It was actually yesterday. My friend Ella came over and we watched Gigi while eating French food. It was pretty damn good, though the movie was a little bit creepier than I remembered (a man easily in his 60s singing 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls' - just a bit ooky).
We started with White Bean Boursin from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook by Jo Stepaniak eaten on baguettes from Sainsbury's (I forgot to take a picture of these). The reason I bought bread is because, when I started to make my bread, I realised I didn't have enough flour, and by that time, it was too late to buy flour and bake the bread. As a compromise, I bought the part-baked baguettes (which were the Basics range and only cost 39p for two - score!).
We then had the French Onion Soup Gruyére, also from Ultimate Uncheese
(Sorry about the quality. It gets dark around 4 PM these days, and I had a lot of stuff going on in the kitchen, so for all of these pictures, they won't be the best quality. It's not exactly the prettiest soup anyway.)
This was some good damn soup, and easy as hell to make. It requires very few ingredients and takes less than 30 minutes if you plan it right. We ate it with baguette yesterday, but I had leftovers with croutons this afternoon. It tastes good either way, though I think I preferred the baguette. Even Mike liked it, but then again, I didn't put any of the cheese in his. This is definitely going in my 'make again' memory file.
The main entree was Vegan Brunch omelets with roasted marinated asparagus (I couldn't be bothered getting out my grilling device) and Miso Tahini sauce (also VB)
I've had the VB omelets many times (and will again soon because there was half a tub of tofu left from these), and they're always delicious. I wasn't all that keen on the asparagus, though it was alright. And the sauce was really nice.
Dessert was a veganized version of this chocolate mousse recipe
I used GranoVita Soja Saane for the heavy cream and only added about 2 tbsp of sugar because the GranoVita stuff is already sweetened, and the chocolate had some sugar in it as well. This was super easy and really delicious. I ate way too much (neither Ella nor Mike could finish theirs, so I helped them out), but it was so good.
Overall, it was very successful, though I hesitate to call it a dinner party because only one person showed up and Mike was away until just before Ella had to leave. But at least the food was good.
This week's cookbook challenge is Get It Ripe by jae steele. I actually own this book, and there are a few things I never got around to making, so I'll be participating fully. Also, I've set myself a project to figure out some stuff to make for lunches, since I finally got a temp contract. It's only 4-6 weeks, but at least it's something, and hopefully it'll eventually lead to something permanent.
