Saucy Dressings aims to complete this post – four weeks’ menus and recipes, plus a few spare by the end of 2020.

Every year an additional week’s menu, with the links to the individual recipes, is added.

For food in season in November, follow this link.

For music to listen to while cooking in November, follow this link.

You may also be interested in these posts:

• Trumpets of the Dead, on November 2, The Day of the Dead
• The best lighter for sparklers and bonfires

Week’s menu for November: number 1

 “Autumn’s end in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland is electrified with colour and charged by war in heavens, although occasional snow may dance across the high peaks before Halloween. Glacial airs from the arctic begin to do battle with warmer Atlantic ‘westerlies’, bring storm-force winds and flood rains. They skirmish for position and influence like gladiators in a battleground stretching from the westernmost edges of the Outer Hebrides to the eastern flanks of the Torridon mountains”

^{-Annie Worsley, quoted in Winter, Edited by Melissa Harrison}

Saturday lunch:

• Bacalao with scrambled eggs

OR

• Fried eggs and stringy, puffy mozzarella on higgledy piggledy soldiers

FOLLOWED BY

• Three Scottish painting cakes and biscuits: whisky tea cake, very very lemon cake, and Aberdeen biscuits – from Ullapool

Sunday evening:

• Trumpets of the dead risotto

OR

• tagliatelle with a black truffle sauce as enjoyed in Bardi

Monday evening poultry:

• Seville-inspired cinnamon chicken pie

WITH

• Cavolo nero with alliums (garlic and onion) and herbs

Tuesday evening:

Leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening meat:

• Swiss kidneys with brandy, cream and mustard

OR

• Slow, soft braised beef in a rich chocolatey sauce with crème fraîche and muffins

Thursday evening dinner party:

• With drinks: kale crisps
• Starter: Burrata with fresh tomato, pesto and truffle honey
• Main course: pheasant in red wine with truffled mashed potato and Hamburg manful green beans
• Pudding: Antibes chocolate fondant

Thank God it’s Friday drink:

• Mulled wine with croquetas de jamón y pollo

Friday evening fish:

• Slightly Asian salmon with aubergine and lime; and basmati rice

Week’s menu for November: number 2

“The sight of a bare wintry landscape is almost as lovely as autumn. It is delightful to see fallen autumn leaves scattered among the plants by the water’s edge, or vapour rising from the garden stream on a morning white with frost.”

^{-Kenkō, A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees (written circa 1330)}

Saturday lunch:

• Slete Soppes – Vermouth-stewed leeks and porcini on brioche
• kumquat financiers

or

• Baby tomatoes roasted with aubergines and halloumi, with minted tahini sauce

OR

• super-luxury cheese and duck confit toasted sandwich

FOLLOWED BY

• colourful Smartie cookies

Sunday supper:

• kibbeh – Lebanese baked, minced lamb cake with cucumber-yoghurt sauce
• heart of palm and orange salad

Monday evening meat:

• tournedos Rossini

Tuesday evening:

Leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry:

• raspberry vinegar chicken breasts
• cheese-dusted, crispy, lemony potatoes
• mange tout

Thursday evening dinner party:

• starter: bi-colour black truffle starter
• main course: Romanian cordon bleu, Provençal tian
• pudding: Mississippi mud cake

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• The Perfect Dry Martini – stirred not shaken

And to eat with it:

• Secret Snack Sandwich Recipe For One, Or Illicit Nibbles To Share With A Drink

Friday evening fish:

• sea bass with bacon and cider
• eleventh commandment mashed potato

AND/OR

• fabulous fennel salad with feta, black olives and pecans

Week’s menu for November: number 3

“When polar air sweeps down from the high north the world turns blue, a glacial clarity descends and, seizing the world for itself, encases everything in glittering crystal. Showers then are ice and hail, shards of stinging wickedness coating the ground in rhinestones and silver. A billion jewels are lit up by the pale sun, reflecting the bands of lemon and cream across the fields.”

^{-Annie Worsley, quoted in Winter, Edited by Melissa Harrison}

Saturday lunch:

• Sunset-inspired, no-reds-in-the-bed, cabbage

or

• cima di rapa salad with avocados and soft-boiled eggs
• Old Beemster cheese
• Maria’s nutty, seedy, good-for-you bread

Sunday evening:

• Black rice with ceppatelli mushrooms

OR

• A dish of less pork and more aubergine…with basmati

Monday evening chicken:

• Brazilian pie of chicken and hearts of palm

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening meat:

• Goulash

Thursday evening dinner party:

• With drinks: homemade tapenade on endive leaves… or anything else
• Starter: melon, prawn and bacon
• Main course: carbonade flamande
• Pudding: Good Golly Miss Molly Marsala Meringue Semifreddo

OR

• Pudding: Simon Rowbotham’s slipped-hand chocolate whisky terrine with curly tuiles

Thank God it’s Friday drink:

• A summery Brazilian cocktail for winter

and to eat with it,

• Parma ham sesame breadsticks

Friday evening fish:

• Captain Haddock’s fishcakes
• Rough-hewn guacamole

Week’s menu for November: number 4

“Before the change it’s all about crisp blue skies with a chill at the edge, the leaves turning and sweaters coming out of the wardrobe. After, it’s mud, rain, bare branches and those recently beautiful golds and yellows and browns clogging the drains and flying in your face. In short, Autumn Part One is a time to be outside. Part Two is the bit where you rediscover the joys of open fires, home baking and soup.”

^{-Pete Brown, from a post entitled Apple Porn}

Saturday lunch:

• ham and cheese puff pastries

AND

• Joanne’s winter vegetable salad

OR

• Ainsley Harriott’s quick and cheesy Treat-on-Toast

FOLLOWED BY

• lardy cake

Sunday supper:

• Engadine ricotta-stuffed cavolo nero parcels

OR

• crab and avocado omelette

Monday evening meat:

• Steak, Yorkshire blue and whisky pie
• Quick spinach cake

Tuesday evening:

• Leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry:

• Creamy Indian chicken with cashew nuts

Thursday evening dinner party:

• with drinks: Indian beach hotel date amuse bouches
• starter: James Liddell’s truffle oeufs en cocotte
• main course: Merluzzo con chorizo – Mediterranean cod
• pudding:  grown up cherries in vodka

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• Jackie’s jacked up gin

OR

• Boulevardier autumn cocktail with Aphrodite bitters

….. and to nibble at with it:

• Sardine and mascarpone with lumpfish on pumpernickel

Friday evening fish:

• Teriyaki salmon
• Green beans with Brazil nuts