Family BBQ

As mentioned in my previous post, whilst my brother and his family were over from Holland we held a little family soiree - mainly because we never seem to get together enough. Whilst not everyone was able to attend at such short notice we got a pretty good turn out.

The weather was terrible - as expected, but luckily Mum & Dad found a very large marquee which was great to house most of us away from the rain.

Food wise I prepared some of my Chicken Chompers and Smokey Bacon & Tomato Tart, a wonderful wild rice salad which I will have to make again as I forgot to take any pictures of and will post the recipe for it when I do. We also had Anita's delicious marinated belly pork strips and potato salad along with three single ribs of beef which were cooked on the BBQ and turned out wonderfully rare and were a real treat.

I had also been to see Gordon the Fishmonger a few days before to order a whole salmon, when I explained that I had never poached a whole one before and the reason why I wanted it he very kindly offered to poach, skin and put it on a platter for me at no extra cost - what an absolute star he is! Hubby then spent a long while putting slices of cucumber for scales on it and adding a plethora of shell on prawns to the dish - turned out well.

I must offer my thanks to Jo, Stu's sister for bringing two homemade cakes with her - just perfect for afternoon tea before everyone left. The recipe for her light lemon soaked sponge will be on here shortly, once I have made it.

On the day of the soiree, it did chuck down with rain, but we all had so much fun, together again after so long and in some cases I had not seen family members for over 10 years that we did not even notice the weather. I was totally worn out at the end of the day, too busy chatting and making sure everyone else was fed and watered to eat to drink much myself - luckily there was enough of the beef sliced wafer thin to make a sandwich with lashings of horseradish sauce.