Cooked anything particularly nice lately?

[Selks]

Thread for us to share our culinary successes, unexpected or not.

I cooked dinner for a couple of friends today and was v pleased with how it all turned out. After Christmas stodgy I decided on a lighter menu which was:
Caramelised red onion, blue cheese and thyme quiche
Potato salad
Waldorf salad
Grated carrot and raw beet root salad
Green salad
Fresh baked rolls
Desert: roasted pineapple wedges with mint, topped with Greek yogurt and honey and pistachio nuts.

I will definitely make that again, it was delicious.

What have you cooked lately that you've been pleased with?

I did the same re: cooling Charlie, was a total success.
Forget the calories, you really only need a small slice anyway, it is very rich.

Selks It was lovely and even my fussy daughter (who says she hates eggs!) ate it all. Feeling just a little bit pleased with myself

Oh good DarkHorse, I'm pleased for you

We had small square pieces as it was very rich so you didn't need a lot.

I also used low fat soft cheese and sour cream and next time I will half the sugar as a few comments suggested that and it didn't need it all imo.

Wow that cheesecake looks amazing, Charlie. Thanks for linking the recipe.

I did a fridge/freezer raid at the end of the Christmas holidays. Smeared a sheet of puff pastry with a spoonful of red pesto, added red onion, red peppers and some goats cheese that had been lurking in the fridge for some time.
It was the tastiest thing I've eaten for ages and scoffed by the whole family.

I made a rather nice apple crumble the other evening. I followed a friend's tip and put bashed up ginger nuts into the crumble topping, which added a definite something. And DD (3) loved doing the bashing

Ooh those both sound lovely!

My favourite is roasted vegetable strudel ask my Dh and he says apple and cinnamon scones.

Some fab ideas here! I am inspired to use the puff pastry that has been in my freezer for yonks

Mm apple and cinnamon scones sounds lovely.

Nigella courgette and feta fritters, they were gorgeous.

Apple and cinnamon scones, www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1572671/apple-scones-with-blackberry-compote

Thanks Sharon. I have some apples - might do those tomorrow

Tonight I made a rice pudding but instead of doing it on the hob I did it in the oven. It took longer but turned out delicious.

Do you have a link was?

Smoked haddock pie
A bed of mustard mash topped with lightly cooked leeks and spinach, add smoked haddock (poach in milk first) and then top generously with cheese sauce. Bake until golden brown.

Mhhh some nice suggestions here.

I tried something different this weekend and we had on Fri and Sat respectively:

Beef & Beetroot Curry (Chukandar Gosht) but I used a tin of tomatoes not fresh ones,

and the next day

Spinach & Rice Torte. Except that I substituted cavolo nero for the spinach and it came out just great (make sure the filling is quite wet and I cooked it for longer at the lower temp)!

That haddock thing sounds interesting Thistledown. Did you follow a recipe or did you make it up?!

OMG that looks and sounds amazing, Thistledown. Yum.

I am having a lot of success with the new Nigel Slater book at the moment ("Eat" I think it's called). I have tried a haddock with lentils recipe (delicious), a vegetable curry (very good though nothing super-special - but then I make curries a lot and feel quite confident with them), grilled lamb in a yoghurt sauce (also delicious) and yesterday a red mullet baked on leeks and fennel (but I did it with sea bass instead as Ocado did not run to red mullet) - this was also really excellent, and felt very healthy as well. It's a bit early to tell but in general the recipes in this one feel a bit lighter than some of his earlier books.

I made a NS recipe today as well but it was his lemon and thyme cake from Kitchen Diaries 2 which is an old standby.

Majestic, I used a recipe from thequincetree65.blogspot.co.uk/

It was delicious. DH has already asked when we are having it again.

great Thistledown, thank you.

My 12yr old DD made a Key lime pie on Saturday. She used the recipe from the Great British Bake off and I tweeted the pic to Ryan, who made it on the show and he replied!