Happy New Year

First off, Happy New Year 2011. I wish everybody all the very best, here's to all the things you're hoping to achieve in the next 12 months.

Unfortunately I've managed to get myself a really nasty cough and spent most of the last 2 days hacking and wheezing and rattling, but there was no way I was going to let some nasty little germs stop me enjoying New Year celebrations, as One Thousand And One Arabian Nights was sure to be a good one!

The Menu- We couldn't resist a bit of humour, cheesy or not...



Friends, Family and a fair amount of wine- the recipe for a good evening I do believe

We spent a really pleasant evening around our dining table, lots of food was consumed and lots of wine seemed to slip down. I have decided that wine is an acceptable and successful substitute for cough medicine.

I thought you might like to see some of the foodie things we had going on, unfortunately there aren't pictures of everything, the pastries- beef filled Boreks and spinach and ricotta fill pastries are absent, as are the Falafels and spiced meatballs, but some of the other dips and goodies include....

Baba Ganoush (Smoked Aubergine), Hummus (Chickpea) and Tszatziki (Yoghurt) dips and home made Pitta Breads

Home made Pitta Breads- they came out a little more puffy than we expected, but I thought they looked pretty impressive!

Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Our desert- Orange and Mint Jelly, Ginger Ice Cream and Spiced Mince Meat Parcels all produced by Dad's fair hands and the chocolate dipped physalis fruit as dipped by Mum.

Monty appearing, ever hopeful something may drop in his direction. Chance would be a fine thing....

We did things a little backward and started our evening with Champagne- it so wasn't going to taste as good after all our savoury and spiced food. We also managed to procure some Lebanese wine to go with the Tagine that was our first course. It's quite difficult to find, but was well worth it.

Overall, a good night was had by everybody. The food went down well as it was something a little different and between the 9 of us there was some interesting conversation to be had- a chef, a builder, a PhD Philosophy Student, a hairdresser, a business studies teacher, a Signage business owner, a kitchen designer and all round super woman (my mum) and a languages student around one table. 

I hope everybody else had a great night and there aren't too many sore heads this morning. Here's to 2011...