155: Orange jelly with lemon and cardamom, p106

The pudding for tonight's dinner party of errors... non-vegan* unfortunately, but another one ticked off in the book... I didn't have quite enough oranges for just under a litre of juice so I added some orange juice from a carton to the mix as well, and it seemed to work still. I thought it was going to be incredibly acidic and sour as there is no sugar or anything sweet in the ingredients, but amazingly it wasn't, once it was set (another worry, but it did actually set - hurray, and phew!) it was a really nice zingy finish to the meal, and the cardamom was subtle and not too strong at all. Sometimes I find cardamom a bit overpowering but it wasn't too much at all in this, especially with such a strong citrus flavour to counter.

*The new vegan friend seemed happy with a bowl of peach slices and a jug of cream-substitute made out of oats. Which we all swiped as well - rather nice, and agreed is much better than soya cream-substitute :)

45: Chickpea and sweet potato curry, p102

Not the most appealing selection of ingredients, and definitely one to make T's toes curl... but this turned into a really rather tasty dish. This is one of the great things about this challenge - it's making me make recipes I wouldn't normally do, and surprising me with things like this. Who'd have thought (apart from an ardent curry-loving vegetarian...) that this would be greater than the sum of its parts?

I should have reduced the quantities, supposed to fed four as a main, with the other curry made tonight this served all four of us and left a good four lunches-worth for laters... Although perhaps the leftovers weren't a bad thing...

17: Roast aubergines with tahini, p322

Oh no! The first duff one, I'm afraid :(

Didn't like this. Had a few minor disasters en route - slightly overdid the aubergines so not exactly 'toasted', and then got distracted reading whilst the pine nuts were toasting - and burnt them to little black bullets, filling the flat with cremated pine nut fumes... second attempt at toasting the pine nuts was much more successful - I didn't leave them unattended for a second.

 
But the final dish was just a bit odd and has given me a tummyache ever since. The jar of tahini (whilst still being in date!) has been sitting on the shelf for a while unopened, and I'd actually forgotten how peanut buttery tahini is, even mixed with the other ingredients it still tasted overwhelmingly peanut buttery, and I think that's what my tummy objected to. The pine nuts* were nice though!

Curious.

T's out this evening, I saved him a little bit to try, but think the chances of him liking it are almost certainly zero... 

* Is it just me, or does anyone else think toasted pine nuts taste a bit like un-popped popcorn kernels, when they've browned and gone a bit crumbly?

10: Sauteed chicken with spice, fennel and cream, p367

I bought a fennel bulb last weekend, hoping to make 'a salad of fennel, winter leaves and Parmesan', the second recipe in the book. I've scoured the shops and searched online and it looks like I'm going to have to buy some online which will take weeks what with the lack of post at the moment (serious ice here, and no post for 4-5 days now)... unless I make some! I have tarragon, I have cider vinegar/red wine vinegar/white wine vinegar. many many recipes for tarragon vinegar online, but they all take a couple 2-3 weeks minimum so the salad recipe will have to wait for a while (and another bulb of fennel). Trekking around West London seems like a lot of effort for 1 tbsp of tarragon vinegar, but it's used in the 'Chicken with vermouth, tarragon and cream' recipe later in the book, and I'm not going to substitute! So I've got a bottle of tarragon vinegar brewing gently in the wine cupboard... ready in a couple of weeks :)

So, what to do with a spare fennel bulb, Nigel? He clearly likes the stuff - there are 5 recipes using it in the Diaries. Unfortunately I don't like fennel - toooooo aniseedy - so it's going to be fun. Maybe I'll start to like it during the course of this year!

Tonight's dinner therefore, a mild spicy/mustardy creamy chicken dish. Very easy - well seasoned chicken legs/thighs panfried in a little oil until scrummyly crispy and golden, sauteed fennel, lightly cooked spice paste, and a good dollop of cream. Lovely jubbly. And the fennel added a nice texture and it's very distinctive flavour was definitely there but wasn't too overpowering. Success!

I didn't have any chilli powder (I have a huge range of spices and herbs, but only dried chillis, chilli flakes, cayenne pepper etc) - so I ground up some tiny dried chillis in the pestle and mortar, along wit the other spices. Probably made it a bit hotter than chilli powder would have done, oops!  

I also took the opportunity to try out my new toy from Lakeland. I love Lakeland :) It's a microwave rice steamer - woohoo! Okay, I know rice isn't exactly difficult to cook, but I find is a bit stressful trying to make it really nice and fluffy (ie. weighing and using the right volume of water, yadda yadda) as I'm often in the middle of something else and get distracted so it gets stuck to the pan... or if I do the loads of water and drain it at the end option, it just ends up a bit soggy and disappointing... All this is is a big clear pot with a removable pot inside, slightly raised up and with holes in it, and a lid. Rinse the rice in the inner pot, pop it in the larger pot, add boiling water from the kettle to just cover the rice, pop lid on, stick it in the microwave for 10mins, stirring halfway though. Ta-daaaaa! And it works perfectly! Nice light, fluffy rice, perfectly cooked, no mess, eaaasy peasy :) Am I lazy, or am I lazy?