Autumn Review

Cooking a book means that we sometimes don't realise where the time has gone, and here we are again - doing our Autumn review a bit later than we should be. 

To tell the truth we actually haven't finished the Autumn recipes either...we were late last time and were hoping to catch up with ourselves.  Instead we have increased the number of recipes which have not yet been completed to two! These will follow in due course.  We're definitely not intending to make shortcuts but we are clearly behind...

To start off with the good stuff - our Top 5 recipes

Andrew's Favourites:

Baked Custard Tart with Mulled Spiced Plums
Rib-eye Steak with Stick Fries & Chateaubriand Sauce
Pot Roasted Chicken with Pumpkin, Sage & Star Anise
Cromer Crab Toastie
Potato, Celeriac & Parsnip Rosti (minus the grouse)

Rachel's Favourites:

Hazelnut-Coated Goat's Cheese with Lemon & Beetroot Salad
Salmon & Pumpkin Risotto
Rib-eye Steak with Stick Fries & Chateaubriand Sauce
Swiss Style Meringues with Coffee Cream
Pistachio Coffee Cake

Few sneaky things this season - I have to confess that we did not cook a grouse.  I know we should have but I went into one of the best butchers in London (we think so and so do a lot of food critics) and they had run out...so I got a chicken instead. Hence why Andrew couldn't really say he liked the Grouse.  To be honest, I was getting a little fed up with Game anyway.  I am more than happy to try new things, but there was quite a lot of meat this season and it was all a bit heavy to be honest.  We are yet to try mackerel with creamed horseradish and sloe jam.  We have missed the Sloe season so will be buying frozen ones soon so we can make a batch.

Calf's liver was more edible than the chicken liver, but again, doesn't leave me wanting more! The cider battered onion rings as an accompaniment were good though. 

There are definitely a few meals we will take away from this season - cromer crab, salmon and pumpkin risotto, and chateaubriand sauce with steak.  I personally loved the amount of beetroot and pumpkin.  I have never really eaten pumpkin before, but now I know I really enjoy it and will be trying some next year. 

Gluten free substitutes - again no problems.  I was worried about the welsh cakes, but they tasted just fine, even if they didn't rise quite as much as I was hoping. If you are reading this and are worried about cooking gluten free - I hope this proves that it isn't a scary thing. Most of the time we just replace the gluten items with a gluten free substitute and it works just fine.  You just need to have lower expectations - it's not going to be quite the same as a gluten equivalent but still tastes great!

You will see that we have already started eating winter recipes, so we're on track for this season.  Roll on March 22nd when we will have hopefully finished all of the recipes in the book!

Ps - we used our redcurrant jelly on Christmas day, instead of cranberry sauce - it was lovely!