A really good spaghetti Bolognese

Oh go on then, just one more! Again, Nigel's title, not mine. I've jumped ahead to January 17th here. It was really good even though I was missing 3 ingredients from Nigel's recipe (mushrooms, carrot and celery) and had to adapt 2 (semi skimmed to his full fat milk and a drained tin of chopped tomatoes to his passata) because it's Boxing Day and I've got to make do. It was still very lovely and will probably be the way I make bolognese from now on.

December

I'm not going to be doing any more Nigel this year as I'm going to be away so the remainder of December ( roast goose, juniper sauce and apple and lemon purée; passion fruit roulade; cheese bubble and squeak) will have to wait until next Christmas. I will do my best to do the red mullet dish in January or February though - as soon as I've located one! The highlight of December's Nigel offerings for me is a toss up between the taleggio and parsley cakes or the roast duck with pancetta and potatoes - the duck probably just edges it.

Roast leg of pork with onion and Marsala gravy

I made this for dinner for friends last night and unfortunately got too drunk to blog it! It was amazing - the pork was perfectly cooked (in a little less time than Nigel had estimated) and the crackling was sublime. The gravy was delicious too. I would make this again without a doubt. We've had gorgeous hot pork and gravy sandwiches today which were also a total winner and there's still some left for tomorrow. My photos are getting worse!

Grilled pork steaks with vermouth and fennel; potatoes with duck fat and garlic

Oooh, these pork steaks were very lovely, the marinade really making it, even though I forgot to add lemon juice. I'm becoming a bit if a fan of fennel having never cooked with it prior to this project and now having cooked with it 3 times in a 2 month period - credit to Nigel for broadening my horizons. I did my potatoes in goose fat rather than duck, the principle being much the same. Another random photo!

Bean shoot salad with coriander and mint

Well, pea shoot to be precise. Now, I know the star of the plate in my photo is the amazing jerk chicken (not made by me but is a leftover from our lunchtime feast at work today) but this salad was good. It was tangy and tasty and actually perfectly complemented the chicken - it kind of refreshed the palate after the hit of the chicken. You can also see from my photo I've conquered my raw carrot phobia - thanks Nigel.

Walnut and candied peel tartlets

As I've said before, not living in London makes finding all the ingredients difficult sometimes but now I'm a bit into this project I feel loads more confident about trying things that aren't quite as in the recipe - so, where this should be candied peel, this is actually candied orange and lemon pieces. I also messed up a bit in that I was making half the amount Nigel made but forgot to halve the amount of egg I used. It all works though and these are lovely - the mixed spice in the recipe makes these taste and smell like Christmas.

Roast duck with pancetta and potatoes, peas with lemon and mint

Woah! This is the best Sunday dinner I've ever made. A wild claim I know but I actually can't describe how good this tasted - it was that good! I had to change the recipe a bit as Nigel had used a whole duckling whereas there was only me for dinner tonight so I used a humble duck breast - I don't feel that the recipe or taste suffered for this though. It was excellent.

Marinated feta and artichoke salad

This flies in the face of average salad making in that it takes 4 hours to make! Well, 2 minutes to make and 4 hours to marinate if we're being precise. It was well worth the wait though - the mint balanced out the saltiness of the feta perfectly. Nigel made this on the same day as 'baked red mullet with pine kernel stuffing' but I'm finding red mullet ridiculously difficult to find in a two mile radius of my neighbourhood, despite having a wonderful independent fishmonger practically on my doorstep. So I'm going to have to shelve the red mullet until I come across it naturally. Today instead of the fish I had a beautiful rib eye steak alongside this salad and also, look away now if you're easily appalled, curly fries. Yeah, I said it!

Sautéed chicken with spices, fennel and cream

I liked this and felt that for a creamy curry it had plenty of flavour. I used chicken thigh fillets cut into chunks rather than whole thighs because I would rather have smaller chunks of chicken and prefer it not to be bone on. That's just me though - I'm sure Nigel's right!

Celeriac and walnut remoulade

Now, this really is not my kind of thing, and I've been putting off making it all week. However, even though it is cold food which I am generally totally averse to, this wasn't so bad. It didn't wow me to the extent that I'd be making it again and having it as a starter when friends come over but I could eat it and thought it was ok. My ham was not Nigel's Bayonne (obviously unable to find round here) so I had the finest prosciutto.

On another note I've now completed November from The Kitchen Diaries.

