A Wonderfully Moist, Fresh Plum Cake [#146]

Wonderfully moist indeed, rich with ground almonds, chopped walnuts and butter, with loads of sliced plums pressed into the surface before baking. I also sprinkled the fruit with a little sugar and cinnamon, as there was a tinge of Autumn in the air today. There is loads of this, so we will be eating it the rest of the week, and possibly will freeze some. A nice, seasonal pud.

Baked Aubergine with Sheep's Cheese and Mint [#145]

Yummy! Nigel suggests serving this as a main course with rice, but I used half the recipe to top crostini to accompany Margeritas as a starter. Just a most scrummy combination - soft, melting aubergine with salty feta, mint and toasted pine nuts. The remainder of the recipe will find its way into fritters tomorrow with some spinach and the rest of the feta. Will definitely make this again. No online recipe, but so easy: slice aubergine and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with garlic and dried oregano and bake for 25 minutes till soft. Top with crumbled feta, chopped fresh mint and toasted pine kernels.

A Salad of Red Mullet with Lime and Ginger [#144]

Well........salmon, instead of red mullet, which I couldn't get anywhere. And I baked the salmon in the dressing rather than cooking the fish separately and then dousing it in the dressing afterwards, which Nigel's original recipe suggested. Delicious Asian flavours, and it ate very well with a big mound of stir-fried pak choi, courgettes, red peppers and spring onions mixed into egg noodles. We drank a dry Aussie Reisling which matched the lime and lime leaves in the dressing beautifully.

Fresh Borlotti Salad with Focaccia [#143]

Well......OK, we don't live in Notting Hill or Florence, so the chances of getting fresh borlotti beans were well-nigh impossible. As a consequence, I used excellent tinned borlotti from Valfrutta - if you see them, then get them - they are steamed in the tin, so no gloopy liquid around them, and they have a wonderful texture. I gussied them up with a lemony parsley dressing, blanched green beans, onions and good albacore tuna from a jar, not a tin. I did make my own focaccia, however, using an amazing method where you leave a very wet dough with hardly any yeast in to rise in the fridge over 18 hours. Very nice, and lots left for tomorrow. I guess this was stretching Nigel's recipe almost to breaking point, but I think I am allowed after all this ruddy effort!

Julie/Julia

Hve just heard about this film (and the Julia Child Project) and it has put my little challenge into the shade! I must catch this film, with Meryl Streep as the brilliant Julia Child. It is the story of Julie in Manhattan who actually cooked her way through 500+recipes from Julia Child's book in one year - HOW did she do it??? 192 recipes is enough for me, and somethimes that feels like a huge cooking treadmil. Nigel's recipes are - mostly - simple, but Julia Child's food is French haute cuisine with all the richness, complexity and expense that that entails. Eek! Has anyone else seen this?

Carrot Salad [#142]

No online recipe for this, and it hardly needs one. The idea is to grate some lovely juicy new season's carrots, dress with lots of lemon juice, walnut oil, and seasoning, and pile onto watercress. I added mint leaves too, and toasted pine kernels rather than the peanuts Nigel suggested, as they were more in keeping with the overall Middle-Eastern vibe of the meal. Lovely, healthy and refreshing.

Roast Aubergines with Tahini [#141]

Really nice way to prepare aubergines - roasted or chargrilled with a bit of olive oil, and then dressed with Greek yoghurt, tahini paste, lemon juice, garlic and chopped coriander. The dressing, in particular, went really well with the Lamb flatbreads (see previous recipe)

Lamb-Filled Flatbread [#140]

Bit of a Nigelthon this evening, with this dish accompanied by two of his salads. This was a nice way to eat a lean lamb fillet, marinated in garlic, cumin and coriander, then roasted for 20 minutes. Sliced thinly, and stuffed into excellent Loyd Grossman pitta breads, it was a simple, Middle-Easternish supper.

A Salad of Fennel, Winter Leaves and Parmesan [#139]

I know, I know, it isn't Winter! But this recipe has been hanging around since the January pages of The Diary, and I needed to get it done. It is more or less a Caesar Salad with finely shaved fennel. You can see why I didn't want to eat it on a cold January evening. I made it into more of a main meal salad by grilling some boneless, skinless chicken thighs that I had marinated in olive oil and garlic. I also tossed the hot little croutons in grated Parmesan for an extra savoury touch. Felt good to get this recipe out of the way! By the way, the Caesar-style dressing is INCREDIBLY rich, we only used a spoonful or two, and dressed the bulk of the salad with ordinary vinaigrette. I can't find the recipe online so, you know what I'm going to say by now, go buy the book!

