86.Meringue Roulade (R. Allen)

Entertaining at home - Rachel Allen Link to book 
Rating: 4/5 
Comment: This is supposed to be an orange curd meringue roulade, however, I only wanted to try out the method for the roulade so used strawberries and cream rather than curd and cream. While it was quite nice, I think I'll stick to the Avoca Cafe version. 
Use it again: No. 
Other nice recipes from this book: Rhubarb crumble cake, Spinach soup with rosemary oil, potato and gruyere gratin, beef and red wine stew.

 

85.Raspberry Jam bread&butter pudding (RA-Home cooking)

Rachel Allen - Home cooking 
Rating: 3/5 

Comment: This is my first attempt at making a bread and butter pudding. I use the delia smith queen of puddings sometimes but have been put off bread and butter puddings by raisins. The book suggests a couple of variations on this - rhubarb and ginger, or the more traditional dried berries and spice. This is an easy recipe, as expected and tasty enough though a little heavy. Great for Autumn or Winter warming. Think I will use it again, but not on a regular basis. 
Use it again: Yes, but not often. 
Lovely recipes from this book: Spiced Chicken Salad, Millonaire's shortbread (sister-in-law got me hooked on this one) and recommended this one - Fish Pie, baked raspberry and ricotta cheesecake, traditional roast rib of beef with yorkshire pudding, roast tomato soup. 
Average recipes: Shepherd's pie  
Avoid: Rhubarb muffins, chicken casserole with cheesy herb dumplings.

84. Lamb Biryani (L P)

Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food 
Rating: 1/5
Comment: Not certain exactly what I did wrong - but this was not great. It wasn't very spicy and there wasn't enough liquid to cook the rice. I did use slightly less spice then suggested, but at the same time the spice got completely lost. The wording of the method states that the rice should be cooked in a separate pan. This is the first biryani I've ever cooked so had to look up the internet to confirm that the rice should actually be added to the same pan as the meat/spices (assuming the recipes I found were accurate). This recipe is supposed to include a small amount of sun-dried tomato, raisins and coconut - none of which I like - but I don't think they would have had much impact. Hope I have more success with the other meat dishes I try from this book :-)
Use it again: No. 
Lovely recipes from this book: Chocolate cake, warm bramley apple pies. 
Nice enough recipes from this book: Twister Bread.

83. Chocolate cake (L Pascale)

Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food 
Rating: 5/5 
Comment: This is the 'let them eat cake' recipe, which is meant to be covered in maltesers and chocolate butter-cream icing, but thought that was too time-consuming and too much icing so did 2/3 the suggested amount of icing and didn't use maltesers. If I was doing this for a birthday, or special occasion, which it is good enough for, think I would go all out and put the maltesers on (it would be very very sweet!).  However, it's still very nice without them. This recipe uses creme fraiche and less butter than normal, which give it a lovely consistency. I use a different chocolate cake recipe (no creme fraiche in it) from the original book (baking made easy), that is also very good (#27 in May). 
Use it again: Yes. 
Other lovely recipes from this book: Warm bramley apple pies. 
Nice enough recipes from this book: Twister Bread.

82. Twister Bread (L Pascale)

Lorraine Pascale's Fast,Fresh and Easy Food 
Rating: 3.5/5 
Comment: Nice enough bread. A little more time consuming than some bread recipes, but not by much. It wasn't easy to roll out the bread to a rectangle shape but aside from that it was easy to do (although it didn't look anything like the one on the tv programme!).
Use it again: Possibly. 
Lovely recipes from this book: Warm bramley apple pies

81.Warm bramley apple pies (Lorraine Pascale)

Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food 
Rating: 4/5 
Comment:  tasty apple pastries. These make a lovely tea time snack or would be great for dessert served with cream or custard (used shop-bought puff pastry). The apple part can be a little tart - I tend to add more sugar than recommended and use less ginger.
Use it again: Yes. 
This is the first recipe I've tried from the book and look forward to trying a few more. 

80. Strawberry meringue roulade (Avoca Cafe)

Avoca Cafe Cookbook (1) 
Rating: 5/5 
Comment:  This follows a very different method to the last meringue roulade I cooked -was interested to see if this would be as successful. This was just as much a success and probably nicer - still had a nice crisp outside and soft mallowy inside, but wasn't too mallowy. I'll still also use the other method, depending on who the intended recipients are.
Use it again: Yes. Everyone should own a copy of the original Avoca Cafe Cookbook. The second one's not as useful, but I do still use it as well as the original one.
Other nice newly tried recipes: Lemon Tart, Tuscan Bean soup, lakeshore pork (use pork fillet), chicken marinated in honey and mustard, herb crusted cod, banana bread. 

79. Lakeshore Pork (Avoca Cafe)

Avoca Cafe Cookbook (1) 
Rating:4.5/5 
Comment: I love the normandy pork recipe from this book, but decided it was time for some variation. This was lovely though quite rich and creamy - pork was melt in the mouth. (It tasted much better than it looks in the photo :-). Used pork steak rather than loin.
Use it again: Yes.
Other nice newly tried recipes: Lemon Tart, Tuscan Bean soup, chicken marinated in honey and mustard, herb crusted cod, banana bread.

78. Beef & red wine stew (Rachel Allen - Entertaining)

Entertaining at home - Rachel Allen Link to book 
Rating: 4/5 
Comment: A good warming stew - will add this to my list of nice beef stews/casseroles. It's meant to include carrots but forgot to buy them in advance. (The photo doesn't do the stew justice).
Use it again: Yes, in the Autumn/Winter in particular.

Other nice recipes from this book: Rhubarb crumble cake, Spinach soup with rosemary oil, potato and gruyere gratin.

77. Lemon Tart (Avoca cafe cookbook)

Avoca Cafe Cookbook (1) 

Rating: 5/5 

Comment:  Absolutely perfect. Just the right balance of lemon to cream to eggs. Everyone loved it. Served with raspberry coulis. The recipe creates a huge amount of filling so depending on my mood I either reduce the quantities or make up some mini tarts (usually the former).

Use it again: Yes.

Other nice newly tried recipes: Tuscan Bean soup, chicken marinated in honey and mustard, herb crusted cod, banana bread. 

76. Cardamom Sour-cream cake (Rachel Allen)

Rachel's Favourite food at home 
Rating: 3/5
Comment: Alright cake with a good texture and subtle taste. I don't have a pestle and mortar but it would have been useful to finely crush the inside of the cardamom seeds; Instead I was only able to roughly crush them.
Use it again: No, the flavour wasn't to my liking.
Other nice recipes from this book: wholemeal shortbread biscuits, spicy salmon cakes, gratin of fish with tomatoes and cheese, asparagus and spring onion tart. This is my least favourite of the Rachel Allen's Favourite food books. I love the other two and keep finding new nice looking recipes to try, whereas I think most of the recipes in this book are either too bland looking or just not food I'd be interested in.