Food with Friends - Virtual Dinner Party
Food with friends
During our time doing time in social isolation we will all increasingly miss that contact with our loved ones. A virtual dinner party is on way to keep in touch and share time with friends and family. We gave it a whirl this week and would highly recommend it. There are unlimited options depending on your preferences, it can be formal or casual, whatever you prefer.
Other ideas:
- Order a pizza delivery or other take away – try to co-ordinate the arrival of food so that one half of your party isn’t left salivating while you tuck into your supper.
- Host a Cheese and Wine evening with a selection of wines or beers and cheese, pate and fruit with assorted crackers.
- Afternoon Tea with crustless sandwiches, cakes and pastries. Make then yourself or shop bought for convenience.
- A big Breakfast brunch – who doesn’t love a Saturday morning fry up with gallons of tea?
- Sunday Lunch – often an occasion in many homes, invite your friends to join you without the hassle of the extra washing up.
- BBQ – now the weather is improving what could be nicer than the smell of food noisily charring on an outside grill!
Steps to arranging your meal with friends:
- Decide on whom to invite. Our guests were old university friends in East Yorkshire and their daughter (my Goddaughter) in Liverpool where she’s in lockdown in her university home.
- Choose how you are going to get together. We used Zoom which is straightforward to use. You can sign up for free here: https://zoom.us/ . Skype and Facetime via your phone are other options.
- Decide on a theme. We chose a more formal evening; it was an excuse to dress up (even though my outfit was accessorised with slippers). We set the table with a nice cloth and candles and dug out the new wine glasses.
- Choose your menu. As the majority of our guests are either vegetarian or vegan we went for a middle eastern inspired veggie menu on the basis that we had a lot of the ingredients so no additional trips to the shop! We decided to cook the same food although did have to make some amendments to accommodate the availability within the cupboards.
Our evening started with a Gin and Tonic, served with ice and a slice on arrival!We moved on to our starters of hummus and baba ganoush (an aubergine dip) served with pitta bread:
Easy hummus recipe
Ingredients
400g can chickpeas, drained
80ml extra virgin olive oil1-2 fat garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 lemon, juiced then ½ zested
3 tbsp tahini
Method
Thoroughly rinse the chickpeas in
a colander under cold running water. Tip into the large bowl of a food
processor along with 60ml of the oil and blitz until almost smooth. Add the
garlic, lemon and tahini along with 30ml water. Blitz again for about 5 mins,
or until the hummus is smooth and silky.
Add 20ml more water, a little at
a time, if it looks too thick. Season and transfer to a bowl. Swirl the top of
the hummus with the back of a dessert spoon and drizzle over the remaining oil.
Serve with crunchy crudités and toasted pitta bread, if you like.
Baba ganoush
Ingredients
2 medium aubergines
40ml extra virgin olive oil
¼ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp tahini
1 large lemon, juiced
½ small bunch parsley, finely
chopped
flatbreads or pitta bread, to
serve
Method
Heat the grill to its highest
setting. Put the aubergines on a baking sheet and grill for 35-40 mins or until
completely softened, blackened and blistered, turning them halfway through with
a pair of tongs. Set aside and leave to cool completely.
Once your aubergines are cool
enough to handle, gently peel off the charred skin and discard. Transfer the
flesh to the large bowl of a food processor along with 30ml of the oil, the
coriander, cumin, tahini, lemon and half the parsley. Season and pulse the
flesh three or four times to create a chunky textured dip.
Transfer the dip to a bowl and
drizzle with the remaining oil, scatter over any leftover parsley and serve
with warm flatbreads or pitta.
The main course was Cauliflower and chickpea tagine with fruity cous cous - our version was noticeable by the absence of cauliflower, but sweet potatoes and mushrooms provided an adequate substitute. There was also a 'preserved lemon' on the ingredients list but also sadly missing from the store cupboard!
Cauliflower and chickpea tagine
This
hearty tagine is typical of the type of dish cooked in the wooded Middle Atlas
region and the lush valleys leading up to the High Atlas. It's a tasty way of
preparing cauliflower, broccoli or cabbage, and is often simply served with
bread to mop up the sauce.
Serves 4-61 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 onion, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2 tsp coriander seeds
1-2 tsp sugar
1 x 400g tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 cauliflower, trimmed into small florets
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
2-3 tsp harissa
A bunch of fresh coriander, roughly chopped
1 preserved lemon, finely chopped
Salt and black pepper
1 Heat the
butter and oil in the base of a tagine or in a heavy-based saucepan, add the
onion and cook for 2–3 minutes to soften. Add the garlic, coriander seeds and
sugar, then cook for a further 2–3 minutes, until the onion and garlic begin to
colour, then toss in the chickpeas and cauliflower florets.
2 Add the
chopped tomatoes, stir in the harissa and pour in just enough water to cover
the cauliflower. Bring the liquid to the boil, reduce the heat, put on the lid,
and cook the tagine gently for about 20 minutes, until the cauliflower has
become tender.
3 Season the
tagine well with salt and pepper, toss in half the coriander and half the
preserved lemon, then cook for a further 5–10 minutes. Garnish with the
remaining coriander and preserved lemon.
Fruity Couscous
350g couscous
Juice of 1 lemon2tbsp extra virgin olive oil
100g dried apricots, chopped
30g dried cranberries
425ml boiling vegetable stock
Handful of basil, shredded
Method
Put the couscous, lemon juice, olive oil, dried apricots and cranberries into a heatproof bowl. Pour over the stock, then cover the bowl with a plate or clingfilm and soak for 5 min. Fluff up with a fork, then stir in the basil. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and keep warm until ready to serve.
For dessert we had chocolate brownies – vegan for the guests and extremely rich non-vegan (made by our teenage daughter) for us. Both served with ice cream and strawberries.
Vegan brownies
2 tbsp ground
flaxseed
200g dark chocolate, roughly
chopped½ tsp coffee granules
80g vegan margarine, plus extra for greasing
125g self-raising flour
70g ground almonds
50g cocoa powder
¼ tsp baking powder
250g golden caster sugar1½ tsp vanilla extract
Method
Heat oven to 170C/150C fan/gas
3½. Grease and line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment. Combine the
flaxseed with 6 tbsp water and set aside for at least 5 mins.
In a saucepan, melt 120g
chocolate, the coffee and margarine with 60ml water on a low heat. Allow to
cool slightly.
Put the flour, almonds, cocoa,
baking powder and ¼ tsp salt in a bowl and stir to remove any lumps. Using a
hand whisk, mix the sugar into the melted chocolate mixture, and beat well
until smooth and glossy, ensuring all the sugar is well dissolved. Stir in the
flaxseed mixture, vanilla extract and remaining chocolate, then the flour
mixture. Spoon into the prepared tin.
Bake for 35-45 mins until a
skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean with moist crumbs. Allow to cool
in the tin completely, then cut into squares. Store in an airtight container
and eat within three days.
Non- Vegan Chocolate brownies:
It was lovely to share the meal and conversation and we will definitely be doing it again.
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