Author: platesmates

We decided to make our December feast a Christmas Party – and even invited the other half’s along! It was a great evening, and everyone rose to the challenge. We switched it up as it was a party. Rather than having Starters, Mains etc, we had Fish, Veg, Meat, Pudding party foods, with two wild cards.

Appetisers

Veggie

Fish

Meat

Pudding

This was a delicious meal, with lots of varied dishes from across the country. Nothing especially challenging in terms of spice, just lots of complex flavours. We missed Julie, but we’re really pleased everything went well.

Starters

Karen – Onion bhaji with raita from BBC Good Food

This was Karen’s second attempt, after the first one in which the bhajis were fried was less than successful….. In this version the bhajis were made with previously cooked onions and gram flour, and were baked as opposed to fried. The recipe had suggested that no salt was needed, but Karen added some anyway, and they were very tasty.

Philip – Mango salad from Great British Chefs – Alfred Prasad

This was a mixture of mango, carrot, walnuts, cress and coconut, with a dressing of honey, olive oil and lime. It was easier to use a relatively unripe mango. It was a very refreshing and unexpected starter.

Mains

Justine – Chicken ruby from Dishoom

A home made makhani sauce in which the chicken marinated overnight was a big hit. The dish took two hours to cook, and then was reheated on the night.

Jane – Goan coconut curry from Indian Food made Easy by Anjum Anand

This was very easy to make, using 3 types of coconut – desiccated, milk and cream. It looked unnervingly separated during the cooking process, but came together really well with the addition of the coconut cream and tamarind paste at the end.

Sides

Janet – Black Dahl from BBC Good Food

Made with turtle beans as opposed to lentils that were soaked overnight and then cooked with the usual spices the next day. Really tasty, a great complement to the rest of the meal.

Sue – Sag Aloo from BBC Good Food

Great to have an Indian classic as part of the feast, real comfort food.

Bread and Chutneys

Andrew – Naan bread, green chutney, mango chutney and raita, all from Rick Stein India

Andrew played a blinder of a wild card with these fantastic dishes that complemented the rest of the meal brilliantly. The green chutney was especially popular, and the Indian food aficionados were particularly impressed with the homemade mango chutney, quite different to the normal Sharwoods!

Puddings

Tracey – Kheer Rice

This recipe could be served hot or cold – Tracey chose cold. It used basmati, sugar, whole milk, cardamom, almonds and cashews. Plus ghee, that involved more effort to find. Rice pudding is clearly a marmite dish, at my end of the table there were some who obviously still struggle with childhood memories of school dinners, and others who loved it! Having the cardamom made it taste quite different, and for me, delicious.

Debrah – Caramelised apples with pistachio cream from Madhur Jaffrey Quick and Easy

Another dish involving cardamom and pistachio, and a pudding that was pleasantly unexpected in the same way that the mango salad was. A good accompaniment for the rice pudding.

A trip down memory lane for most with this lovely book. The recipes were universally easy to make, and all tasty and successful. And one of the starters provoked one of the funniest stories since the group started!

Starters

Andrew – Roasted tomato soup with a basil puree

Justine – Hot and sour pickled prawns

These tasted delicious, fortunately for Matt!

Mains

Janet – Chicken with sherry vinegar and tarragon sauce

Julie – Salmon with a Saffron couscous crust

Really tasty, served with a tomato and olive vinaigrette.

Sides

Debrah – Warm potato salad with lemon and chive vinaigrette

Philip – Oven roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary

Tracey – Roasted tomato salad

Puddings

Karen – Vanilla cream terrine with raspberries and black currant coulis

This looked so impressive, and tasted just as good – lots of people came back for seconds!

Jane – Rhubarb crumble ice cream

Having used this book so much back in the day, I can’t understand why I never made this, it was easy and delicious.

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’.

We missed Janet, Julie and Justine this evening. Debrah had suggested that we went for the country specific books, which led to an eclectic mixture for the meal. Some were easy to identify the country, others a bit harder! It was lovely to have a pre birthday get together with Debrah and Jerry.

Starters

Karen – Turmeric marinated chicken in lime leaves (India)

Tracey – Stir fried duck in lettuce leaves

Mains

Debrah – Chicken with orange, fennel and za’atar

Jane – Fish in caramel sauce (Vietnam) Looked extremely unappetising – tasted a bit better than the appearance would suggest! The fish broke up dramatically in cooking.

Side

Andrew – Butternut squash in sweet tamarind masala (India)

Puddings

Philip – Galaktoboureko with orange syrup

Sue – German apple cake (Germany)

3 down today, with Janet, Julie and Tracey away. But we had a good meal anyway, despite fewer dishes. Everyone liked Nigel’s style of writing and the recipes were generally straightforward. And we got to see a picture of Andrew looking barely any different to how he looks now!

Starters

Karen – Double salmon pate

Philip – Chilli chicken slaw

Mains

Andrew – Peppers with pork and rosemary

Justine – Fragrant lively curry

Sides

Jane – Chilli greens (Real Cooking)

Sue – Stuffed butternut squash

Pudding

Debrah – Blackberry ice cream

This was the first time that we stuck to just one book, and it turned out to be one of the most successful meals yet. Maybe because all the food went together well, or just that Yotam’s recipes are delicious. It led to lots of us using his recipes repeatedly afterwards. And we learnt about new ingredients too!

Starters

Andrew – Nama’s Fatoush

Julie – Fish kebabs with aubergine dip

Mains

Jane – Beef meatballs with broad beans and lemon

Janet – Chicken with arak and clementines

Sides

Debrah – Basmati and wild rice with chickpeas

Karen – Butternut squash

Philip – Root vegetable slaw with labneh

Puddings

Justine – Clementine and almond syrup caje

Tracey – Muhallabieh

We used various diet books or methods to come up with the dishes for this meal, Slimming World, Weight Watchers and others.

At time of writing almost nobody could remember what they cooked, perhaps the lower calorie nature of the food made them less memorable? Or it was the large quantity of alcohol consumed? Thanks for the generous hosting, Tracey!

Starter

Jane – Chicken noodle soup (Weight Watchers)

Main

Philip – Syn free prawn and veg pilaf (Slimming World)

Pudding

Julie – Lemon semifreddo

This was a very tasty meal, we all enjoyed his food and found it fairly straightforward to make.

Starters

Philip – Pumpkin soup

Sue – Stuffed mushrooms

Mains

Karen – Beef casserole

Sides

Jane – Leeks with bacon and cream

Tracey – Stuffed celeriac with blue cheese and walnuts

Puddings

Janet – Apple sorbet with toffee sauce

Justine – Snickers ice cream pudding thing. Difficult to set, but absolutely delicious!