Dispatches from the domestic frontline

Sunday, 31 August 2008

BBQ roll-call

Late evening, and I've just finished supper of lunch leftovers of my almost favourite kind.*

Our first barbecue in the new house - the first I've hosted for several years, and the only one I've been to in the last two summers - was almost rained off, but valiantly Matt and Terry supervised the coals, and then the sausages and veg-kebobs, and brought the party outside while I hovered and stressed and wished we'd just stuck everything in the oven or managed to buy a garden table of an appropriate size (and height**).

Flesh and M managed to arrive while I was unshowered and still in my jim-jams, and babysat and washed up (irrespectively); everyone else was an hour later than I thought.

The rest is a bit of a blur, so the food, the food:

  • Tabbouleh (tomatoes and herbs from our garden)
  • Cous cous (with turmeric, chili, bay, rosemary and oregano. May not have worked - lots left; I have yet to taste)
  • Hummous (never tastes like bought, whatever I do. Nigel Slater says 6 (six!) dessert spoons of tahini, but I can't bear the bitterness of more than one)
  • Salt and Cracked Black Pepper Kettle Chips (my absolute catering mainstay. Any excuse, really.)
  • Mixed salad (tomatoes from the garden, as well as cherry tomatoes on the vine from the off-licence - £1.30 for 2 huge long trusses)
  • Potato salad (chives from the garden)
  • Waitrose really super sausages - pork &: sweet chilli, smoked pepper, leek & chive and garlic
  • Vegan marjoram and sage sausages
  • Aubergine, pepper & mushroom kebabs
I made up the Turtle Temptations for pud, Becky made fantastic mini chocolate cakes, and Marina made great apple crumble with the tart, tart apples from their garden. Really super-doops.

The best thing - there are sausages left over for tomorrow. A rarely sanctioned treat in our pescetarian household.

* Christmas always wins.
** There's a reason ours was reduced to clear - it came up to my mid-thigh.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

you never mentioned the turtle temptations. I'm all over those like a fat bloke on pies.