I’ve been having a lot of fun with food lately. I’m finding creativity in the kitchen a great way to just completely unwind. My extra curricular activities have had an increasing tendency to become serious work and even more time infront of the screen. I needed something where I could let my thoughts and creativity flow freely without having to sit infront of a screen as I think I was in danger of burning out. I’ve rediscovered my pallet after quitting smoking 2 years ago. I recognise the flavours, smoking doesn’t completely kill the tastebuds, but taste has a whole new potensy for me now. And of course, I’ve been writing a lot about the taste of coffee lately – which makes me yearn for taste adventures. The added benefit of cooking is that it’s a great excuse to invite people I adore and find interesting for a meal – I learned so many new interesting things last night when I served this dish to the WPG crowd. It’s a special feeling to have your living room filled with such potential and greatness.

So that was a rather long introduction to why I shall now share my food adventure this weekend on my blog. I considered creating a new one to have all my identities in their designated place but I’ve been doing a lot of merging of identities of late and I might as well let this blog grow with me. So if you don’t mind – let me tell you about my culinary adventure this weekend.

I started on Friday night – the goal was to get as much chopping and preparations done so that I could spend all of Saturday setting table and cleaning apartment.

Welcome Food

So I never really trust all my friends to be on time to these dinners but some will be and so they don’t starve while waiting for the late people I try to have snacks that aren’t going to fill them too much, but will keep them satisfied. I LOVED my combo yesterday. I had previously cut up strawberries and green grapes and grated some fresh ginger and pepper over them. Put them in bowls 3 hours before the guests came so that the fruit would absorb the ginger and pepper well. I served this with some dry sparkling rosé wine. It was sooo nice! I tried mixing in some chunks of mild blue cheese in some of the combos, but the cheese killed the taste.

Starter

The starter was just me worried that I didn’t have enough food and also kinda annoyed that there wasn’t enough color and taste in the main dish. So I made a salad – I love salads! Ohh – I forgot to mention that I had a vegetarian that eats fish as a guest – so meat was out of the question. But ok – I think the salad can best be described in the layers. On the bottom was some tube pasta that I had blended in a avocado, mild bluecheese and garlic paste. Green salad. Dad’s mushrooms. The mushrooms are so scrumptious but take a lot of love and care to make. So the muschrooms are sliced and I fry them in real butter till they’re competely soaked and dark brown in colour. I then add them in a bowl in layers with finely chopped garlic and chilli inbetween. They have to stay over night in the fridge to get all the flavour soaked into the mushroom. Very tasteful, if I say so myself. And on top of that I chop red peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, spring onion, basil, lemongrass and sage. With some dashes of olive oil. I made way too much – so I’m sitting here eating brunch from a very large bowl.

Main course

I made a sort of fish stew. The base I used was 2 coconut milk tins – about 2 dl of milk – one jar of tomato purré – fresh grounded ginger and garlic. I started heating this up when the guests arrived as well as adding chopped cherry tomatoes and scallop onions. When the starter was served I added chopped halibut and cod. I also turned on some cauliflower which I had chopped up to large bouquets and put in some salted water. I also started the steaming process of a dates and beetroot mix – which turned out to be gorgeous, by the way – but next time I might fry instead of steaming. When finished with the starter I added some king prawns that had been marinated in garlic and some tiger prawns that had been marinated in red curry paste into the stew. And some peas! This wasn’t ready as quickly as I thought, so the guests had to wait a bit – but designate a wine pouring prince and they won’t mind. My neighbours might mind, though, as we all became very jolly.

Dessert

I’m not a dessert person – so I just couldn’t be bothered. I bought loads of different chocolate and put them in bowls around the table. I heard no objections.

I still need to clean all the dishes – but I’m just too tired to do anything. Promise to take pictures of the food next time, but only have left overs to document right now, unfortunately. Did not know that I would feel compelled to blog about this! ;)