd in it has to be a winner! I don't particularly like crumbled biscuits/cake mixed in with softer ingredients, find it an odd texture, especially when they get soft themselves - ick, so I think if I did this again I would put a layer of crumbled amaretti biscuits on the bottom of the glasses/ramekins and/or on the top of the cream/yoghurt/lemon curd mixture. And swirl the lemon curd in last, so you get streaks of lemon curd throughout the creamy mixture - think that would look prettier too.

141: Lemon ice-cream, p172

Oooooh my, this was REALLY good. Wow. Definitely to be repeated. Yum. Yum. Om nom nom nom.

Easy peasy to make, even using the freezing-stirring method - this froze to a soft ice-cream with only two rounds of stirring during an evening.

Wasn't sure how much to crush the meringue, left some quite big lumps, but I think they got crushed up a bit more during the stirring, and couldn't detect them in the finished ice-cream. Curious. But it was delicious! Sweet but not toooo sweet, sharp and rich and supremely creamy. Yum. More please!

125: Orange and lemon cheesecake, p129

Marathon weekend of cooking is at an end! This was the finale to Sunday lunch, and nearly finished us all off... I was worried it wouldn't set properly, and it was awfully soft, but held it's shape when cut, hurray! Extremely creamy, and not as lemony or orangey as I though it might be, but Dad managed to polish off a good quarter of the whole thing. Not sure it's the best baked cheesecake recipe around as Nigel describes it (my friend Kirsty wins that prize), but it was jolly good nonetheless :)

123: Baked onions with Parmesan and cream, p338, and 124: Peas with lemon and mint, p374

Ooooh, delicous onions! Very very easy, only three ingredients, and a deliciously sweet, creamy accompaniment to the roast pork I made for lunch. Seemed odd to boil the onions first, but it seemed to work, and they were gorgeously tender after baking, and the sauce was delicious!

The peas weren't really a recipe, but a very nice way to cook them, which I'll definitely use in the future. Not really much to write about otherwise though...

121: Goat's cheese puddings, p166

Yum! My first souffle! And they worked! The 'soft' goat's cheeses I bought weren't exactly what I'd call 'soft' and took a lot of mashing until they were soft enough to mix into the egg yolks (thank you lovely husband for sitting down and doing this so well...), so I was a bit worried this wasn't going to work... but they did! Hurrah! And they were scrummy. Took about 15mins to bake in the oven and were puffed up and golden brown on top, and the crisp sweetness of lettuce heart salad went very nicely with their creamy cheesiness. Definitely to be repeated in the future...

119: Smoked mackerel on toast, p90

Fishy fishy pate-type foods a happy husband make... I mentioned this to T just before he went to work this morning and apparently he's been looking forward to it all day :) I was hoping the cheese in it wouldn't put him off too much though...

I don't really like smoked foods, and smoked fish in particular, but smoked mackerel is rather tasty. Very meaty and moreish, I always end up picking little bits of it as T makes his sarnies, if I've bought it, and it is rather nice in a kedgeree (dry not sticky and wet though) and in the occasional salad. Hmm. I think it's lack of bones is one of the biggest things that make me able to like it though :) Hurray!

This recipe was very easy, no real cooking, just a little grilling at the end, and hey presto - maximum wife points for minimum effort! And it was scrummy too. A definite one to repeat...

111: A really good spaghetti Bolognese, p21

Service resumed after a particularly busy week or so of conferencing and camping, and a lack of proper home cooking!

And a nice easy comfort food dish to ease us back in, and use up some of the contents of the overflowing fridge (post-Tescos delivery... how do I always overestimate the amount of fridge/freezer storage space we've got and have to cram it all in and/or use lots up within a couple of days of delivery??).

Almost the same as my usual basic plus throw-in-whatever-I-think-of-off-the top-of-my-head spag bol, but for one crucial difference - the addition of a large amount of cream near the end... The result was very different to usual! I'm not entirely sure it was for the good... Very tasty (cream tends to have that effect), but not quite spag bol to me - which should be really meaty and tomatoey and rich and strong, with the addition of lots of red wine, beef stock cubes, worcestershire sauce, etc. T liked it a lot (possibly more than mine??!!) but although it was nice, it tasted more like the contents of a lasagna to me - with the bechamel mixed up with the mince. An interesting experiment though, and as ever good to try different ideas... :)

105: Strawberries with fromage blanc, p185

Strawberries and cream! But a very long winded way to prepare cream... Very nice cream, light and airy, and kinda fluffy, but I'm not sure all the whipping of cream, whipping of egg whites, and folding was entirely worth it, other than to try. Oddly the consistency slightly (and heretically) reminded me of that 80s fav, spray cream... Oh no!! Good to try, and to make once, but I'm not sure I'd bother again :)

Strawberries very gratefully received from one of my reader's allotment - and some of the best strawberries I've ever tasted too. Thanks!

100: Chicken with vermouth, tarragon and cream, p143

Recipe 100!! I WILL finish this challenge this year...

