Sunday, April 02, 2006

Good Food and Friends

Sunday night, two friends dropped by for an evening of finger food, games and general chitchat. The menu:
Who Loves Ya Babyback Ribs
Jerk Rubbed Chicken Wings
Calypso Roti
Roasted Rosemary Potato Skewers
Veg & Dip
Gingerbread Cake with Apple Compote, Lemon Honey Mascarpone and Lancashire Cheese.
The guest brought the dessert and I have included the link to her recipe. She also left the recipe for the apple compote in the comments section of this post. I highly recommend checking it out!. It was all so good, the cake was moist and rich and the trimmings were strong enough to stand up to the intensity of the cake.


Feeling rather guilty this morning. My birthday is coming in a week and I managed to once again bust Rob on my birthday present. The poor guy can't catch a break, I always manage to ruin the surprise. This time, I busted the friend too. I'll share the gift after I receive it, but here's a hint: My friend works at Barbara Jo's......

3 comments:

Deetsa said...

Hmm... we have birthdays that are close. Mine was just this Saturday.

Anonymous said...

Hi Linda!

For anyone who's interested, here's the link for the gingerbread cake:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/
views/105842

I followed the recipe pretty much exactly, but took one reviewer's suggestion to increase the amount of cinnamon and ginger by half a teaspoon each. It's not necessary to make the mascarpone topping; I just had lots in the fridge. Let everything come up to room temp if you make it in advance, as the texture of my cheese was more crumbly (not smooth enough) than I was hoping.

This is a rather long post for a comment, but since you asked for the apple compote recipe, Linda, I'll just include it here. Peel and chop 2 apples (mine were Fujis) to a 1/2" dice. Chop up a 1/2 cup of dried cranberries, and toast and chop a 1/2 cup pecans. Saute everything in a tbsp of butter until it starts to soften a little, then add a tbsp of brown sugar, a pinch of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, and maple syrup to taste (maybe 2 tbsp or more). I had made something similar a few nights earlier as a garnish for pork chops, and that was also quite nice.

The suggestion to serve with a strong cheese like Lancashire came from a different gingerbread recipe out of a Nigella Lawson book, and that was a brilliant idea, I thought.

Hope you're having lots of fun at the Bones event tonight, Linda...thanks for a great time on Saturday!

Cate said...

Sounds like a great menu...