That’s Entertainment!

We’re having friends over later, and although we’ve seen each other a few times [Scott does our hair- gratuitous wedding pic time!], we haven’t had a really good, proper grown up evening in and a feast in forever.

So I’m doing the job properly! Unfortunately this means I have to move all my sewing stuff yet again…poop.

The menu:

Cheese and onion tartlets

Spaghetti and meatballs

Pear tarte tatin

All home made of course! The images here are just googlies, I’ll take my own pics later on…I’m not trying to fool you.

The onion tarts have been much adapted from the original recipe, but this time I’m doing as follows:

I use frozen puff pastry, [because why not?] and line the tart tins

Four or five onions, sliced and sweated in a little oil until caramelised, then add a dash of balsamic vinegar

Pile the onions into the tart cases, top with cheese. Originally this was just goat cheese, but I only had a bit in the freezer, so it will be a mixture of goat cheese, blue cheese and a slice of mozzarella for gooiness.

I’ve also done these with pear slices in with the onions, or half a fig under the cheese. Yum!

They go into a hot oven for about 10 minutes [I never time anything apart from cakes], then serve up on a little green salad. I’ll be adding borage flowers because they’re blooming right now and I love to use stuff from the garden.

Main course- one of my make-it-up as I go rich tomato sauces with plenty of red wine- I’ll be making this soon as I like to let the flavour develop all day.

Meatballs will be minced lamb with fresh rosemary and black pepper, whizzed in the processor for a finer mince. This also squirts a fair bit of the fat out which is also good!

I don’t use any breadcrumbs, or anything to bind them, they work fine just as they are. I fry them off, then drop them into the sauce to simmer. Lots of spaghetti, tossed in butter and pepper, and plenty of fresh parmesan.

The tarte tatin is the one I posted about before, but here’s the link again. It’s WONDERFUL. I use more cardamom because we love it.

Add wine, great friends, and stir well.