November lunch for 7 - including a vegetarian!

I was planning a lunch for a group of wine-tasters recently, when I realised that one of them is a vegetarian (I always check with people these days). This put a different perspective on lunch, as up to that point, I was planning a warming lamb casserole with Indian spices and flavours, which I had planned to prepare the day before. I know that a lot of vegetarians hate the idea that they are left with the 'side dishes' while everyone else scoffs down the dish that is the centre-piece of lunch, so I had to rethink my approach. It was made even more complicated by the fact that said vegetarian has also been diagnosed with wheat intolerance. So, I decided that a series of 'help yourself' dishes would work well - that way each dish would be interesting in itself, and the vegetarian luncher could simply not eat the meat dish. It worked out extremely well! I included the following:


Roasted squash (yes, more of the wonderful Crown Prince!), with lots of rocket, roasted pine nuts, little chunks of goats cheese, pink peppercorns and dressed with a mix of olive oil, lemon juice and cider vinegar. Because this dish is quite robust and filling, I reckoned that the vegetarian would get enough to eat! I hadnt reckoned on it going down as well as it did for the carnivores around the table, so it was just as well that I had hedged my bets with some 'meaty' aubergine as well! Everyone commented on how delicious the squash was - most people saying that they are sick of butternut squash at this stage, so something different and more interesting in taste was great. I forgot to take a photo of it, but I will the next time I make it and post the photo to my blog.


Tomato salad - I used the last of my home-grown toms, and the rest of them were bought at the market, so they tasted delicious! I added some red onion, some long red pepper slices and some basil, then drizzled some olive oil on top.


I made some tztaziki, and bought some really good hummus from Lilliput Stores in Stoneybatter, and I made some flatbreads with spelt flour. I also roasted some aubergine that morning.


Last, but not least, I roasted some lamb in the oven - fillet of lamb off the leg, which had marinated in garlic, mint, olive oil and thyme for a while beforehand. Unfortunately, while concentrating on making the flatbreads, I left the lamb in the oven for about ten minutes too long, so it was more done that I would have liked, but otherwise it was delicious!


We had a lovely meal out of all this - everyone just helped themselves to the various dishes and I dont think that anyone else realised that one of the guests was a vegetarian at all! And just about everything we ate was healthy - lots of organic vegetables, healthy fats, dips made from healthy ingredients (hummus with chickpeas and tztazaki from yoghurt, cucumber, garlic and mint), organic lamb, organic spelt flour, etc...


To drink with the food, we had a French Syrah Les Grands Augustins from Tardieu Laurent in the Vin de Pays d'Oc, which complemented the food beautifully!

Let me know if you would like any of these recipes, I would be delighted to send further details to you... The whole meal took about an hour and a half to prepare, so a great option for a relaxed Sunday lunch maybe followed with some more cheese and fruit to round it off...

Post party review...

All over now, party girl has departed for a few days to recouperate in West Cork, and the rest of us are still in recovery mode. Despite the weather being pretty inclement, it all went off extremely well, everyone had a great time and the party atmosphere lasted four days. Photos will appear soon, when I've had the chance to reduce them for the web, but all in all, the advance planning paid off. I decided to cook something from a new cookery book (A year in my kitchen by Skye Gyngell) which was an Asian inspired lamb and prune slow-cooked dish, in which the flavours really appealed to me - and as it turned out, they appealed to all the guests as well. Someone pointed out to me that it really isnt a great idea to try a new dish for the first time for 60 people (thank you Iarlaith!), and normally I would heartily concur with that. However, I had used similar techniques many times before, and couldnt resist trying it out. The wines went down a treat as well (a Macon Vinzelles from Burgundy and a red Cotes du Rhone), the entertainment was a piano player extraordinaire, who electrified the party with his playing and singing (he also I suspect electrified half the street at times, and had to be toned down later on in the evening!). Despite my misgivings about how 60 people would fit into the house, there was no great problem at all, it was just nicely packed, encouraging people to mingle and talk... an aunt of ours made the suggestion that we should make it an annual event (not likely to happen) and my now 50 year old sister is starting to look at ideas for my equivalent celebrations in two years time...

The party countdown has begun...

Well, how quickly has that year gone by??!! Instead of having almost 12 months to plan the sister's party, I now have 4 days - help!! Lots of the planned work has been done, but all of a sudden there is a lot left to be done and very little time in which to do everything. It looks like the weather is not going to be kind to us - none of the forecasts are exactly predicting sunshine and if the last few weeks are anything to go by, its going to continue to be one of the wettest Augusts in Dublin since records began. The most hopeful forecast was the MSN one, but even it has now given up the ghost on predicting sunshine for the 23rd - and the best we can hope for is a cloudy cool evening - not exactly BBQ weather. Crowding over 50 people into the house will be an interesting experience....

Ah well, the guna (dress to the non-Irish speakers!) has been bought, the teach (house) will be clean, the bia (food) will be good (I hope!), and the fion (wine) will go down very well. The ceol (music) will be live and lively, the daoine (guests) will be on for the craic (all want to have a good time), so I'm going to stop being imnioch (anxious) and just get on with it!!

Pergola Party report...

Well, the week-end party to launch the pergola went really well - a great time was had by all! As a dry run for my sister's party in August it was mightily successful - even though it was anything but dry, as copious amounts of wine was consumed (nice Spanish Rueda (white) - Basa, and a Chilian Carmenere (red), along side some Macon Uzichy Chardonnay and some Chiant Classico). Things kicked off around 3pm, with most people getting here between then and 4.30. Last guests to leave the house toddled off around midnight - except for two who ended up spending the night with us and left around 5pm the next day!

On the food front, well - it was simple rather than complicated, with lots of antipasti and salads, roasted veg and tztaziki, with some great focaccia brought by my friend Dave and some lovely desserts brought by Mary and Reg - a magnificent meringue roulade and an equally lovely elderberry champagne fresh fruit jelly. My mother had also made some of her famous brown bread and she had brought flowers - as did a few others!

The impact of the pergola - or it really should be more accurately called a gazebo! - was all that it should have been. It added another dimension to the whole event, with it being used all evening until about 1pm, when we regrouped inside in the house. Tealights were lit around 9pm, and people sat outside telling stories and planning more evenings there - the next one, I was informed by one of my sisters and a really good friend of mine will be a musical evening - they are really into music with my friend having been part of a really good band at one stage called Tanglewood, and my sister taking part in various light opera and musicals in recent years...

As a rule of thumb, the one-bottle-of-wine per head worked well, and averaged out almost exactly right. I had lots of sparkling water, and also had some fresh fruit juices which when mixed with some sparkling water was a welcome option for people later on.