192: Roast goose, juniper sauce and apple and lemon puree, p385

New Year's Eve! And the last two recipes! Hurrah! We searched high and low for a goose that wasn't going to bankrupt us and the hubby marvellously managed to find a frozen one in Sainsbury's for a mere £28, on Christmas Eve. Ha! We'd never had goose before, either of us, and ironically found out two days before Christmas that the aunt we were visiting for Christmas Day had decided to roast two geese for lunch this year - so we ended up having it twice in a week! Bizarre. Luckily we both really liked it on Christmas Day - phew.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture until we'd finished eating... whoops... but here's a picture of the carcass :)

It's not really a recipe in the book - no additions other than some salt, but I followed the cooking instructions exactly, and it was perfect. Not dry, not too fatty, crispy on the outside, and I did all of the accompaniments - the onion gravy from the pork leg with added juniper and redcurrant jelly (okay, cranberry sauce, but near enough...), the cabbage with orange and juniper, roast potatoes, and apple and lemon puree. Delicious. If goose wasn't so pricey, I would do this again. Frequently...

Now, on New Year's Day, the carcass has been picked, an enormous pot of stock has been made with the remains, there's a big tub of goose fat saved for future roasties, and I'm going to freeze some of the stock and use the rest to make some restorative noodle soup with the picked goose meat. Yum.

And here are the dinner guests post-goose:

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).

154: Courgette and lancashire cheese crumble, p378

I'd not been looking forward to making this one... T was planning to be out for it, no matter what, so I needed to find some folk who like veggie food upon whom I could inflict it. It turned into a bit of a comedy of errors after I invited a group of friends round for dinner including one of the friend's new housemate who was moving in that day (Saturday).

We had hardly any food in at all and I stupidly thought, at least one of the three little grocery shops up the road will definitely have courgettes and Lancashire cheese. Everywhere has courgettes at the moment, you can't get away from the damn things. And I'd got Lancashire cheese confused with Leicestershire. Rats. Silly me. No courgettes and no cheese anywhere to be found, and I stupidly had left it too late to get to any more useful shops and manage to get the flat in order enough for the four visitors who were en route. Massive fail. Phoned one of the guests, who has a car, to see if he could pop to Tescos quickly for me, only to find out he had left his car at work, and was rather... hungover... Anyway, the darling man hopped on his bicycle and wove his wobbly way to Tescos.

Meanwhile, a phonecall from one of the other guests revealed that the new housemate is vegan! And I'm halfway through making a main course with lots of cheese in it and a pudding which uses (pork) gelatine. Aargh. If I'd had a bit longer I'd have definitely made something vegan for everyone, hate making anyone feel 'different' and not as welcome as the others, but had a minor meltdown. But she was ever so sweet and adamant that she didn't want to be a problem and had a big pot of chilli beany stew which they could bring, which was fabulous. And we sent the Tescos-rescue friend a message asking him to try to find a vegan pudding :)

The others all arrived, but the Tescos-rescue friend was nowhere to be seen, until he called to say he'd gotten all the way through the supermarket, through the checkout, and... found he'd forgotten his wallet. Argh! At which point I told him to give up and just come on over - bean stew for all! But he managed to persuade one of the others to hop in her car and come and rescue him, and quarter of an hour later they made it back, with the rather fundamental courgettes and cheese. Phew! Quick finish off of the recipe, popped in the oven, and we could have nibbly bits and some lovely garlicky tear-and-share bread the others brought with them for a starter.

And the result? It was pretty good! A miracle - I was firmly convinced it was going to be horrid, especially after the farce of the rest of the evening... but it wasn't at all. The potatoes had turned to mush (not sure if that was how it should have been, but the extended delay mid-cooking might have made them squishier than they should have been) but the courgettes were al dente and the stock and cheese mixed in was scrummy. Not as much cheese in the recipe as I'd have put in, could definitely have been cheesier and I'm not sure it really needed to be Lancashire cheese rather than cheddar or something else, but the crumble on top really worked - added a completely different texture to go with the mushy crunchy veg underneath, and the walnutty-ness and rosemary came through really nicely. Definitely a goodie, and one to repeat in the future for veggie friends :) Not the vegan ones though. Although missing out the cheese completely would probably be good too.

