A Little Party
Ben and I had been wanting to have a few friends over to our new home for a while. Can you believe it's almost the end of the year? November is tumbling in at great speed and then *gasp* it'll be Christmas, we had to get in now or never. And so last Sunday we had a little party. Just some friends, a few beers and a truckload of spit-roasted lamb. The weather was gentle and allowed us to show off our yard as we lazed outside, catching up and eating.
Our menu:
♥ Bread from Red Hill Epicurean. Damn, they make a fine loaf. We devoured some focaccia and olive sourdough, with extra virgin olive oil and charcoal sea salt for dipping.
♥ On the spit, slowly cooking over charcoals (Ben is a master at this spit business now) we had lamb shoulder, which had been marinating in olive oil, rosemary, lemon zest, salt and pepper.
♥ For the vegetarians in the group we had beet patties. I made smaller rounds so that one batch of this recipe could feed more people. The meat eaters were pretty excited about them, too.
♥ We used these pita to make wraps with the lamb. They're a great price and texture, and were quite tasty so we'll definitely use them again.
♥ I made a tabbouleh of sorts using this SBS Food Safari recipe as inspiration, but made it heavier on the bulgur and lemon, with parsley, some cucumber and red onion (excellently sliced by my friend, Sarah), and extra virgin olive oil.
♥ This beet dip by Ottolenghialways makes me swoon (recipe link).
♥ I was mad for the mustard aioli I whipped up - again, it was an aioli 'of sorts'. No garlic was used in the making of this aioli upon my husband's request and boy, it didn't even need it. I made this condiment very simply with Paul Newman's Whole Egg Mayonnaise (a whole 440g jar) + 2 heaping tablespoons of dijon mustard (or to taste) and the juice of half a lemon. So simple, so good with the lamb and beet dip, so happy we have leftovers, so not sharing.
♥ For dessert I made a mountain of brown butter baked doughnuts (recipe link), some with cinnamon sugar and some with vanilla bean glaze (using this recipe for the glaze but using vanilla bean paste instead of extract, which was an excellent move). Thanks for the pic, Yas.
Doughnuts make people happy.
Thanks for coming, friends. And for the lovely gifts for our new home. We were spoilt with lots of lovely wine, hand cream, flowers, a candle and freshly baked chocolate chip nut cookies. It was so nice to have you visit.
How great are friends?
...and doughnuts.
