Bombay Chicken and coconut milk rice

Ice cream sundae with rum soaked raisins, rum butter sauce, chopped walnuts and strawberries.

Red Thai Chicken and peanut curry with blanched broccoli, jasmine rice and beans - Yum!

Pears poached in white wine and baked in almond cake - Yum again!

 Mashed potato, scotch fillet and gf cauliflower cheese - very yum

Honey and Pistachio cake

 Tarakihi fillets covered in bacon and baked for 30 min on high - the combination was surprisingly good. Beans from the garden steamed then heated up on top of the pototo wedges

Eton Mess - home baked pavlova, pears, pear juice caramel, chocolate, cream and coconut shreds.

 We liked Jennifer's vege medley so asked for it again to go with Janice's fish pie. Snapper fillets in a coconut cream sauce with a nut crust.

 Fresh fruit platter with paleo-ish waffles (egg, ground nuts, baking powder, quinoa flakes, brown sugar and butter)

You Missed a Good One Alex

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.

Farewell Favourites

Its Alex's last Sunday with us after three months and we asked what he would like for dinner. He chose salmon and banana split. Janice and Jennifer volunteered to take care of a course each and Alex chose the wine.

The salmon was placed skin down in a baking dish and covered with a mixture of oregano, olive oil, salt and sesame seeds then baked for 20 min at 180 deg C. It was served with rosemary potato wedges, lemon caper butter sauce and braised cabbage. It was a delicious meal!

Jennifer's banana split was built with sliced bananas, chocolate chip icecream, chocolate sauce (dark chocolate and cream), caramel sauce (butter and brown sugar and cream), sliced almonds and decorated with sliced eskimo sweets. It was a delicious dessert!