Served with a very simple salad, rice, and (vegan) chilli beany stew :) 

Phew.

137: Roast leg of pork with onion and Marsala gravy, p383

A friend was round for dinner last night and so I decided I really needed to get a few more recipes under my belt... so a roast dinner it was! Christmas recipes in Nigel's book, but hey ho - it's turning wintery!! Had to pop into the supermarket on my way home to grab a leg of pork - and only boneless available, so I decided since it was a short-notice dinner, boneless it would have to be - inspite of the recipe specifying a leg of pork on the bone. Tough. Sorry :) Delicious crispy skin, but the meat took a bit longer than I thought it would to cook though (pink pork = bad...). The gravy was amazing. Yum yum yum. Onions softened, with a little flour cooked up with them, and then stock and Marsala added. Delicious. Om nom nom.

134: Pot-roast pigeon with luganega sausage, p307

This is days late - a) been very busy and haven't had a chance to write it up, and b) it's taken this long to get over the disastrous evening that it involved... Bad day at work, home not too late, both of us in, I decided to treat us to two Nigel recipes for dinner to destress. Hah.

I've used my Denby casserole dish on the hob many times, as in so many recipes, to brown meat / boil up ingredients with wine/stock before putting it in the oven. This time, after browning the sausages (not luganega, but the recipe says herby chipolatas are fine) and then the pigeons, and softening the onions, I added the stock, and two minutes later there was the most almighty crack from the kitchen and my lovely casserole dish had shattered on the hob into a dozen pieces, depositing two pigeons, six sausages, a chopped onion, and 500ml of hot stock all over my hob. After much swearing, the solid ingredients were chucked into my mum's old pot-roast pot and a fresh batch of stock poured in and the whole lot shoved in the oven, ignoring the 'bring to the boil on the hob first' instruction. Clearing up the stock that was everywhere wasn't quite as easy...

Unfortunately I messed up again though and giving the pigeons an extra 10-15mins on account of the lack of boiling first stage was too long and they were a bit overcooked. Rats. And they are a bit of a sod to eat, fiddly little bony things, but the herby sausages and gravy were delicious, especially with a heap of mashed potato.

Unfortunately, the disasters for the evening didn't stop there...

116: Bream with lemon and anchovy potatoes, p245

Another fishy first - seabream! Quite a fishy tasting fish, but meaty white flesh and not too many bones (hurray!). A very simple recipe, baked in the oven, and 15-20mins was spot on timing-wise, the fish was cooked perfectly. The real 'recipe' bit is the potatoes, browned a little on the hob, with lemon and anchovies added, and then cooked in the oven swimming in stock, which braised the potatoes, making them extra tasty, and turned into a lovely rich lemony, meaty gravy to serve with the fish and potatoes. Served with steamed green beans, a very nice Saturday night supper to have whilst watching a movie on tv.

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... :)

99: Steamed sea bass with ginger and cucumber, p180

Not a whole seabass, as per the recipe, and not for one person - but two seabass fillets for a light lunch for two of us. And it was scrummy! More clean simple asian flavours, with the nam pla, soy, lime and coriander, served with jersey potatoes, very Nigel... And very simple. Never having cooked seabass before, one thing this book is definitely doing is teaching me to cook fish I wouldn't normally cook, which is quite fun. Yummy.

93: A soup of roasted summer vegetables, p220

This looked little it might be a bit of a meh soup, as Nigel says getting 'rid of a whole heap of vegetables', but roasting the veggies in the oven first, like the tomato soup last week, really made a spectacular difference to the depth of flavour - and surprisingly, the fennel, which I don't really like, added a further depth, and the broth with the soup is almost meaty it's so rich. There's nothing about blending the soup at all in the recipe, so I slightly mashed the roasted tomatoes, which had collapsed in the roasting tray but still stayed in two large tomatoey lumps. Yum. And a good way to use up that cabbage of guilt...

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.

