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**

187: Slow-cooked duck with star anise and ginger, p345

I was really looking forward to this one, served with the Chinese broccoli. Unfortunately, although tasty, it didn't quite live up to my expectations... I think I was expecting a thicker, richer sauce/stew - it was actually rather thin and (unsurprisingly, with duck cooked with its skin on) rather oily. The duck was cooked beautifully though, pink and moist, but cooked through. I think I'd want to reduce the liquid down by about half, maybe thicken it, and definitely leave it in the fridge overnight to solidify and remove a lot of the fat (and/or remove the skin from the duck, but then you wouldn't get the lovely crispy bits from browning the meat at the start).

186: Chinese broccoli, p97

An easy, quick side/main dish which is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. I wasn't sure about using this much ginger and garlic for a relatively small amount of veg, let alone only chopping it into matchsticks rather than chopping finely, but it works and neither was overpowering. Worked well as a simple, light lunch, during a week of lunches out with various teams at work, and also as a side dish with the slow-cooked duck we had the other night. Yum! Definitely to be repeated.

181: Baked red mullet with saffron and mint, p124, and 182: Baked red mullet with pine kernel stuffing, p370

Oooh, a bit behind with getting these written up from the start of last week...

Okay. Red mullet. One of the most expensive fishes to buy? 'Buy grey mullet, it's much cheaper and really nice!' cried my boss when I moaned about the price, on more than one occasion... 'Yes but Nigel doesn't use grey mullet in the book, it's always red mullet that is specified, and besides, red and grey mullet aren't even related to each other' - so I'm not convinced I can substitute one for the other.

Anyway, back to the recipes. The first one called for four medium sized mullet to serve two people. The second called for four large red mullet to serve four people. Yikes. I decided to do as I've done in the past and cook even for one person for two recipes at the same time, then the hubby and I swap plates halfway through. Kinda silly but it saves a lot of money and gets the recipes done! Bit concerned about the lack of dinners left between now and Christmas/New Year, and the deadline for finishing the book!

I went to the excellent Sandy's, where they always have red mullet (all pretty big ones), and asked for two. The chap threw them on the scales and they came to over £22 together. I gulped and asked if I could just have one, and then tried to figure out if I could still do both recipes... Taking my one, fairly large red mullet home, I surmised that I could maybe bodge it by chopping said mullet in half (to give a head end and tail end - the pine kernal stuffing needs to be stuffed inside the fish, so this was the only way I could think of doing it) and baking each separately in the oven in my little oval Denby dishes.

The fish halves fit snugly in the oval dishes, and it worked just fine. Although it did look a little odd...

I have to say, the first recipe, with saffron and mint, didn't really bowl me over... but then it is supposed to be a light Spring day meal, not a depths of Winter dish! The saffron and mint were perhaps a little too subtle for the strong, meaty fish, or maybe I should have used more of each, but the fish was cooked to perfection (although it did need another 5mins in the oven, even chopped in half).

The second recipe was by far the better, with a lovely fruity, crunchy, interesting stuffing, which worked beautifully with the strong, meaty flesh of the fish. I'm not a big fan of raisins in savoury dishes, but here they worked a treat, although I did chop them up a bit smaller than they were whole, so they gave little bits of fruity, sweetness to the dish, not bigger lumps. Lots of scrummy Mediterranean flavours. Definitely one to repeat. Should we buy red (or grey) mullet again!

Incidentally, half a decent sized mullet, plus potatoes on the side and some tomatoes, was fine for each of us. The idea of having two whole mullet each seems a little excessive...

174: Inspiration for a lamb chop, p83, and 175: A carrot salad, p308

Oooh, I wasn't expecting this for the lamb chop recipe - only really properly realised it was a salad when I was reading through the rest of the recipe whilst the lamb was marinating. Just using soy and garlic for the marinade worked brilliantly, the lamb was lovely and tender and soaked it all up, and mixed with the spicy, hot, sour, sweet leaves, was delicious.

