Book group feast

For the third day in a row, I spent most of my time today in the kitchen. It was a bit of a race against time to make sure that everything was ready before the arrival of my first book group guest VickyG at 6pm, especially since I needed an hour or so to finish reading this month's book (Home fire by Kamila Shamsie) in preparation for the discussion. Happily I reached both targets with about 50 minutes to spare.

For the main course (blipped) I made (l-r) slow ratatouille (Nigel Slater's recipe); creamed gigantes (an adaptation of a BBC food recipe); chicken and carrot stew (based on a recipe from the Guardian word of mouth blog); mashed sweet potato; and plain gigantes.

My extra shows the hors d'oeuvres: beetroot and walnut hummus on rye bread.

I also made fig and stilton parcels in puff pastry as the first course. I was a bit worried about these because there wasn't a picture with the recipe so I didn't know how they should turn out. In the event, they were delicious. For pudding we had scented poached pears in red wine.

It was a lovely evening - and yes, we all recommend the book.

Exercise today: walking - quick run up to the shops; stomping around the kitchen (10,478 steps)