Plum Crisp [#138]

Deeply yummy pudding, this. We used the first of the damsons, on sale in Oxford's Covered Market - worrying reports in the papers this weekend that this fruit is in decline. We stewed them and seived them to remove the stones, and then mixed the sweetened puree with halved and stoned Opal plums, and a handful of brambles from our own garden. Topped with delicious sugary, buttery breadcrumbs taken from a Tiger Top Pain de Mie loaf, this was just the most sumptuous, winey, rich, fruity dessert, perfection with some chilled pouring cream. Well done, Nigel - a corker of a recipe!

Baked Red Mullet with Saffron and Mint [#137]

Wo-hoo! Hayman's fishmongers in the Covered Market had red mullet! We bought two nice sized ones to bake with these unusual flavourings - I would never have thought of mint with fish but this recipe works very well. Next time, though, I would cover the baking dish with foil, as the lovely cooking juices of Noilly Prat vermouth had evaporated by the end of the cooking time, and they smelt so lovely too!

Raspberry Vanilla Ice-Cream Cake [#136]

Dead simple - line a loaf-tin or brownie pan with thinly sliced all-butter madeira cake, then raspberries, then good vanilla ice cream (I used Green and Black's), more raspberries, then a final layer of thinly sliced madeira cake. I sprinkled the cake slices with maraschino liqueur in order to add a bit of extra moisture. Cover with clingfilm and return to the freezer until ready to eat, in slices, with icing sugar over the top. Next time, I might make some raspberry puree to go with it, just for a bit more welly! The online recipe, by the way, doesn't specify the raspberry addition - I would definitely add them, for colour, flavour and texture.

Baked Lamb with Tomato and Rosemary [#135]

If you want a roast for a summer Sunday, this is a great choice. We chose a small half-leg of organic Welsh lamb, rather than the fattier neck chops suggested by Nigel, and have left-overs for tomorrow. You must keep the vegetables chunky so they don't break down in an hour-and-a-half in the oven. I also added some courgettes to Nigel's aubergines, onions, potatoes, and garlic. We accompanied the soft roasted vegetables with mouth-wateringly good spinach and green beans from Medley Manor Pick-Your-own -Yummy! We started the meal with crostini spread with smoked salmon pate, and will finish with Nigel's Raspberry Ice-cream cake.

Bread and Tomato Salad [#134]

A rare warm day this summer, so we tackled one of the salad backlogs - as usual, I fiddled with this recipe - well, added to it really. I thought it was the Italian classic panzanella but Nigel toasted his ciabatta rather than soaking it in water, olive oil and chopped tomatoes, as the Italians would do. I also decided to roast the tomatoes and pepper, along with some onion and courgettes. This created a luscious mass which was spooned over watercress, topped with crunchy cucumber, some really good albacore tuna from a jar, marinated artichokes, black olives and basil. With a simple red wine vinegar and olive oil dressing, this was a fantastic, flalourful salad, full of colour and texture, and perfect for a warm - finally - summer's evening.

A Really Fast Cake with Blueberries and Pears [#133]

True to his word, Nigel has given us a really fast cake. A 'pound cake' mixture, with equal quantities of butter, flour and sugar, with chopped pears and blueberries pressed into the top before baking, it seems more appropriate in August than in May when it appears in the book - even then, the pears came from Argentina.....oops! Sorry about the food miles! At least the blueberries are English. Lovely simple cake with a touch of cream. Mmmmmm! No online recipe, I'm afraid - you need to get the book if you want this one.

Seared Beef with Mint and Mustard Dressing [#132]

We just got paid, so fillet steak it was! (Not the whole piece of fillet Nigel suggests in the recipe - too expensive and too much meat) The dressing was really the star here - a light, creamy mayonnaise flavoured with lemon, mustard and mint. As we had started the meal with tomato and fresh pesto bruschettas and will finish with pear and blueberry cake, we needed no potatoes with the steak, making do with a mound of green and runner beans, carrots and courgettes. Yummy with a bottle of Aussie Cabernet Sauvignon from the Margaret River (and classic mojitos to start). Hope you don't think we are lushes........

Courgette and Lancashire Cheese Crumble [#131]

Well, well, what a surprise. This was totally delicious, and probably in my top 10 recipes from the book so far. As Nigel himself admits, this sounds like some worthy dish from a 1970s vegetarian restaurant. It is, in fact, savoury, herby and relatively light, the 'crumble' element being breadcrumbs, walnuts, a little Lancashire cheese and fresh rosemary. The base is onion and potato, with courgette, more crumbly lactic Lancashire and rosemary. It all bakes into a crisp yet moist dish that was just superb. For all you gardeners out there facing a glut of courgettes, do try this, you really won't regret it.

A Refreshing Salad for a Hot Day [#130]

.......just a pity we didn't have the hot day to go with the salad. I scaled down the recipe to make it a starter. This was essentially a blend of ripe charentais melon, Italian prosciutto cotto, good buffalo mozzarella and watercress, with a lemony dressing with chopped parsley. Very nice and refreshing. No online recipe, sadly, but I'm sure you get the picture.