Right from the moment that Jennifer unveiled her platter of beautifully arranged, colourful, flavoursome, roasted vegetables and we placed them in the oven to finish, it was obvious we were in for a special night tonight. Janice quickly panfried the snapper in butter and served the meal with caper lemon sauce and steamed green beans.
Jennifer's vegetables included whole courgettes coated with beef BBQ seasoning. The cherry tomatoes, still attached to the vine, were sprinkled with rock salt and the kumera had been sliced in half lengthwise, spread with pesto and sprinkled with sliced almonds. They were baked for an hour at 150 dec C.
The whole meal was a visual and gastronomic real food delight.
By the time dessert arrived Robert and Janice were already two games of crib down. Their spirits were raised by the platter of cheese, crackers, chutney, red pears and rum balls. Janice had made three types of crackers,
almond and coconut,
rosemary and parmesan and
chia, sesame and pumpkin seed. The rum balls were a mixture of dates, raisins, raw nuts, rum and lemon zest rolled in coconut flour. (Use a rough ratio of 2:1 dried fruit to nuts and flavours to taste. Be sure to include a good portion of dates in the dried fruit. Whiz it all up in a food processor and roll into balls. Roll the balls in coconut flour or cocoa or fine chopped nuts.) The feijoa chutney was from the Farmer's Market.
Unfortunately for Robert and Janice, Terry and Jennifer won the next two games as well. This however did not dampen the evening... but Robert and Janice declined the opportunity to make it five losses in a row.