B and M's Kitchen Party // Two // featuring guests and Indian theme

There are some weekends where all you need is good food and company and allow yourself the space and time to forget about whatever else you've got going on. How perfect - I can hear you shout - those are the ideal conditions for a Kitchen Party!

Why yes, clever reader, you are correct. A Kitchen Party was just what the doctor ordered and in times of trouble, she emphasised, that the Kitchen Party ought not to just be any old Kitchen Party; it needs to be bigger and bolder than before.

Enter B and M's Kitchen Party featuring FRIENDS and a THEME. In Come Dine with Me style, I paired up with my good friend, G, to prepare a three course meal for M and J. (Not MJ. But imagine if it was...that'd be weird).

Anyhow, we tootled off from the rules slightly and eliminated the guessing ingredients part of the Kitchen Party guidance notes, and instead all three courses were a surprise. The only thing the boys knew was that the night would be Indian themed.

After hours of slaving away in the kitchen, the boys arrived and were greeted with a few bubbles and a *ehem* beautifully assembled lotus flower poppadum tower. Oh and our Indian outfits!

I must admit, I had to google how to put on a sari and even then it still took us about 20 minutes to figure it out but looooook at how lovely they are. G had picked them up in Tooting for a previous Indian event and I was thrilled to be able to wear one. The detail on them is so pretty and I hadn't realised that I could actually wear pink and not explode so hooray! It also gave me a chance to wear the sari top my sister brought me back from Sri Lanka last summer so all in all I was happy with the dress code.

The first course was chilli and lime chicken skewers and poppadums with an onion and cucumber salad, mango chutney and yoghurt seasoned with dried mint and shallots. (That last bit was a bit Iranian instead but yoghurt is my favourite)

The main course was a lamb balti which was cooked in a slow cooker for a few hours to make the meat extra tender and really bring out the flavours of all the spices we added. Oh and a little side portion of saag aloo.

The dessert was where the real creativity began to flow. A couple of months back, G and I went to a chocolate-making class where we learnt about tempering chocolate, playing with ganache and making truffles. We decided to put our knowledge to the test and make a chocolate creation like no other for dessert. 

Ladies and gents, I present to you orange flavoured chocolate sprinkled with crushed candy canes and served with vanilla ice-cream and marshmallows. Mmmm mmm MMMMMM.

M went so far as to say that it was the best dessert he had EVER had. The boy is enthusiastic by nature, sure, but we'll take that as a fair representation of our efforts. 

Wonderful! In case you're wondering, by way of entertainment, we provided an upbeat playlist, games of pool and animal onesies. Sure we veered off the Indian theme slightly but this is a Kitchen Party where rules are always broken (see previous post).

Anyhow, we were awarded 9.5/10 as there was too little entertainment between serving the poppadums and the chicken starters so apologies for slaving away in the kitchen to deliver a WARM first course. Goodness me! 

Next time, it's the boys' turn. Will they beat our incredible score? Stay tuned!

Are you having a Kitchen Party any time soon? See here for the "rules" :)

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B and M's Kitchen Party // One

I mentioned here that last weekend would see the "first ever" B and M Kitchen Party. I also mentioned that if it was a success, I would share the evening with you. Well, as I'm sure you can imagine, it was a triumph and here we are! 

The basic premise for the evening was that we would cook a three-course meal together, listen to our favourite music and if the night led to sliding around on the kitchen tiles, then so be it. The TWIST however was as follows: M would pick the first two courses and buy the ingredients to cook them and I would have to shut my eyes and guess what each ingredient is by feeling it, and I would pick the dessert and M would have to guess what we were making by feeling the ingredients blind-folded. So kind of like Blind Date but for meal courses. So kind of nothing like Blind Date, but again this wasn't really our first ever kitchen party either so lets go wild and call things whatever we want for this blog post, okay? Cool! 

I don't have any pictures of the starter, but it was salmon and cream cheese blini. I didn't know what blini were until my "middle-class" man showed me, but yes they went down so well I didn't get a chance to shoot them. And do you know what? It took a wee bit of persuasion to convince M not to tuck into his main meal straight away so that I could get a shot of it for the blog. Did you hear that? You almost MISSED OUT on the opportunity to witness what can only be described as the best thing M has ever supervised the cooking of - THIS main meal.

Utterly divine, prosciutto-wrapped Philly and red pepper-stuffed chicken with home-made chips and the greenest of beans, accompanied by redcurrant jam. Would you take a look at that!

I mean corrrrr, look at it! And here's a close up of those chips because I know you're interested...

Sprinkled with the usuals and a dab of paprika. Mmmmm. 

I asked M whether he would like to do a guest-post on how he created this splendid meal, but he assures me that it is too easy for a recipe. "All you do is slice the chicken in half, spread Philly on each side, sprinkle some red pepper pieces on and wrap it up in ham." That's the chef verbatim guys.

In case you were wondering, my guessing of the ingredients wasn't too terrible. But as I didn't know what blini was and its packaging was plastic, I did think we were having salmon on ham. 

All washed down with what is known in some circles as the "king of drinks", before it was time to get cracking with my dessert before we fell asleep from fullness. 

The lovely gooey mess of a Smores Dip (melted Dairy Milk with baked marshmallows on top) with digestives for dipping.

Of course by the end, I threw shame out of the window and tucked in with a spoon. Waste not, want not! Whatever that means. But yes, this was a Pinterest half-disaster in that it tasted gooood but aesthetically this wasn't what we were going for marshmallows! 

Next time, I'm organising the starter and main course. I have an idea up my sleeve for the main, but would love your ideas for the starter! The more obscurely shaped the ingredients the better, for blindfold purposes you see. I invite you all to start calling your cooking dates "kitchen parties" and would love to see the results of any so let me know if you do host one :)

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