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| A free range life - summer annual |
The ‘catch’ for receiving the free book is to
cook a dinner for friends or family using the recipes and then share a photograph
on social media. That’s not a very big
ask for me, I never need an excuse to cook and love having people round for
dinner … and I am quite share-y on the social media front. In my usual fashion, I went a wee bit
overboard and pretty much spent a whole weekend cooking using recipes from the
book! Hence the feeling like I have
spent the weekend with Annabel Langbein.
There is a whole baking section in the book
that use the same base mix of ingredients,
Annabel’s ‘Magic Baking Mix’. Friday was my turn on the roster for charity baking at work, so it was handy to have a new recipe to try, perfect
timing. I made a batch of the baking mix
on Thursday night and decided to make Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins. I prepped all the other
ingredients and decided to get up 10 minutes earlier and put them in the oven
in the morning while I made sandwiches for lunch. It only took 5 mins to mix it all together
and it was great to turn up at work with muffins still slightly warm from the
oven. Yummy too. Only trouble is, I’m really am not a morning
person and on returning home on Friday night noticed some butter on the
counter, whoops, it was meant to be in the muffins!! Oh well nobody noticed
anything amiss and there was still lots of mmMMMMmmmms from people, they just
got some unintentionally healthier muffins (already pretty good with banana and
milk taking the place of lots of butter or oil used in similar recipes from other books). I could only find frozen raspberries and these worked fine though the colour did run a bit, I will definitely try again with fresh raspberries when the season gets going! I am a big fan of the raspberry and white choc combo.
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| Raspberry and White Chocolate muffins |
Saturday was the main event, we had 6 lovely
friends for dinner. I chose to go with
some BBQ and salad options, we were hoping for nice enough weather to eat
outside to fully embrace the summery feeling of the book and food. It was a bit
chilly and windy so we had a few drinks outside to keep the BBQ chef company
and then set up inside to eat. It was AMAZING! Gorgeous flavours and it was great to have a
choice of meats and salads to pass around the table. The salads were mostly prepared ahead so I wasn’t
flapping around the kitchen when people arrived, I could sit down and have a
glass of wine. Husband cooked the lamb and
steaks out on the BBQ (and did a great job, delish) and the chicken went in the
oven. Easy peasy. Just a bit of throwing together a few minutes
before we sat down to eat. This was the
menu (I hope you have eaten dinner already!).
- Lamb roast with a Morrocan Spice Rub (I used Silver Fern Farms packaged roast)
- Chimichurri grilled steak
- Chicken Tikka Kebabs
- Spicy corn and rice
- New potatoes with a parsley butter
- Caesar Salad (with lettuce from the garden)
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| Spicy corn & rice, Chimichurri steak and new potatoes in parsley butter down this end of the table |
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| The Chicken Tikka Kebabs will definitely be a regular menu choice |
Dessert was prepared the night before and I managed to remember all the ingredients this time! I was indecisive and made two options, a Strawberry Mousse or Chocolate Mousse, yuummmmm! Very easy recipes and the use of marshmallows in the chocolate mousse makes a sometimes tricky dessert ridiculously easy. Each couple got one each of the mousses to share ... some shared better than others, heehehe :)
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| Mine ... all mine!!! |
It was a great dinner, I loved how easy it was
to prepare, especially because I didn’t have to be hot and bothered in the
kitchen. It was also effortless to put together
a gluten free menu. I actually chose all
the recipes first and then remembered there would be a gf guest, looked at my
list and only had to take out one ingredient and made sure I had a gf version
of another ingredient. However, the very
best thing was that I had left overs the next day for lunch, hoorah! There was baking mix left for breakfast pikelets too,
HOORAH!! The lamb, corn and rice salad and chocolate
mousse were the most complimented dishes of the night, it all looked so
colourful and pretty on the plates too.
I was very happy with how it turned out and I think my guests were very
happy to be eating it!
I can see myself using this book heaps over the
summer. I love how compatible it is with
all the things I have got growing in the garden, I can’t wait to try out some
of the tomato glut recipes. There are
going to be lots of super fresh ingredients to go in these super fresh sounding
recipes. It has made me even more
impatient for the first harvest. It's
a great stocking stuffer of a book too, only $19.95 in the shops!
And now I am on a Monday diet, but I am still thinking about that chocolate mousse, and how easy it was to make. Oh dear! :)
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