Recipes and Menus for October

Saucy Dressings aims to complete this post – four weeks’ menus and recipes, plus a few spare by the end of 2024.
Every year an additional week’s menu, with the links to the individual recipes, is added.
For food in season in October, follow this link.
For music to listen to while cooking in October, follow this link.
You might also be interested in these posts – mostly concerned with Hallow’een:
- live dangerously – finish your meal with Dracula
- trumpets of the dead – intriguing mushrooms
- experiment with black garlic on Hallowe’en
- rich, to-kill-for, scallops with apple and blood pudding
- all about quince
Week’s menu for October: number one

“Some weather’s coming; you can taste on the sides of your tongue a quince tang in the air.”
Anne Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
This month I’m in Spain, so instead of a starter for the dinner party there’ll be some suggestions for tapas… and this month’s cocktail will be ‘Spain in a Glass’.
Saturday lunch:
- Pumpkin soup with bacon
OR
OR
OR
FOLLOWED BY
OR
Sunday evening:
and/or
- hot kissed cucumber – 60 second wonder
- warm bread
Monday evening chicken:
- Boursin stuffed pheasant with
- broccoli (or broccolini) and
- pommes Anna
OR
Tuesday evening:
- leftovers or night out!
Wednesday evening meat:
Thursday evening dinner party:
- Canapés: angels and devils on horseback
- Starter: suggestions for tapas
- Main course: venison steaks with a rich chocolate sauce and
- truffled butternut squash
- Pudding: Driving Miss Daisy apple tarte tatin or The Dracula!
Thank God it’s Friday drink:
WITH
Friday evening fish:
OR
Week’s menu for October: number two

This month is the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, and we’re lucky enough to have The Old Foodie aka Janet Clarkson, specialist food history blogger as our guru for the month, giving a background to this battle. In the meantime here (also read in the video clip below) is the rousing Shakespeare speech to inspire you.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:
Shakespeare, Henry V
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhood cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day
Saturday lunch:
- soft herring roes found when visiting The Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival
OR
OR
OR
FOLLOWED BY
Sunday supper:
- variations on pasta with courgettes: naughty ways, interesting ways and ways for goodie-goodies
OR
Monday evening meat:
- Montepulciano steak with soft potatoes braised with onion and beans all’ucceletto
Tuesday evening:
- leftovers or night out!
Wednesday evening poultry:
- molasses chicken with Snow White’s winter cabbage salad
Thursday evening dinner party:
- starter: striped Turkish starter – delirious aubergine with red pepper sauce
- main course: Cretan pork pie
- with golden beetroot
- or sugar snap peas
- pudding: blackberry caramel crumble
OR
- pudding: sophisticated and sultry peanut butter brunettes, with vanilla ice cream…and even…chocolate sauce
Thank God It’s Friday drink and dip:
- Six Bells Tea Cup from The Ivy Chelsea Garden
- best guacamole recipe
Friday evening fish:
- Greek sea bass with Job’s tears salad
OR
followed by
Week’s menu for October: number three

“A springful of larks in a rolling
Poem in October by Dylan Thomas
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill’s shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.”
Saturday lunch:
OR
- Red salad cured with raspberry vinegar adorned with salty feta
- Fantastic Fusion mini-Japanese-Cornish Pasties
OR
OR
FOLLOWED BY
OR
Sunday evening pasta:
- chorizo and vegetable lasagne
or
Monday evening poultry:
- chicken, sherry, marcona almonds
- ragu of red vegetables
Tuesday evening:
- leftovers or night out!
Wednesday evening meat:
- pulled apart lamb with tapenade and sweet Indian bread
- Life-changing blue cheese and beetroot carpaccio salad all thanks to Nigel Slater
Thursday evening dinner party:
- Starter: kipper pâté and a visit to a smokery
- Main course: early autumn slow cooked lamb with peanut and mint pesto, mashed potatoes and broccoli, or cabbage, vermouth and banana shallot melee or roast quince
- Pudding: ultimate maple and brandy soufflé
Thank God it’s Friday drink:
Friday evening fish:
- moules marinière
Followed, or preceded by:
Week’s menu for October: number four

“Mid-autumn follows, and the kitchen will fill with pumpkins, celeriac, walnuts and quinces from the trees and fields. The leaves will begin to fall slowly, but a day or two of strong wind will finish the job, exposing the trees’ skeletal winter profile”
Stephen Harris, The Daily Telegraph, September 2019
Saturday lunch:
- Renaissance ham and grapes
OR
OR
OR
OR
- cheese and tomato savoury cobbler with ham and salami
AND
Sunday supper:
- Fresh and dry mushroom with pomegranate molasses sauce for pasta
Monday evening meat:
- venison sausage and rosemary red sauce
- shiitake and watercress salad
Tuesday evening:
- night out!
Wednesday evening poultry:
- Chicken with plums
OR
WITH
AND
Thursday evening dinner party:
- with drinks: paprika courgettes curled around mascarpone
- starter: Matej-inspired melon with ricotta and cornbread
- main course: slow cooked lamb with peanut and mint pesto, mashed potatoes and broccoli
- pudding: sweetness and light, carrot halwa
Thank God It’s Friday drink:
- Blavod black vodka with blood-red cranberry juice
….. and to nibble at with it:
- seducer’s deep fried mussels
Friday evening fish:
- baked turbot with truffled potatoes, and red-speckled broad beans with vanilla and chives (instead of the mash); or mango and lambs lettuce salad
OR
- Salty, spicy, sweet salmon on a bed of tasty tomatoes with crushed lemony potatoes and titanic salad