We had friends over on Saturday night none of whom had been before so the pressure was on to make a good first impression! One of the guests was a pescatarian so keeping to our meat free dining was not a problem. This is the menu I chose:
Chard & Feta Filo Parcels
Squash Caponata on Bruschetta
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Thai Pumpkin Soup
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Halibut Baked with Yoghurt & Sesame Seeds
Boulangere Potatoes
Mashed Carrot & Swede
Savoy Cabbage in Chilli Butter
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Salted Caramel & Chocolate Cheesecake
The starters were both Sarah Raven recipes and used veggies from the allotment, which felt quite some achievement in January. I hadn’t originally planned to do the soup but since I had made plenty the day before, i thought it would be nice to have something once we were sitting down.
The halibut was an old favourite from a John Tovey book. It is a nice meaty fish and goes well with some proper winter veg. You simply spread each fillet with some Greek yoghurt and bake in a medium over for about 15 minutes, then sprinkle with sesame seeds and flash under a hot grill until the seeds caramelise slightly.
Dessert was the cheesecake from a week ago, but in homage to my favourite choc from the local Candy Store, I added a layer of salted caramel. This was simply a tin of carnation caramel (ie evaporated milk that they have already boiled up) heated with a teaspoon of sea salt. The flavour was amazing, if incredibly rich but the caramel did make it very difficult to serve as it created a kind of slip zone between the chocolate & the base not helped by the hard layer of chocolate on the top.
We had a lovely night, kept entertained by B and his thoughts on subjects as diverse as flat heads and the local half naked mad woman!
After a very late night and lots of rich food we really weren’t much in the mood for eating on Sunday so I made a few simple pizzas for dinner. The bases were possibly the best yet and puffed up in the most amazing way! After a very sticky mess a couple of weeks ago when I had the (stupid!) idea of heating the baking trays first then transferring the pizzas from the work top using my peel, this time I still pre-heated the trays (and I have a pizza stone permanently at the bottom of the oven), but made the pizzas on silicone matting making their transfer much easier and keeping the stress levels in the kitchen right down!
We’re halfway through our meat free month now and, although it’s not the easiest finding something that we can eat with the boys at the weekend I can honestly say that it has been a lot less painful than I thought.
