Easter BBQ

I know April isn't the best season to have a BBQ April showers and all that, but I like playing hostess and I like making food. So having friends over is fun for me and I have no room in my tiny flat for a table so the best thing about BBQ's is that you don't need a table and everybody tends to go outside. So I planned a BBQ hoping that the lovely sunny weather would hold up. I also abused the recipe's on the BBC 4's website for my food plans.

I made Haloumi skewers and Mediterranean vegetables, which I found here.

Haloumi Skewers

They were yummy and were lovely the day after with salad and home made bread for lunch. I worried that the haloumi and marinade combo might have been to salty as, the main base of the dressing was olives but it worked well.

Homebaked fresh bread

I made lovely bread from Nigella Lawson's book How to be a domestic goddess. It was a basic white loaf, but it was scrummy. And my kitchen still smells of it.

Ummm I love the smell of home cooked bread. I made this on Friday and stored it in the fridge overnight and then crushed it and cooked it before the BBQ so that it was still warm. As I made this after my last shift at work, by the time I had finished needing or pounding it to oblivion all of the tension I was still carrying was gone. I might try and put this into my stress relief program.

Antipasti Tart

I also made antipasti tart which I got from here. I was unsure about artichokes but decided that I should try something new. They were salty but it was a nice starter, as I prepared this before people arrived. I used sun dried tomato intense paste instead of red pesto as I couldn't find any that was suitable for vegetarians (a good reason to make my own sometime).

Antipasti Tart

The last thing I made was sweet potato and chilli fries. I love sweet potatoes. I got the recipe from here. These were lovely and easy to cook in the oven whilst the BBQ's were warming up, though I should have asked the people who were coming if they liked things hot, I didn't think they were hot but watching a friend puffing and waving her hand in front of they mouth shout 'oohh there hot' I suppose is a point against my hostess skills. But it was a tiny bit funny.

Sweet Potatoe Chilli Fries

Oh and it did rain, which was good for my BBQ, but bad for the country as we are in the middle of a drought. Poor country!