Tiane Catering: 2011

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

POP UP RESTAURANT IN MY LIVING ROOM trial

click here for photos:
http://gallery.me.com/jnutt#100418

Last Thursday I had a trial POP UP restaurant in my living room. I decided to invite all the couples that i know on my street. After 2 days of prepping, cooking, sweating and aching they all arrived on time together. I had been to Ikea to buy some napkins, tablecloths, candles and plates etc and transformed our living room into a rather asian looking restaurant. White tablecloths with bamboo table mats and dark brown plates. Lots of candles. It looked much better than normal and in fact, I have left it like that. My kids think they are eating in a restaurant every night....

For starters we had minted pea soup with lemon thyme cream, baked marinated goats cheese, roasted violet garlic and black onion seed crackers. This was followed by Nasi Goreng (indonesian rice) with prawns and chicken, vietnamese carrot and courgette salad and bean sprout egg foo yung (sort of omelette). I overcooked the rice and had to refry it which was v time consuming and annoying but think i bought the wrong type of rice...next time will use basmati. And for my piece de resistance......pudding was boiled eggs and chubby soldiers!!! actually not boiled eggs - these were meringue top with a creme diplomat inside, combined with mango puree and passionfruit curd. The soldiers were pineapple batons which were rolled in lime infused sugar. Absolutely delicious and a real party piece. The recipes came from this brilliant book called Terre a Terre which is a fabulous restaurant in Brighton.

Anyhoo it went very well and my guests seemed to enjoy the food. There wasn't a scrap of food left on the plates and no left overs either much to my children's disappointment. Think i will do this once a month or so and see how it goes...watch this space my one follower........

Monday, 20 June 2011

lunch for 12

On Sunday 19th June we invited our very dear close friends, Emily and Simon and their kids and Tim and Caroline and their daughter, to lunch. We had for starters, fig, mozzarella and parma ham on a bed of green leaves with a pomegranate dressing and then for the main course we had mediterranean tart with soba noodles, mango and aubergine salad, green salad, and roasted butternut squash with cardamom, lime and a yoghurt/tahini dressing. The kids had tacos with chilli beef and nachos and cheese and sour cream. For dessert we had eton mess which was too messy to photograph and was also gone before you could say soba noodles..........something that we were not.....soba that is!! please note the very attractive Emily Burnett in the photos happily helping herself to the food before anyone else.......thats my kinda gal!!

Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Lemon Pickle, Broad Bean & Mint Mille Feuille

I made this delicious broad bean mille feuille the other night when my delightful friend, Sarah Mcdee, came over for supper. The recipe was two pages long and I thought it was going to be very complicated to make but it was surprisingly easy altho it was time consuming. Sarah got very hungry and ate the kids dinner first!!! Anyway I am practising all these recipes from a book called "Terre A Terre" by Amanda Powley and this recipe is called "Send my regards to Broadway" which I love. (was going to pretend that they were mine but my partner, James, said I would go to prison)......

Thursday, 19 May 2011

Tikka Kachumba and Green Gazpacho

This is surprisingly delicious - its marinated halloumi in lots of indian spices and yoghurt and then griddled for a very short time and we had it with roasted butternut squash and a cumin lassi. The cucumber salad with lime dressing was the perfect marriage. The green gazpacho didn't have a single tomato in and it was very refreshing and had a strong and powerful taste. Super healthy too - lots of spinach!! Popeye eat your heart out.....