Roast pork and pumpkin

My fussy daughter is back from a trip to Dublin and wanting to eat with me so i had to shelve the idea of making the pheasant tonight and skipped straight to this - which I am coincidently making on the right day again.  This was totally up our strasse and we had with another portion of amazing kale (my new vegetable crush).

Grilled partridge, orange and lemon marinade

I'm taking a trip back to October 4th tonight with the appearance of the elusive partridge - wholly thanks to the lovely Robin at work who came to my rescue with not just the partridge but also the pheasant (October 23rd - which I'll make tomorrow).  Such a relief to be catching up (although Mograbia continues to evade me).

Whilst I love the flavours here - the marinade becoming the most beautiful of sauces - the small bird is far to fiddly for me (and I dread to think what the fussy daughter would  have said if presented with it!).  However, what I am taking away from this episode is the revelation that is kale.  I've only had kale a couple of times and have then shunned it as being a bitter unpleasant taste - I'm a big fan of green food so this is extremely unusual for me.  But pan fried with butter and having the sultanas added transforms this ugly sister into a beautiful princess.  Enough that I'm considering having kale cooked this way on my Christmas table this year.

Apple and Stilton dumplings with onion pickle

A rare occurrence: making something on the same day as in the book - I love it when that happens.  This was not only quite simple to make (pre bought puff pastry = fantastic) but quite simply amazing! The onion pickle was a revelation and one I'm sure I'll return to again and again. The flavours here were intense with the strong cheese flavour wonderfully balanced out by the apple and pickle combination.  I had another ratio/size disaster though - I suspect Nigel intended me to make 8 really small pies - I went large and so made just 4.  I gave a quarter away to a friend who brought me some Jerusalem artichokes from her allotment (this is intended to go with the pheasant dish (October 23) but again I cannot source a pheasant) leaving one each - my other half is eyeing my daughter's portion up as we speak (she's out and will no doubt enjoy this as a post pub snack when she comes home).

Mushroom pies

I've messed up a bit here!  I've just reread the recipe and realised I've not made the pie into the right shape.  I was going to complain about having made too much filing for the amount of pastry put perhaps if if done in exactly as Nigel suggested i wouldn't have had that problem.  I went out for a walk with my friend and her dog whilst these were in the oven and we just got back in time.  Another minute and they'd have been ruined!  They were lovely. 

A Mushroom Bourguignon

Whilst I'm not a vegetarian (far from it), the man in my life is and consequently I'm always happy when Nigel offers up an interesting vegetarian option.  This is very much a weekend dish as it took a good while to make all told but it was worth the time invested.  This most definitely will go on the make again list.  The addition of the fried bread really made it for me - it was delicious.

Smoked mackerel and celeriac remoulade

I've been dreading making this since I bought the new book, at one point considering starting in November in order to put this one off for as long as possible but last night I bit the bullet and made this for today's lunch.  I'm not a fan of celeriac or radishes and long time blog readers will know I'm relatively new to mustard and don't like it if it's a dominant taste and so as I put this together last night my heart was sinking.  As I was about to eat this just now my mate at work reminded me to keep my faith in Nigel - good advice. I've no idea why I would have doubted him - it was a really amazing combination of flavours that just work.  It's days like this that remind me how good it is to be led by someone else and not just stick to what you know. Once again, thank you Nigel!

Duck, prunes and red cabbage

Wow is really the only word I can use here. Wow. After 40 minutes simmering, the sauce for the duck legs became a thick rich delight and the flavour so perfectly complemented the duck, it was like magic.  Of course, this recipe was not without an ingredient hindrance in the shape of sherry vinegar which was simply not to be found and so was replaced with red wine vinegar.  It seemed not to matter.  Even the fussy daughter liked this.

An ingredient update

Still looking for Mograbia but also running in to trouble on the partridge front (grilled partridge, orange and lemon marinade - October 4th).  My local very good butcher says that it will be a couple of weeks before they are available so I will come back to that at some point.  I do hope that this isn't going to be a theme with this book!

Grilled Mussels with thyme and Parmesan

Look at these beauties - oh my days!  The flavours were excellent and deeply satisfying.  I'd make this as a show stopper dinner party starter - beautiful.

Fig and red onion tartlets

It is not clear whether Nigel intends this to be a tart to eat as part of your evening meal or as it's dessert.  As it contains figs and creme fraiche I went for the latter.  I'm still not sure!  I'd forgotten to season the filling before baking and the first mouthful was consequently a little bland. But the addition of a little sea salt transformed these tarts and I really enjoyed them.  I was particularly pleased at how much like the photo in the book these were.  

Beef, chilli and sun-dried tomato burger

Well, a burger is a good place to start in my opinion and this makes an easy start.   I love burgers and this was good, with the occasional fiery heat of the chilli and the sweetness of the sun-dried tomato giving an interesting contrast and I ended up piling my 'avocado salad' on top of my burger.  I really do feel like I'm back, with my interest and joy in trying new things renewed.  

A new one!

I've been so excited about the new Kitchen Diaries (the kitchen diaries 111: a year of good eating) and made a date to start recreating it from October 1st - October being the time my thoughts seem naturally to turn to cooking and being more adventurous.  However, I've almost immediately and inevitably been delayed by events beyond my control such as already having planned to eat out most days of this last week (which sounds decadent I know!). So I'm already going to slightly be playing catch up.  I also discovered that recipe 2 in October (October 2nd) contains 2 ingredients which are a problem: firstly, and less importantly olives, which I'm allergic to (I already replace every recipe containing olive oil with walnut oil) and will simply just leave them out of this dish, but more importantly the main ingredient being Mograbia which Nigel says he picks up bags of whenever he sees it - that's sounds to me like it's difficult to find in London let alone up here in Manchester. This has made me take stock of what I'm trying to achieve here which actually is to enjoy myself whilst I 'cook along a Nigel' so I'm not going to beat myself up about it if I need to skip recipes/days and come back at a later date for completeness sake. Let's see how I get on.  Oh, and here I am taking delivery of the book the day it came out.