Saturday, April 24, 2010

Cheatin' In My Pyjamas

We all cheat occasionally ...

Tonight  Mr. P and I had friends over for dinner. The idea was tapas type food. Everyone contributes.Everyone brings several things. We all share ...and drink lots of sangria. The idea is to try out new cooking skills, rock your tastebuds yada yada yada and have some fun. 

I just want to point out I am pretty much the most organised person on this planet. I have lists for the  lists I want to create. And if this isnt your first time here , you'll know that I spent some of this week feeling sorry for myself and holding my own little pity party. It was rockin' because it went for a few days.  I kinda dropped the ball. So I didnt organise my dinner plans for  tonight on Monday as usual,  and this  morning  I realised I only had a very vague idea of what I was serving. The problem was..I had already said some of the things I was planning to cook so I was stuck to providing  those things BUT  I had no time to really prep anything....

In today's modern society you can do almost anything and with a few minor mods it can look like you spent hours in the kitchen....Thank Goodness....unless you confess when your guests arrive that you were a total slackarse...

Did you know you can take store bought tsatsiki and add some home grown mint and some cumin and pretend you did home made raita?

You can turn 8 bucks of rump steak and $6.00 worth of ready made lamb koftas into 22 skewers of fancy looking meat.

And you can bake a camembert in the oven , add a french stick cut up really thinly and pretend it's gourmet food.

Did you know you can turn this



into this in 15 minutes...


And your friends can bring all sorts of yummy food , like home baked garlic chicken (with a strong emphasis on garlic)  and mojo sauce, and chorizo rolls, and a yummy fritta with broad beans and you can drink sangria and it will be a great night, because these people are your friends and dont care whether you cooked or just arranged food on plates.




10 comments:

Unknown said...

I am almost afraid to ask this (you may mail me some) but what the hell is tsatsiki, raita, and koftas? The pastry puffs with the chocolate, I understand - I would partake of that in a flash!

What is really important, like you said, is the friendship that is shared (also the sangria!) Glad you had a good night, you deserved it after the bad week you endured!

Kirsten's Cooking said...

so glad you had a fun night! Everything sounds wonderful and delicious!
great job on cooking on the fly (I'm sure everyone was impressed).
Did you have traditional sangria or white?

Shay said...

Cynthia, Kofta is minced spiced lamb on a skewer or made into balls , and tsatsiki is a cucumber and yoghurt dressing. Raita is like tsatsiki but with cumin and mint added (and sometimes these weird little crunchy balls I cant recall the name of ) so actually it's all pretty safe. Anyway I think I sent you the most awful thing we manufacture already.

Kirsten...we went traditional. I'm not a big fan of red wine but this was lovely. (probably due to the huge mount of brandy in the sangria) However I am experiencing a dull headache today- nothing major- but I'm probably going to self medicate shortly.

Mistea said...

Sounds like a wonderful evening - always better when you haven't actually spent hours in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove/blender/sink!

Elizabeth said...

Mrs. P, I'm all for time-saving. And you totally don't have to tell you didn't cook ;). I'm taking those creme puffs topped in fudge to my next party and I'm totally saying that I made the puffs from scratch and even harvested the cocoa beans myself to make the fudge sauce. Presentation is everything! Funny as always!

Marg said...

Sounds like a great evening. I like the bag of eclairs/profiteroles, hey way easier than making choux pastry from scratch. If it tastes great, who cares. Hey that mojo sauce didn't have my creative mojo in it did it? I am still looking for mine.

Marg said...

PS Love the label

Anonymous said...

Sounds yummy and now I'm hungry. I don't think you can buy those cream puff shells here, which really doesn't seem fair.

Shay said...

Marg, it had lots of garlic, but I'm pretty sure I didnt chow down on your personal mojo. Sorry, it must be elsewhere.

Chicken, I think that's really fair. We only have two kinds of oreos here. You can't have it all!

Marg said...

My creative mojo is definitely chocolate flavoured, no garlic, I am still looking. The mojo sauce sounds really yummy.