Taleggio and parsley cakes

Omg! What a brilliant way to use up leftover risotto. I'm always making too much but last night had to hold this much back because my boyfriend wanted to scoff it all and I knew this recipe was coming up. I did have the usual hunt for the unusual for Manchester ingredient (taleggio) and luckily found it in a local deli - I am blessed to be living in the Chorlton area of Manchester where there are lots of independent shops which mean you don't have to rely on rubbish supermarkets which only stock 3000 varieties of cheddar and little else! Rant over.

Hot and sticky roast quail

Woah, these little fellas packed a punch! I'm low on taste buds today as I have a cold and so this is exactly what was required to make me happy. Quail is hard to find round here - my local butcher offered me teal as an alternative but I really did want to stay faithful to the recipe until all my options had been exhausted. Found the little beauties in Sainsbury's Salford - aforementioned due to lack of macaroni, which really did make me think are the people of Salford really filling up on quail rather than pasta? I would make this spice mixture again possibly for a whole roast chicken as it did hit the spot. I'm going to confidently say I've never had quail before but I wouldn't rule it out in future as it was tasty, if a bit fiddly to eat.

Coffee and walnut cake

A perfect day to make a cake as its cold and wet outside. It's quite a large, rich cake and the coffee flavour isn't overpowering. However, Nigel has spoiled me for cake making now as I don't think I'm going to like any cake as much as the frosted marmalade cake from the other week.

Stilton, onion and potato pie

Comfort food of the highest order is how Nigel begins the description of the recipe and he's not wrong - this was so moreish that although I made enough to serve 3 people I could easily have eaten it all. The Stilton flavour is surprisingly subtle with the sweetness of the onions contrasting beautifully. Served with the aforementioned red cabbage.

Cabbage with orange and juniper

Tonight I have galloped ahead to Christmas Day mainly because my friend Michelle has presented me with a wonderful looking red cabbage from her allotment. I was incredibly sceptical about this recipe prior to making it for a couple of reasons: one being that I already have a favourite red cabbage recipe and the second that this one isn't slow cooked - in fact it is positively fast cooked! However, put your trust in Nigel and he will deliver is my new mantra and man, this cabbage is good!

Lemon ice-cream tart with gingernut crust

And to follow, this delight! I have again jumped ahead, to the 12th December this time. I love this type of thing. It wasn't cloyingly sweet but the topping was just perfect with the base and you could pick out the lemon and orange zest flavours. We had this with a dessert wine.

Mushroom lasagne with basil and cream

There were 5 of us for dinner last night, 3 of whom were non meat eaters, so this totally fitted the bill. There was nothing difficult about this meal, but it did take over 2 hours from start to finish to make so if I did make it again (it was delicious) it would have to be a weekend offering rather than after a working day. We had it with the walnut and Roquefort salad that I made in October and it went with that really well. It didn't look as perfect as Nigel's did though but who cares?

Slow cooked duck with star anise and ginger

I went a bit off piste with this one in that I did it in the slow cooker for 8 hours rather than 1 hour 15 mins in the oven - part experiment, part convenience. I'm not sure Nigel wanted it this way as it was definitely falling off the bone after so long in the slow cooker which he doesn't want in the original recipe but I've got to say Nigel - most of us love falling off the boneness! It was just what I needed after a few post work pints, followed by some of that lovely cake from the other night. Photo doesn't do it justice by the way.

A frosted marmalade cake

Eagle eyed/pedantic/devoted Nigel Slater fans will know that I have jumped ahead to January to make this cake - 7th January to be precise. There are 2 good reasons for this: 1. In the book Nigel is in New York between 10th and 19th November and I wanted to make something to take to a friend's house later for after our meal. 2. I'm going to be on holiday (Vietnam for the curious) between 27th December and 18th January and don't want to get massively behind with this project so am going to try and slip January dishes in in November and December where possible, and maybe get a little ahead in the coming fortnight too.

Anyway, wow on this cake! I would go as far as to say that this is the best cake I've ever made! It was so moist and you could really pick out the orange flavours. My friend loved it too and said it was perfectly spongey and delicious. The icing was also lovely with just the right amount of sweetness.

