Come Dine with Me: Home Edition - Results

The scores were revealed and the verdict was joint last for my gruesome cheesy meat feast. Apart from all being bloated from 4 days of 3 course meals, unlike the show on TV there were no fall outs during our 4 days of parties but sadly unlike the actual show there was no voice over dude with sarcastic comments (or 1000 prize money)! The scores were very close. Mum in law won with 23 points and a main of nom-a-licious Monkfish wrapped in Parma Ham with lemon flavoured Broccolini and roasted potatoes. The other scores were Sister in law on 22, and me and Brother in law/Norngirl both on 21. So with just 2 points in it between first and last it was a tight run thing. In the end the best meal won the prestigious accolade of hosting the best dinner party of the week :)

Here are some pics of the winning meal and the setting (thanks go to Norngirl for putting the camera to good use once again):

A starter of Savoury Tatin:

A main course of Parma Ham wrapped Monkfish with Rosemary flavoured potatoes with lemon and garlic flavoured Broccolini. It may look sparse but the overhead view doesn't do it justice and the flavours were delicious.

Pudding of lemon flavoured tart:

Served by candle light:

So what dinner party tips did we learn?

1) Heated sugar and butter are universally accepted forms of nom.
2) We learnt that we could all do with at least one table between us that can be used as a dinner table which isn't too tall or short for the chairs we own.
3) There is such a thing as too much meat
4) Limit the complexity and amount of hands on cooking time unless you've a chef or some help (keep it simple).
5) 4 three course meals in 4 days is an awful lot of food.
6) The early evening schedule of the Vintage channel rocks as background entertainment (unless you're still a teenager and like auto tune more than actual tune).

Come Dine with Me: Home Edition - Halloween Special

Halloween spookily flew by on Sunday. Happily I bring you some photo's from what was my night of a Come Dine with Me: Home Edition... and for the special occasion; a Halloween Special.

Me, my mum in law, a two-headed crazy team comprised of Norngirl and my brother in law, then last but not least my sister in law, are having a bit of fun with the TV sarcasm classic that is Come Dine with Me. I'll fill you all in more after the 4 day event but in the mean time as this is eating into time to blog this week, here is a selection of photos from the first night and my attempt at some spooky food:

The scene was set with a some inter-webs tableclothage.

Starter was two of these each. Chicken and Pak Choi Eyes

Followed by a main of Cheese Coated Fingers with Roast Pork, Roasted Parsnips and Cauliflower Brains. If only I'd had been able to source some grated cheese or a grater... I mean who doesn't own a grater... oh yeah, that would be us!

Never having made caramel before this was a bit of trial and error but beginners luck paid off!

Some Halloween decorations garnished the walls

The pudding was finally ready, the cake baked and shaped the night before (after a bit of a minor disaster with the flour) and the popcorn courtesy of a bag of unpopped corn and the microwave, but it all worked out in the end... well when the clotted cream ice cream and Haribo was added at least.

I called it; Spooky sponge cake with a creepy caramel popcorn & ice cream haunting.

Everyone had a different cake shape :)

Ghoooooulish Ghosty

And kitteh who I promise is not having a poop of carmel onto the pop corn!

And the crème de la crème... a giant inflatable spider... is there anything supermarkets don't sell?

Overall was pretty happy it all went pretty much to plan, way out of practice with all this cooking malarkey and no one fell ill overnight! w0Ot :)

P.S Kudos to Norngirl for taking most of the photos when I was indisposed.

Making a meal of it

I didn't buy in enough fresh food and the only meat in the house needed to be defrosted. There was only one thing for it - a cupboard special. The ingredients: Rice (Water and Chilli Extra Vigin Olive Oil), Chickpeas, Tinned Mackerel in Tomato Sauce and a jar of generic supermarket Rogan Josh curry sauce.

First up I put the water onto boil for 5 minutes, once bubbling added the Basmati Rice with some of the Chilli Olive Oil stirred, turned down to a low heat and set the oven timer for 5 minutes.

With the timer beeping at me I came back to it. It was time to open the tins, the electric tin opener made light work of the pre soaked Chickpeas tin. It was then time to lift the ring-pull on the top of the Scottish Mackerel in Tomato Sauce tin and peel back.

Ring-pull lifted... pulled back, the ring-pull started to break the seal of the tin, the ring-pull came back with my arm.

Ah pants. Tinned Mackerel fail.

Not deterred by this 'crazy man vs can' event ending in an away win to the can, I begun the rematch immediately. The electric tin opener didn't work, it got stuck after about 2cm due to the groove in the can. No hand held tin opener to be found due to the old one going rusty and never working anyway due to its mega blunt cheapness I reverted back to the stone age. Sadly all the rolling pin actually did was spurt tomato sauce through the little holes I'd managed to inflict on the tin and splat me and the kitchen surfaces with fishy smelling oily fluids.

Turns out a standard fork as a ring-pull replacement is the efficient way to get into the nom'y goodness inside of container of this nature.

Victory!

The Mackerel went in the pan with a little more Chilli Olive Oil followed by the Chickpeas and sauce and at that point it was starting to look like an actual meal. Well an actual meal that looks a little like sick. Saying that it's probably looking more appetising in the pan than the last meal I blogged about.

10 minutes later... Voilà! Mackerel and Chickpea Curry with Basmati Rice. I think it turned out looking OK and tasting pretty nice in the end. No bones or metal shards to be found... well, yet. Shame I didn't have a Naan Bread handy.