Kevin's parents and my sister and her husband arrived last night. We'd made a nice lamb stew for them, reliable recipe from Cook's Illustrated
Best Recipes cookbook. Brown meat, stew in oven at 250 for an hour (with chicken stock, red wine, onions, bay leaves, thyme), add potatoes and carrots, stew for an hour and a half, remove from oven, add a cup of peas and let sit for five minutes, stir in chopped parsley, adjust salt and pepper, serve with crusty bread. Nummy. I under-salted a bit, but nonetheless, was delicious, and a great way to feed a crowd. (Can also use beef or pork instead of lamb, but lamb was on sale for the same price as beef, so we got to be fancy. :-).
Lots more cooking today, as we're having a tea party. A big one, too -- 20-25 people, which is a lot for tea. Here's the menu:
- quiches: leek and emmentaler, sausage and tomato
- sandwiches with the crusts cut off: watercress and goat cheese on raisin bread, beet/carrot/spinach on white, chicken curry-mango on wheat
- asparagus-mandarin orange salad
- prosciutto w/ canteloupe
- scones w/ clotted cream, jam, lemon curd
- banana bread (courtesy Lori)
- chocolate-strawberry layer cake
- daffodil lemon bundt cake with lemon sauce
- strawberry wafer cookies
- lemonade, a bubbly rose
The banana bread looks pretty low-brow next to all your nummies. But! Lemon curd! I can be fancy!
Hey, the banana bread was great!