Blackberry and apple pie

Baking is normally the thing I'm really good at, so I'm not sure what went wrong today. Don't get me wrong, the pastry tasted really nice and the filling was fine, but this is definitely the ugliest pie I've ever made. Basically, my pastry wouldn't roll - it just kept breaking up so in the end I had to assemble it, jigsaw fashion, in little pieces. Not ideal! I would definitely have been kicked off the Great British Bake Off with this effort. Ah well, you win some etc.

Pumpkin and tomato laksa

This is one of those classic Nigel dishes which look completely unappealing for 28 minutes cooking time but then comes together in the last 2! I even thought to myself as I was eating it that it looked nothing like the photo in the book and then turned the page to find that it looked exactly like the photo in the book. It was really nice but could have been just a little spicier for my taste.

A crisp salad for a cold day

Using yesterday's chicken this was a really good lunch - I used spinach to Nigel's mixed salad leaves and grated my carrot rather than cutting into matchsticks, mainly because the only way I can handle raw carrot is by hiding it in grated form.

A fantastic Sunday dinner

Today I've put together two separate days from the book and omg what a combination. So, we had 'roast chicken with cheese mash and garlic gravy' and 'baked onions with Parmesan and cream'. The onions were kind of an onion dauphinois and in my opinion a million times better than their potato counterpart. This will become a regular dish for me particularly with a roast piece of meat and not much else. Fantastic dinner! (Gravy not pictured, but was made)

Raspberry ricotta pancakes

Sunday brunch. These were insanely good! I think I've eaten too many though!

Poached pears with ice-cream and chocolate sauce

Plus the worst food photo I've ever taken! The pears were not as enormous as they look. Last night there were four of us for dinner (main course was made by my daughter - cuban black beans with pulled pork) and we had this for pudding. This is a good dinner party pud and was filling but when I make this next I'll use milk chocolate instead of dark for the sauce as it was jut that little bit too bitter for my taste.

Pan-fried sausages with cream and mustard mash

Broke my no repeat rule again tonight as I really fancied bangers and mash and this was much nicer than I remembered. Mind you my sausages were outstanding today - pork and leek from my local posh butcher - just look at the size of them!

I have now completed October - yay! Highlights for me have been the two fish dishes which were wonderful.

Very good chocolate brownies

And to follow the chicken wings these beauties. These are supposed to be made on Halloween but I'll be going out so I've made them early. They are really nice but so rich that I'm going to have to take them into work tomorrow or I will gorge myself over the next couple of days and end up hating myself!

Sweet and sticky chicken wings

Tonight's dinner is right up my strasse. If I make them again, however, I will be tempted to add a few chilli flakes for a bit of heat and possibly a little more honey to up the sweetness. Otherwise perfect Monday night autumnal food.

Roast partridge

I have missed out the ham and butter beans recipe (made by Nigel on 27th October) in order to give myself a break and stick to my own rules, that I don't need to make something I've made previously, this being one. As I recall, I didn't like it that much at the time but I might at some point go back to it and give it another go. So instead I've taken a step back a few days to Roast partridge. Having been unimpressed with the pigeon earlier in the month I expected the same verdict tonight and was pleasantly surprised to find it more chickeny than gamey. The fatty bacon on top gave it a rich flavour which complemented the bird fabulously. I made my thin gravy to go with it with Marsala rather than Madeira because that's what I had in. As in the book this was following with the remaining ice-cream cake from the other night. Lovely.

An Eastern aubergine roast

Roast aubergine with tahini.

This is the sort of dish that is showcased in the guardian magazine on a Saturday which I glance at and think 'nah!'. I'm right. I've just had this for lunch, and it was easy to make and tasty enough but not for me really - it won't be entering my repertoire long term.

The knee-jerk lentil supper, watercress with sweet salad dressing and Raspberry vanilla ice-cream cake

I wasn't particularly looking forward to this one, not least because lentils can be really boring and Nigel gave no quantities as it wasn't one of his 'proper' recipes, but just what he ate on 25th October. Nevertheless, I put my faith in Nigel and once again he didn't disappoint. Initially it was all seeming pretty boring until the introduction of the goats cheese which lifted the dish to a totally different level. This may well become my knee-jerk dish as it is for him. I added in a watercress salad with the sweet salad dressing (from 21st October in the book) - the salad was magnificent and will now be my dressing of choice. The cake to follow was more assembly than cooking, but I'm not arguing with that. I am posting this late due to the vast quantity of wine my vegetarian friend and I drank during and after this meal.

