Two Dinners

Cravings: Ice cold Lemonade

Cooked dinner for friends over the weekend. Took the opportunity of having the house to myself (on account of the folks holidaying in China) and YF being on recess to treat my friends to some home cooked dinners. :) Had two groups over, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, but unfortunately I have no pictures to show you guys of the food.

Cold storage has become my new favourite place to do my groceries. There is just so much stuff and I think I may have over did my shopping spree. Hehe.

On Saturday we had a group of 6 diners, and I went for asian fare. Cooked Hainanese Chicken Rice, Roast Pork Loin and Stir-Fried Mix Veggies. I started my preparations by boiling a whole chicken in a pot of water with some garlic and salt. As the chicken was boiling away I got to work on my other prep. I diced a large red onion, a few cloves of garlic, and sliced up some garlic and then fried them together with my rice. Once that was done I put it into the rice cooker and added the stock from boiling the chicken along with some salt and let the rice cooker do the rest of the work. I also tried my hand at roasting a pork loin. Used a simple seaoning of salt, 5 spice powder, dill and pepper. Tried to score the skin of the loin, but that didn't turn out too well as my knives weren't sharp enough :(. I rubbed the seasoning over the pork and set it on a bed of fennel to bake. For the stir-fry I went with brocolli, carrots and red and yellow peppers.

All in all it turned out well. One of my better estimates as the quantity of food was just nice. Too bad the skin of the pork was inedible as it was too rubbery, but the meat was cooked just nice! Chicken and rice turned out well. As did the veggies. My chilli sauce for the chicken rice failed though, I don't eat the chilli sauce with my chicken rice so I was basically winging it for that one. Thank goodness my other sauce for the chicken turned out alright :). (Just like mum used to make).

Sunday night was a dinner for only 4, and I went for a more western theme. I went for lagsana with mash potatoes. There were a couple of firsts for the lagsana. Went with a mixture of lamb and beef for the meat, and cheddar for the cheese sauce. Usually I just go full beef and mozzarella. Ommitted capsicums this time around too as some of the diners didn't like the green peppers. Also went with San Remo fresh lagsana sheets for the first time and I have to say it worked out pretty well. Garlic, mushrooms, onions, fresh tomatoes, tomato puree and herbs rounded of the meat sauce. Butter, flour, cream and water all contributed to the cheese sauce with the cheddar. Layered the lagsana starting with the meat sauce, then the cheese sauce, then lagsana sheets and kept on piling, ending with cheese sauce topped with grated mozzarella and cheddar.

For the mash potatoes, I boiled the potatoes, deskinned them (once again coz some diners don't like potato skin) and mashed them together with salt, pepper butter and fresh parsley. Did a rough mash leaving some bits of potato here and there to give it some bite. Over did the estimation this time around and there were left overs but my friends ta pau home the left overs and all was good. Now I really regret not taking pictures of the food. Must do that the next I do something like this.