A nice creamy, herby sauce, made super creamy by the addition of lots and lots of cream... Yum! Lots of tarragon, and finally used the tarragon vinegar I made back in January again. Phew, just the remaining 90% of the bottle to get through... Took longer than 15-20mins to cook the chicken thighs through, nearer 30-40mins, and the sauce got very thick and started to brown, but hey, it all tasted darned good. Served with new potatoes and steamed baby spinach.

95: Passion fruit roulade, p389

AAArgh. I don't make roulades. But had to make this one at some point... damn damn damn. Stupidly promised to make it for a team BBQ, the day after we got back from hols, which turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far, so ideal for making a roulade!!

First (minor) problem was that I suddenly realised the recipe specifies a 30x36cm tin, which I don't have in my collection of bakeware, damn damn damn. But I do have two 30x16cm tins, so I improvised and made two, thinking I could roll them together.

Recipe otherwise started off okay, egg whites whipped up fine, as did the cream, roulade cooked and rose gorgeously, and then it started to go wrong... roulade stuck to the baking parchment (which was specified - not greaseproof) and started to tear, but I stayed calm and managed to remove the paper from the cake, bit by bit... Spreading on the lemon curd, then the cream, and then the passionfruit seeds and juice, all fine... and then the rolling was the real disaster. How does one roll a roulade, filled with squishy stuff, without all the squishy stuff splurging out?? I didn't manage to stop this happening, and joining the two together just wasn't going to happen. The roulades kind of collapsed into squidgey messes - and ended up looking like a pair of a frogspawn omelettes!! It was too late to make/find another pudding, and we took them to the BBQ, very apologetically... where everyone was very sweet and said they looked lovely (ha!). But they all ate the pavlova that was offer first, before trying the roulade... And phew, it tasted better than it looked, and the whole lot disappear pretty quick. Phew. Phew. Phew. Not to be repeated though... Way too stressful...

51: Smoked haddock with flageolet beans and mustard, p45

Another T pleaser tonight, smoked fish is one of his favourites, but has never been one of mine - although if cooked/mixed up with other things, I think I rather like it (kedgeree, smoked mackerel salads, etc).

Another very creamy sauce though, and I'm not sure how two people are supposed to eat the full amount this produces - 2 tins of flageolet beans, and 300ml double cream??? I halved the quantities for the sauce and used about 300g fish instead of 400g and it was plenty.

Could have done with a bit more seasoning, but this was a really nice supper, and the steamed spinach went perfectly.

49: Rosewater and yoghurt panna cotta, p204, and A passion fruit puree for panna cotta, p204

Nearly a disaster - halfway through simmering the milk, cream and vanilla, I realised I was missing one of the ingredients - not only that, but one of the ingredients in the title, yoghurt. Doh. So a quick dash up to the corner shop and yoghurt retrieved, the pan is now boiling instead of simmering... Whoops.

I love rosewater, and have had an unopened bottle from a little Asian food shop in the cupboard for quite a while, so this was a good excuse for opening it. I must make rasmalai and baklava and other such yummy things with the rest...

The passionfruit puree reinforced my conviction that life is too short to try to obtain the juice/pulp (sans seeds) from a passionfruit... mashing the flesh through a tea strainer (for such a small quantity it seemed daft to use the big flour sieve...) with a spoon, and cursing as drop by drop I managed to accumulate about 5ml of the damned stuff, T came in several times to see what on earth I was doing, before beating a hasty retreat to the living room. Really - why wouldn't you just use all of the pulp - juice and seeds together? It was like trying to squeeze frogspawn.

And the sodding panna cottas wouldn't turn out, so were more like little custards than anything. I had the splodgy one, T had the one left in the coffee cup which I hadn't tried to turn out. I spooned the miniscule amount of passionfruit puree on top, as you'll see in the photos, on the splodgy half-turned out pudding it just looks like it's the yolk of a fried egg, and on the one left in the cup, it looks like just a cup of orange juice. Brilliant. I'm very glad I didn't save this one for a dinner party... More gelatine next time? Or less boiling of the mixture at the start perhaps?

Nonetheless, it did taste as panna cotta should, jolly scrummy, and vanished in record time :)

48: Braised lamb with leeks and haricot beans, p57

Another of Nigel's hearty stews, where the recipe is 'enough for four' and even with slightly reduced quantites and served on its own without potatoes, extra veggies etc, quite clearly feeds six!

A good one though, with very simple, unfussy flavours - and the sweetness of the lamb really comes through, with the herbs, soft leeks and cream making a gorgeous silky sauce. Lovely and thumbs up from T too. I didn't mention to him the preceding paragraph in the book where Nigel is talking about fancying some 'bland' food, and this being a 'beige casserole'!! Doesn't exactly sell the recipe!!

39: Pork chops, mustard sauce, p51

Very simple, pan-fried pork chops - but nice chunky ones, fried in a smidge of butter, and plenty of seasoning. Then the juices used to make a sauce, with cream and lots of mustard. Lots of mustard! Bit much for me, but T liked it. Didn't have any cornichons but decided some capers mightn't be too dissimilar to use instead. Served with the salads in the previous post.