A bowl of pure delight

Nigel's title not mine! It was, however, surprisingly alright. I've never had miso soup before and wasn't really sure what to expect, which proves that my faith in Nigel has no bounds. I made it exactly as he says in the book, with green beans and spring onions and this was a quick and easy lunch. You can't see the green beans in the photo as they've sunk to the bottom.

Haddock with crumbs and tarragon with a carrot salad

Tonight's fish was accompanied by a carrot salad that I should have made last week. In terms of the salad, I over lemoned it I think, so would go easy on that if I make it again, which I may well do. The fish was beautiful. It had a full flavour and wonderful texture and will be entering my permanent repertoire without a doubt. Two firsts for me today - cooking with anchovies (in the fish crust) and willingly eating raw carrots. Get me!

A supper of autumn nuts

Anybody who knows me will be chortling at the idea that I've had a salad for my tea, but all I can say is who knew? Granted, I had an enormous lunch today or this would not have appealed but it did just the job for me. This salad is raw apple, spinach leaves, toasted walnuts and crumbled Roquefort with a walnut oil and lemon juice dressing. I would have this again definitely. Not the best picture I've ever taken but hey ho!

A sweet pork roast

I invited a friend over last night to help me eat this particular feast. The dish itself was Roast pork with grapes, juniper and Marsala and I really can't understand why I haven't made this recipe before - it was soooo good. Nigel recommended roast potatoes and roast squash with thyme (from 2nd November in the book), so this I did. I added some slow cook red cabbage (not pictured). For pudding we had Friday nights apple cake, warmed up and served with top quality vanilla ice cream and a beautiful dessert wine which I forgot to serve at Christmas! The whole dinner was a hit with my friend and will definitely become a repeat dish for me.

A quick ham and mushroom lunch

Nigel had it as a supper but, as I said yesterday, I'm cramming! My bread was semi-sweet cottage bread rather than sourdough and my ham was Serrano to his Bayonne - the whole thing was delicious and has made me rethink Saturday brunch which for me is generally a bacon buttie.

Pot roast pigeon

Now, for one reason or another it's going to be almost impossible for me to cook anything after tomorrow for the next 10 days which means I have to squeeze a week's worth of Nigel into 2 days. I am, however, well up for the challenge. Fortunately for me Nigel himself was pretty slack in mid-October, so it shouldn't be too tricky. Tonight's offering is Pot-roast pigeon with herby chipolatas (Nigel used Luganega sausage which, needless to say, could not be found locally (although I must say I was astonished to find the pigeon - courtesy of Frost the butcher here in Chorlton) and a herby chipolata was his alternative and not mine). I must say pigeon is not and will not be my regular bird of choice but the gravy and sausage combo was delicious.

I've also broken one of my rules tonight and made something I've made before - something I make regularly in fact: English apple cake. This is my go to cake when I want an every day, easy cake that's not overly sweet.

Macaroni with Fontina and mustard

Well, not quite! Fontina is nigh impossible to find in Manchester and, surprisingly, Sainsbury's Salford don't appear to stock macaroni - astonishing I know. So, today would be more accurately described as Penne with Gouda and mustard. I was emergency googling in the supermarket for an alternative to Fontina and Gouda was what the internet offered up. As dinners go, I was glad I made this as a midweek dinner rather than waiting for the 12th as it was in the book. I don't think I'd make this one again as my all time fave cheesy pasta dish is Simon Hopkinson's from The Good Cook, which is probably down to it containing pancetta!

Roast haddock with bacon and parsley with a fennel, watercress and pear salad

Tonight was Roast Haddock with bacon and parsley accompanied by a fennel, watercress and pear salad. I added crumbled feta cheese to the salad (Nigel had recommended Wensleydale, Cheshire or Caerphilly but this worked well too). I posted the picture on twitter and got some lovely comments from friends. Nigel himself tweeted me the following day - see picture below. Praise indeed!

Cooking The Kitchen Diaries (vol 1)

Ok, so I've decided to spend the next year working my way through Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, mainly to expand my repertoire and make myself a better cook - I imagine it will also make me eat more fish which can't be a bad thing. I do have a couple of rules for myself though:

1. I won't recook those recipes that I've already tried, although this probably only equates to about 5 recipes.

2. I must cook from the same week (preferably the same day) that Nigel did, but I accept that this wont always be practical hence the week rule.

3. I will not countenance Christmas pudding or Christmas cake as an eater so will not be cooking them.