The carrot salad sounded like it would also be rather dull, but turned out to be really rather nice! Again, don't much like eating nuts raw but slightly toasted in a dry frying pan something happens to them which suddenly makes a big improvement... The dry peanuts, plus the lemon and walnut oil, stop the grated carrot making the salad end up a sodden orange lump. Not really enough for a main meal but a good side dish or maybe even a starter?

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?

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 :)

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.

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!

153: Roast fillet of lamb with anchovy and mint, p90

Not a fillet, made this with a boneless rolled shoulder joint (been sitting in the freezer since Tesco's delivered a near random selection of cuts of lamb which weren't the ones I'd ordered... So I didn't follow the timings given in this recipe, for a much smaller piece of meat. Worked well though - I gave the c.900g shoulder c.65mins in the oven at 180degC (fan oven) and then let it rest for a good 15mins before serving - with the marinade on the outside not burning to a crisp and the meat itself very moist and deliciously light pink inside. Lovely jubbly.

T (who keeps rolling his eyes at yet another lamb recipe, as he doesn't really like lamb very much) actually declared this the best lamb he'd ever had, so it definitely passed muster with him!

The new potatoes were good too - and ended up covered in deliciously crispy tasty bits of the marinade, left after the meat. Yum!

40 recipes to go! Will I make it by the end of December?? We're moving house middle of next week, so I might blitz a few more this weekend before another quiet chunk when I might not be able to do too much in the way of cooking. Only 11 done so far this month - must do more! Planning a couple of dinner parties/soirees once we're into the new place, which will let me tick off quite a few... fingers crossed!

147: Slow-roast lamb with chickpea mash, p62, and 148: Cheese-smothered potatoes, p17

Tescos delivered lamb shanks instead of another leg of lamb (as the recipe says) the other day, but the shank is part of the arm of the shoulder, and includes part of the leg, so that's not that far from being a leg of lamb, right?

Three and a half hours of roasting and I was worried they were going to be wrecked, as they'd got rather crispy on the outside inspite of the hourly basting with the juices - the juices were starting to disappear in the ether so there wasn't that much to baste with towards the end. But luckily it was just the outside, the layer of fat over the meat and the spice rub over it, and the meat underneath was  perfectly tender and the cartilage and connective tissue had melted away just as it should - much better than the last time I cooked lamb shanks...

Served with the cheese-smothered potatoes, which were easy peasy, and must have been virtually calorie free... not... and the chickpea mash, which T described as 'revolting', and refused to eat after trying a teeny bit. I kinda had to agree with him on that, it wasn't very nice... glad I divided the recipe in half so we didn't have enough for six... :)

145: A simple flatbread, p77, and 146: Taramasalata - the real thing, p77

Oooooh, this was a revelation for both of us! Me, because I hadn't realised how easy taramasalata is to make and love recipes where something curious happens to the ingredients and they change into something completely unexpected, and T because he never knew taramasalata was a fishy pate-type of gloop. How? Who knows... but he'd always apparently regarded it as a suspicious pink relative of hummous or tzatziki.

The flatbreads were great. We make all our bread in our breadmaker so I wasn't really looking forward to making these by hand, but it was easy and didn't need too much kneading at all. It more than quadrupled in size after being left for an hour, but started to deflate pretty quickly when being divided up into pieces. The main problem was that it was still pretty sticky and difficult to handle - so I had to use a lot of flour to manhandle it into pieces to bake, let alone form them into 'slipper' shapes. They puffed up like footballs in the oven, so I squished them down onto the baking tray to flatten them out a bit but they weren't very 'flat' flatbreads... I thought flatbreads weren't supposed to use yeast, hence the 'flat', but hey. And they were yummy - I love different types of breads, especially doughy ones like these with very little salt or sugar in them.

