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.