19-April-20: So at the end of all that gardening, it would have been wonderful to go out, not cook and enjoy a beautiful dinner to celebrate all our hard work… sadly not possible with the COVID Craziness.
Didn’t feel like takeway either, as wanted something a wee bit fancy, befitting of the wee bit sensational gardening efforts, so I created an “restaurant dinner in” style of dinner..
This menu goes to show you can do great food with really, very little effort.
So I hope this gives a little inspiration that by setting up a lovely table, buying some good quality produce and arranging it on a plate, whilst it may not be restaurant standard, it can still provide a great food experience at home…
So to start with, the smoked salmon was Huon from the supermarket. I find this one of the better quality packet smoked salmon. The only real preparation I did here was to make a lemon, mustard sour cream. It simply is about 3-4 tbs of sour cream, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper and some chopped chives mixed together. Taste as you are mixing it up and adjust according to your flavour preference. The rest is simply cutting and arranging on the plate to serve. Chardonnay is my fave with smoked salmon…
Second course was also one of my favourite flavour combos of tomato, buffalo mozzarella cheese, basil and balsamic.
We still had some tomatoes on our bushes, basil still going in the veggie patch and I was able to get some buffalo mozzarella locally. I was also very fortunate to receive for a birthday present a couple of years ago, some very special aged balsamic vinegar. I use this very sparingly as it is so yummy but a special night tonight… Again, all this was a bit of chopping, tearing and drizzling.
When dressing the little salad, use both the balsamic vinegar and a good quality extra virgin olive oil, along with a sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper to finish.
Now for main course… The biggest prep here was the roasted veggie salad – as you can see – on a bit of a roll with this as had it quite a bit recently. I wanted a lemony, herb flavour so that it wasn’t too heavy. The chicken breasts were sourced yet again from Bennos in Barwon Heads and stuffed with fetta and sundried tomato.
Roasted potato and fennel is a great combination as the fennel lightens the dish and the green olives at the end give it a zing. Add in whole cloves of garlic, still in their outer skin, with some herbs and is a great accompaniment all year round but at the moment, am really liking it with my autumn mains ! So here’s tonight’s version:
- Chop up the potatoes (I get cleaned ones so you don’t have to peel them) into cubes.
- For the fennel, you just peel the first layer off the fennel and chop it up into wedges – fairly chunky, leaving the base of it in tact, so it helps hold the wedges together and add in 5-6 unpeeled garlic cloves.
- Splash on some olive oil and coat the veggies and mix in the herbs.
- This time for the herbs I used lemon thyme, rosemary and some sage.
I then placed the chicken breasts on the potatoes and topped with 3-4 sage leaves each. The chicken takes about 30 minutes and once done, take it out to rest whilst you amp up the heat on the oven to finish the spuds. Once the spuds are cooked, stir through some green olives and ordinary but again, good quality balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper.
I decided the dish might need some “breaking up”, especially as wasn’t having a green veg.
So made up a tomato salsa, with chopped tomatoes, seeds out, chopped basil, splashed on 1-2 tsps of the same balsamic as on the spuds, a little drizzle of EVOO, salt and pepper.
Served up the veg, chicken, with salsa on top and drizzled over any remaining juices
Lastly, for the final course !
I wasn’t intending to do a desert but after all our efforts, and had kept the portion sizes reasonable, we were both looking for a sweet something to finish. This is one of the yummiest, quickest and easiest deserts you can do – Grilled Bananas. I fancied it up this time by including a chocolate sauce but they are just as good without (or really cheating and using chocolate topping !). For the Chocolate Sauce:
- For the chocolate sauce, melt cooking chocolate in a double saucepan – for two people about half a block
- Once melted, add in some cooking cream – about 2-3 tbs and stir
- Finish off with 1-2 tbs of Drambuie or Cointreau (depending on how much you like it but I’d err on less as either liqueur can be quite strong).
- Make sure you stir and do the alcohol second (I stuffed up and added the alcohol first and the chocolate went stiff but forcing the cream into it, loosened it up and saved it, so try the other way around)
For the bananas, melt about 3 tbs butter and 2 tbs brown sugar in a frying pan on gentle heat, with a splash of orange juice. Simmer gently until all the sugar is melted. Turn the heat up to medium, add in the peeled bananas and cook until they caramelised on the outside.
Done – serve up with the caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and vanilla ice ream (or cream if you prefer)
The weekend is done – Happy Soul Food garden time, Happy Soul Food dinner, on the whole a Happy Soul Food Weekend !