77: Grilled chicken with lemon and couscous, p258, and 78: Zucchini cakes with dill and feta, p228

Another nice, fresh tasting, summery salad to go with recipes 75 and 76. I didn't have a preserved lemon. I did have some - I bought a whole jar of the damn things some time ago (they only come in huge jars...) but the wretched things had gone a little... furry... at the back of the fridge (note to self: look inside jars at back of the fridge when cleaning aforementioned fridge...), so ditched that idea midway through the recipe (too late to turn back now!) and added a bit more fresh lemon, in the form of a bit of the flesh, not just the juice. I can imagine the salty, intense lemony flavour of the preserved lemon would have been better and would have been good, but there are limits. Esp when grilling chicken, roasting aubergine, frying zucchini cakes, and toasting pine nuts, all at the same time...

Now, the courgette cakes. Not great. Ultimately I wouldn't make them again. Nor choose them on a menu. However, if served them at a vegetarian friend's house, I believe I would be able to eat them. They weren't as bad as I thought they might be, so was pleasantly surprised. Too courgettey, too dill-y, and too feta-y, if I was asked for specifics, but that rules out all the main ingredients, which is a shame... On the plus side, they didn't fall apart as easily as the recipe suggested and I made nice little round cakes, only slightly 'chargrilled' on the one side (see above mentioned multi-tasking issues). The chutney they were served with was a good thing, went really well, but possibly because it disguised some of the courgette taste. And feta. And dill. Apricot jam probably would have had a similar effect.

71: Pumpkin and tomato laksa, p333

Scrummy stuff, this! Full of flavour, quite hot (!), creamy, and zingy with the lemongrass and ginger, and the squash and tomato cooked just right - still a bit firm and fresh tasting, al dente. Annoyingly, I found I'd run out of lime leaves, so had to miss them out... and where on earth can I get coriander root in West London?? The specialist oriental supermarket in Richmond doesn't have it... The 'only' other substitution was some very ripe, tasty vine tomatoes instead of the cherry tomatoes specified - in the interests of me actually managing to complete this challenge, I'm afraid I'm going to have to be a little less strict about following everything to the letter... :)

69: Asparagus and lemon risotto, p176

Haha, a masterstroke!

A friend from work needed a place to stay overnight last night and I had already decided to make this recipe. That afternoon I asked him if this would be okay, and turns out he cannot eat either gluten or dairy - so a veggie risotto is just perfect (provided the Parmesan was only added to my serving, and I made a minor substitution using olive oil instead of butter to soften the onion).

Love risotto. Why do people always says it's so difficult? It only takes half an hour or so, and if you're pottering in the kitchen anyway, it's easy to keep stirring...

This was incredibly lemony though - and my rule to use the quantities Nigel states in the recipe (unless he specifically says to vary quantities/ingredients in the text) might have needed abandoning, had either of us had mouth ulcers... The zest and juice of two lemons, for a dish serving two people, jeepers! Although I didn't use a litre of stock, only 500ml, as the rice was cooked by the time I'd added this much, so that quantity seems a bit off.

I was worried that the asparagus, which gets popped in the pan fairly early on, might overcook and lose it's flavour, not to mention it's structural integrity, but surprisingly it didn't and it was lovely and tender when the rice was ready. Yum. And very pleasantly accompanied by a couple of glasses of prosecco, supplied by aforementioned chum.

60: A clear, hot mussel soup, p26

A disaster! Possibly the most disastrous meal I've ever cooked - I don't know what possessed me! Home from work late on a Friday, hubby away for a conference,  and fridge almost empty, I suddenly remembered the suspicious bag of frozen mussels I had in the freezer. Bad call. Buying them in the first place. And using them now. I remember thinking in the supermarket 'I love mussels. Surely if they sell them frozen, they aren't that bad frozen? It'd be nice to have mussels whenever I want...'. Doh. They are horrid. Nasty little morsels which either have the consistency of chewed up cardboard or little pieces of bicycle inner tube. Why do they sell frozen mussels if this is what happens to them?? Ick. Ick. Ick. This recipe should have been lovely. A nice simple, Tom Yum style soup, zingy and hot and sweet and sour all at once. And the broth was. But the nasty little defrosted nuggets in it were revolting and I managed to eat two before my better nature saw the next one trigger my gag reflex. And into the food waste recycling bin it went. Along with the rest of the soup. And the rest of the bag of mussels. Oh to have a nice, affordable fishmongers nearby... Will I try this again? It'd be nice to, but the year is racing by already, and I've got a lot of recipes to get through, so I'm not sure...

