Another weekend has completely flown by. We've had family houseguests here for the last four days and as we owed some cousins an invite to the house, I thought that it would be a good idea to get the family together on this weekend. Which meant 13 for dinner. Fortunately, the meals area is big enough to cope, we have a couple of tables and enough chairs that we didn't have to raid the outdoor furniture. Food wasn't too tricky - a slow cooker chicken and chickpea "tagine", Moroccan vegetable stew, lamb shoulder roasted in the barbeque and baked tomatoes and beetroot. For dessert, Nigella came to the rescue with her
Anglo-Italian trifle. I think it needs a little tweaking (cutting down on the marscapone and limoncello) but it is a quick and impressive dish that serves 12 - 14, depending on how greedy they are.
As we had a guest with lactose intolerance, I thought I'd make a flourless orange and almond cake, however it got overcooked (OK, burnt). But with a trim, and instructions to the guests to cut off any additional carbon, it was tasty. It just didn't look like it should have.
We had a great night catching up with everyone and look forward to doing it again. At someone else's place!
