Sunday, August 7, 2011

Crowded House

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!