50: Onion soup without tears, p17

Oh yum, yum, yum, yum, this is a winner! Love french onion soup, and this is the super easy version!

Baking the onions, cut into halves, instead of chopping them up finely (hence, the tears of the title) makes it sooo easy, and gives the soup the loveliest caramelised tastiness, as well as a lovely dark, honey brown colour.

Didn't have fresh french bread, but did have a freshly baked regular loaf, which I cut into two big rounds using a cookie cutter, covered in grated Emmental and grilled, before floating on top of the soup.

Will definitely do this again. Tastes much more complicated than it is...

47: Sausage and black pudding with baked parsnips, p57

Wasn't sure about this one - black pudding is definitely not an ingredient I'd normally buy and I've never cooked with it before. It's one of those fashionable ingredients you find in posh restaurants in little nuggets alongside seared scallops, or with an assiette of pork, perhaps, so I've had it a few times and haven't disliked it, but can't say I'd particularly choooose it...

T was chuffed to bits when I got home on Friday evening and said this was what we were having - he'd found the black pudding and sausages and looked them up in the book to see what the recipe was going to be, and it appealed to his carnivorous tendencies for some reason :)

An easy peasy recipe, the only difficult bit was trying to brown everything in my big Denby casserole which was rather full and so difficult to stir, so some bits got a little browner than intended, but then only 40mins in the oven and it was done. Served with steamed sugar snap peas and homemade papika-y wedgie oven chips, the resulting casserole could have been a bit more flavoursome but that was properly down to slightly inferior ingredients - only one type of black pudding in the supermarket, and 'half fat' butchers sausages were probably a mistake. But still, quite yum, with a thick, glossy gravy from the sauce.

46: A curry of aubergine, tomatoes and lemon grass, p132

Partway through, this looked like it was going to be a terrible disaster, as the aubergines just floated on top of the simmering curry below, looking like they'd never cook, but again, the final result was really surprisingly tasty. Creamy coconutty sauce, with a good garlicky kick, and perfectly cooked aubergine. Oddly the mushrooms seemed to vanish... and I made a cheat by using a tin of tomatoes instead of fresh as somehow I completely underestimated how many tomatoes I needed in the supermarket the other day... instead of counting for this recipe, plus the other curry I did tonight, I just counted the one tomatoey recipe. Doh.

So, with the chickpea curry, spicy potatoes, dal soup, and naans, this made a pretty fab meal. And a total of four Nigel recipes done in one meal. I did manage to use every single pan and dish we own in the process though...

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...

35: Pork and lemon polpettine, p126

Oh gosh, the meatball/patty things strike again and these may have been the best yet... Scrummy meaty, lemony, Parmesany (although T didn't notice the presence of the Parmesan, probably due to the very lemony nature of the patties) and golden and crispy on the outside. Served with the juices from the pan made as per the recipe, rocket and tomato with balsamic dressing, and steamed rice.

These will definitely be made again...

(The anchovy fillets no doubt made them extra meaty-tasting, but is it just me or do the little bones in anchovies freak anyone else out? There just seem to be so many of them, and they crunch, ick! Luckily, the recipe called for them to be chopped so I did so crossways, so the bones were very very short... Ick ick ick)

30: A herb and barley broth to bring you back to health, p41

Don't really need to be brought back to health, but hey, can't beat a bit of broth... uses up lots of veggies too, which is useful because I slightly over-bought in Tescos yesterday and the fridge is overflowing...

Essentially stew without the meat, very similar in delicate sweet taste to the lamb stew earlier this month. I'm not sure that the specially-purchased goose fat really adds that much, but c'est la vie...