Catch-up

Thank you to the people who noticed I had fallen off of the planet and emailed me to make sure I was ok.  It was much appreciated and lovely to know that people were thinking of me. I'm not going into details as to why I haven't been around for a while.

There has been very little stitching the last couple of months.  The death of Debbie seems to have taken my mojo too.  So I will tell you about everything else that I have been up to instead.  

We decided to have a family 'Come Dine With Me' challenge.  If you haven't seen the programme, it is where total strangers visit each others houses for a meal, scoring each person for their night. Whoever has the highest score wins £1000.  Clearly, that wasn't going to be the prize here!

After drawing straws for the order and sharing of menus, we took turns over 4 Sundays to cook our creations.  

Colin was up first with Sausage and Lentil soup, Beef casserole with crispy potato topping and butter crumble cake.  He did add red cabbage to the plate with the casserole.  Everything was really tasty too.

Rachael's night was next.  She made home made mini pizzas for starters (making the pizza base herself) with cheesy garlic bread.  This was followed by chicken and ham melt, roast potatoes and peas with a cheesy sauce and finally the world's most delicious cake - EVER! It doesn't look much from here but was wonderful!  So chocolately with a wonderful caramel filling.

Third, was Luke.  I have to admit that I wasn't looking forward to his night as I hate meatballs! Anyway to start with there was garlic bread and 'piggy kebabs'.  These turned out to be pigs in blankets but he did mine really crispy so they were tasty.  Then the dreaded meatballs - which were really delicious.  He served it with onion relish and mango chutney and made his own bread too.  It was supposed to be pitta bread but he didn't roll it enough so there was still loads of air in it BUT it was wonderful!  I have told him that he can make a batch of this EVERY week. We forgot to get a photo of his dessert but that was gorgeous too.  Pots au chocolat, with plenty of chocolate. 

Lastly was my night.  What a lot of pressure!  I made an Onion Soup with cheesy croutons but people were so keen to tuck into it that we forgot photos until it was almost eaten!  This is what was left of Rachael's at the time.  Then it was skin on wedges with buttered corn (on a massive skewer!) with home made Southern Fried Chicken, topped with pulled pork (also made from scratch), home made BBQ sauce and topped with melted cheese.  It was beautiful!  The pull pork took around 5 hours in the oven on a lowish heat but was SO worth it!  For dessert I made a shortbread stack, with whipped cream, strawberries and served with home made ice cream (not in a machine) and chocolate dipping sauce.

We made videos on the i-pad like they do in the back of the taxi and held up our score cards to find the winner.

And the winner is...

LUKE!!!!!

It was really good fun, although hard work and expensive.  The winner gets a meal for himself and 3 family members...I wonder who he will choose...