It was lovely to see Sue and Des’ new extension, and although we were sorry to miss Debrah, we had a great evening with some delicious food. And a lot of it!

General points were that the recipes were pretty straightforward, though the timings were sometimes a bit optimistic. Large portions.

Starters

Karen – Goats cheese, pepper and walnut palmiers (BBC good food) Needed much more cooking time than the recipe said.

Philip – Smoked salmon and creme fraiche mousse ( Fast) Very quick to make, the Melba toasts took longer than the mousse.

Mains

Sue – Prawn, mango and coconut Goan curry with spinach salad and rice. The extra sides worked really well with this – a very tasty curry and the desiccated coconut was appreciated even by those who don’t normally like it!

Tracey – Spanish meatballs (online recipe). The sauce was the highlight of this dish.

Sides

Jane – Parsnips in sherry with chestnuts (Slow). This used half a bottle of sherry, but was thought to be worth it, apart from those who didn’t like chestnuts! It took much longer than the recipe said, at least two hours with whole parsnips. Probably better to halve them next time.

Janet – Celeriac with vanilla and garlic (Slow) The vanilla was a surprising addition – some could taste it, some couldn’t.

Puddings

Andrew – Basil scented fruit terrine with a lime syrup (Fast). This looked spectacular – almost a shame to cut it! And it tasted just as good, a huge success.

Julie – Arctic Roll (Classic 100 dishes). Julie had brilliantly made home made ice cream for this. It was a great blast from the past, and reminded us how much we’d loved arctic roll in the 70s!

Justine – Chocolate and Guinness Cake (online) Tasty and looked amazing. A bit of Guinness in the icing as well as the cake. More of a cake than some other Guinness cake recipes, which can be more ‘puddingey’.