Going Solo

Well I guess that time is upon me.

I have to prove that the recipes actually do work, and that I in fact have learnt something. Furthermore some evidence has to be provided that I deserve to wear that damned elusive jacket.

Going solo

So for our first grown up dinner we invite Di’s parents, aunt and uncle. Yeah right, no pressure there, let’s just invite the in laws - why don’t we - for our first solo attempt …. Oy!

So I decided to use a combination of past dishes for my dinner. We had the French onion soup from the Winter Supper menu as a starter. The crème caramel from the same menu was dessert. The main course was the chicken with mushroom sauce from the Mother’s Day Lunch menu. This was served with the beans from the Autumn Special Supper menu. I chose the wine from my new favourite vineyard, Raka. We had both their Biography (Shiraz) and Quinary (Bordeaux blend) during the evening.

First of all, words from the wise, if you don’t know what you are doing, take some time to print out the front bit on preparation time. Don’t just print out the recipes because then you don’t remember what you still have to do. Who knew that cutting all those things could take that long? Even worse, that you would need enough little dishes and bowls to put all the stuff in, - clearly not me.

The worst lesson that I learnt is that chillies burn like all hell. On the back of the packet it very clearly states that you should not rub your eyes when you are working with chillies, but nowhere did it refer to your nose. I have never experience such pain in my life. My nose was running and burning with a flame of a thousand suns. There is not enough words in the dictionary to describe the searing pain I experienced. There is really no way to stop it. The best solution I could come up with was milk, but I couldn’t pour it up my nose for fear of drowning. So I made poor Di dab it on my nose until a milky layer/crust doused the flames. Well that was a lesson I will not forget easily - don’t ever ever touch your nose while cutting up chilli, hell, don’t touch your nose at all while you are cooking in general, I guess.

Starter:

The soup – man, it really does take forever to prepare, but it is so worth the effort. Mariette very sweetly let me use her fancy onion cutting machine (called a mandolin I am told) on Friday night. I do think I may have boiled the stock a bit long, because there wasn’t enough liquid for the soup compared to the ratio of onions. Or maybe the bowls were too big. I am not quite sure which. Never the less, it still worked out well, and I have decided I really like French onion soup.

Main:

Well the chicken was nice. The beans had way too much butter in it. The mushroom sauce – well it was a bit odd. First of all the chillies were clearly hotter in my nose than on my tongue. I thought it was quite mild and it had a rather strange consistency. Later, after speaking to Mariette, it turned out that I probably split the cream in the sauce. I tried to have the sauce good – to - go in advance. But then it appears that I accidentally boiled the cream while finishing it off, thereby (new word for today) splitting the cream. This resulted in a dodgy sauce. The rice also didn’t go that well and that purely because I forgot to turn the stove on, so instead of being fluffy, it was a bit too al dente. (I realized it almost in time)

Dessert

Aah, this was fabulous …... primarily because I spent 3 hours with Mariette the night before making it (watching it being made – same thing). So all we had to do was drive it home and serve it. It was fabulous and is still my favourite dessert ever. I had the Woolies version the other day, and there is no comparison, the home made one rocks!

We had great fun, nothing quite like playing pictionary to get the party going..

So all in all, it was quite scary - going solo, I mean. I messed up a bit, but was very proud of how it all worked out well in the end. I mean everything was edible and some of the dishes were down right nice.