Located a lump of cod's roe in the wonderful Sandy's - it wasn't as expensive as Nigel seems to suggest in the book (but the red mullet made up for that...) - rather revolting looking solid sausagey type brownish lump with a hard, plasticky skin which the recipe states to peel off. Yum! Blitzed with the rest of the ingredients it curiously changed from the brownish colour and turned pale pink like the bought taramasalata. Bizarre! Then with the gradual addition of the olive oil it suddenly changed from a fishy slurry into a thick cream - like mayonnaise, as it says in the book. T loved it.

143: Red mullet with lemon and rosemary, p217

Ooooh red mullet's expensive... but with four red mullet recipes in the book, thank goodness for the wonderful Sandy's, down the road in Twickenham, so at least I can get hold of it... Easy peasy one this, although the recipe is a bit vague on timings so I was worried I'd over/under cook it so I watched it like a hawk. Maybe 10mins on each side, and it was perhaps a tad overdone - but not by much. T approved. Red mullet is a nice chunky, meaty fish - not too many fine bones to trip me up...

Served with sauteed potatoes, mangetout and tomato with balsamic.

142: Roast lamb rolls with oregano and garlic, p219

Mmmm, super garlicky yumminess! I ordered a small leg of lamb from Tescos (busy week, no time to go shopping) and of course they sent a whopping great big 'Finest' one, with matching price tag. Ho hum. But what a nice bit of Finest Welsh Mountain Lamb it was.

Mush up garlic, anchovies, oregano and oil, massage it into the meat, and leave for 30mins or so, that's got to be a good start... The cooking time was perfect to result in nice pink, perfectly meltingly tender meat. The lumps of garlic in the marinade burnt a bit on the outside but not too badly and the meat carved beautifully. Baked some of those part-baked rolls and popped the meat inside, drizzled them with the juices from the roasting dish, and we tucked in. Lovely jubbly, especially with the juices soaking into the bread, but surprisingly filling - two small rolls defeated me, but T polished his off fine. Would definitely do this again as an easy roast dinner, but probably not in the rolls - less of an informal, lunchy meal.

138: Cabbage with orange and juniper, p385, and 139: Potatoes with duck fat and garlic, p377

A Christmassy veggie side and potatoes to go with the pork served for dinner tonight. I made a full batch of the cabbage, foolishly, using a whole (small) red cabbage. I'm going to be eating it all week, since T almost certainly won't... Enough to serve 12 as a side, not 6, but anyhow... :)

The juniper berries weren't too overwhelming which was a good thing and the lemon and orange juice added a lovely citrusy zing which stopped the cabbage being too dull. Not sure about the function of the celery, didn't really add much, but the apple was a good thing and onion always is.

I cheated with the potatoes. The recipe says duck fat, and I used goose fat. Well, I needed it earlier in the year for a recipe, and bought a jar, which has been sitting untouched in the fridge ever since. I didn't really want to go out and buy another jar, this time of duck fat, which would also sit untouched in the fridge... so I cheated... duck/goose, how different can the fat taste? Is that cheating too much?? The garlic knocked your socks off - only one clove, but still, immediate repetitions all through dinner, curious! I wasn't sure about sauteeing the potatoes in so much fat, they took forever to cook and then suddenly started to brown which was a bit alarming, and I had to drain them on kitchen towel before serving. But they were rather tasty...

So the pork was served with the red cabbage and sauteed potatoes, with some gently sauteed baby courgettes on the side, and delicious gloopy winey oniony gravy. Yum! Finished off the strawberry water ice, and some more of the melon sorbet for pudding.

133: Roast lamb with cumin and fresh mint, p198

Monday night treat! I made the spice paste in the morning before work and left it to marinade in the fridge all day, and all the garlicky cuminy minty loveliness soaked into the meat, and after 45mins in the oven this evening, it was absolutely delicious and most, and still a little pink (I always overcook lamb by accident...). Can't beat a gravy made entirely out of meat juices and white wine either. Why don't more people make their own gravy - it's sooo easy, so tasty, and cleans the roasting tray at the same time. Genius!

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!