lamb and quince tagine, vegetable hotpot, couscous, salad and pumpkin pie

The above was the menu for our New Years Eve party (blogged in full on my other blog here). Most of it, I hate to say, was cooked not by me but by my parents and my neighbours. However, the pumpkin pie was entirely the work of me and my boyfriend, faithfully following my instructions in the kitchen. We actually made two with a little bit of experimentation going on: the first exactly as the recipe said (mixing pumpkin puree, milk and spices with three eggs beaten whole) and the second with the eggs beaten separately - the yolks mixed in with the pumpkin and the whites beaten very stiff and folded in. The conclusion was that the second method is by far superior.



Everyone at the party thought one pie was mine and one my boyfriend's, trying to play us off each other, and I was very proud to be able to say that no, we collaborated! Unheard of in my kitchen-control-freak world, and no fights occurred either. It's fine when someone just does what you tell them to do...



PS. Witness the washing-up. Are we the only people left without a dishwasher, and am I the only person who rather enjoys bouts of drunken washing-up at 1am?







PPS. Another excitement: I got given the famous St John cookbook for Christmas. I can't wait to get cooking with it in Alabama, where weird bits of pig are easier to find than common vegetables...