As a family we firmly believe in living with the tent flaps open… and we have heaps of visitors, especially students, stopping by for coffee and to hang out and for meals!!! I never would have predicted this side of my life but it turns out we cook a lot in our house and we enjoy it. A long while back a student friend of ours was reading our Table for Ten Series and said – it is time you taught some of us how to cook real food at affordable prices… I thought it was a good idea!!! So this past Saturday was our first grand cooking event… And take a peak at the dessert it was a feast indeed!!!
We thought we would make a collection of tastes and the sort of meals that you can plate up and look smart for impressing important guests and food that is quick and easy enough to make for a meal when you get home from work at the end of the day. We began with a table full of grocery shopping… nothing spectacular: onions, potatoes, mince and tomatoes… and we were off…
Our goal to cook a fantastic meal from scratch, using basic and easily available ingredients… basically ingredients we had at home or could just dash out and grab. The point I think was to show them that anybody really can make incredibly tasty food, that looks fabulous, without breaking the bank and from scratch… really start with fresh ingredients and follow the steps…
First Course: Roast Tomato Soup
This is one of our all time family favourite recipes…
You can use this as a pasta sauce or a soup, you can spice it up and we do (!!!) with tons of garlic and chilli…
Second Course: Mini-Hamburgers and Potato Wedges with Tzatziki
Prep your rolls and your slice your lettuce and tomatoes, while your burgers are cooking.
The burger is really the same as the meatball recipe below – and you flatten the meatballs slightly before you cook them… Perfect, mastering two meals with one recipe!!!
Prepare your Potato Wedges…
And Tzaziki…
Third Course: Pasta and Meatballs in Tomato Sauce
Cook the pasta according to the directions on the packet and the tomato sauce for the pasta was the tomato sauce from the first course. And the meatballs…
We made an easy salad with lettuce and baby tomatoes and dressing in a jar… because dressing in a jar makes a salad…
Fourth Course: Meringues with whipped Cream and chocolate ganache…
Meringues are a fabulous dessert, they look so very impressive and they are so very delicious and really all they are are egg whites and castor sugar… We popped the extra egg yolks into our meatballs, so nothing wasted. Also it is a good idea to get your meringues started soonest, then you can pop them in the oven while you do all your other food preparation.
And our splurge factor for the dinner was some fine chocolate to make a fine ganache. Warm a tub of cream, don’t boil it!!! And then stir chunks of chocolate into the cream until it is melted… just a little bit of heaven!!!
Pile it up… huge “fluffy, crispy on the outside and slightly gooey” in the middle meringues, with a dollop of cream…
And ganache drizzled over!!!
Not to mention the team cleaned up and washed and scrubbed up… before dessert!!! I could see my kids’ eyes glazing over at the number of dishes we managed to create!!!
Thanks guys for coming over we had a really fabulous time!!!
I have to say, I think we are going to need to have a lot more cooking classes at our house, a whole lot more often if they are going to make meals like this one!!!
Thank you for having us! I’m drooling just thinking about it! 🙂 xxx
Thank you for creating an opportunity for all of us to get together and learn how to cook theses fantastic meals.
Oh Jerusha, It was such a blast having you guys over… gotta make a date and create another feast!!! Hope you have a fun weekend!!!
Hay Bongani, It was so great to have you over at last!!! We will set a date for another feast really soon!!! Have a fabulous weekend!!!
Great Job!!
Thanks Aunty Muffin, It was a really fun time for all of us!!!
Fab post! Makes me feel like cooking!
Hay there, I am so so sorry to hear that you havn’t been receiving post – that is not good news to a blogger, I have no idea why and no idea where to look fro the problem… so I will wait and see if it resolves itself… Otherwise – yes another crazy day of feasting and food around our table!!! lots of love to all of you from the gang!!!
Oh the meringues! Your celebrity chef is the hero of my kids ever since you guys did the Eaton crush post several years ago. We had just gotten a cheap second hand kitchen aide mixer and we have made meringues ( all kinds!) ever since! Thank you! And now I have two celebrity chefs of my own. What pleasure your family has brought to my kitchen halfway around the world!!!!
Jaimie, That is just the nicest comment to receive!!! So thrilled to inspire!!! I can tell you that I received our kitchen aid about fifteen years ago, from a friend, who had been a missionary in Tanzania for ten years before that… Our mixer still spins every single day – couldn’t live with out it!!! Hope you have tons of fun with yours!!! Have a great day!!!