We had a wee party on Friday night; I felt the need to mark the end of my freedom before returning to Medical School this week, and we haven’t had a proper ‘big’ party in ages. As it turned out, this was not a ‘big’ party either, September seems to be the holiday season for the childless professional (or Friday night is the new staying-in night?) and we little more than a score of guests. Nevertheless it was one of the nicest parties I’ve hosted.
We didn’t actually do all that much food, partly because of expected low turn out, but largely because life got in the way of the preparations. So we went for low-stress, easy prep options.

This glorious frittata is one of the suggested flavour variations from Nigel Slater’s Real Fast Food, a book we are rather fond of. The frittata itself is easy peasy to make, but I think what wins it for me is how beautiful the curling slivers of roasted peppers from a jar (given a wee fry first to bring out the flavours) look. Easy to eat with your hands too. This was a nine-egg-er…clearly we need a smaller pan or I need to master a proper Spanish tortilla (recipe recently received via Hélene) if I am to ever make one to a decent depth.

There were also little cocktail sticks of red or orange baby plum tomatoes, a chunk of seasoned mozzarella, perhaps a leaf of basil and in some cases, a twirl of proscuitto.

Whilst I wasn’t best impressed with the ready-made puff pastry Tesco had on offer (it’s just not Waitrose; no all-butter stuff to be had. Try not to think about the ingredients of the no-butter-puff-pastry) these little pesto, sundried tom and goats cheese tartlets managed to hit the spot. I probably should have rolled my pastry a bit thinner and cut some of the tartlets a bit smaller, but I was working against the clock a bit.

It wouldn’t be a Hare party without crudités. I didn’t buy peppers on my party shopping trip as I was sure we had both red and orange in the fridge. We had only orange and so the crudités were looking distinctly Hibernian (with celery, runner beans and cucumber providing a green and white striped effect) until I adorned the plate with a spray of (exquisite) cherry toms on the vine. To accompany there was a plain and a herby Southfield Dip, although curiously these proved far less popular than they usually do (hence the inclusion in our roast veg pasta the other night).
There was also the previously mentioned flourless choccy cake (I’ll be making that again!) and some foxy ‘Edible Peat’ made by the lovely Richard Bell. Something of an experiment, it combined dark chocolate, shredded-wheat style cereal and a peaty Whisky (Lagavulin 16, I believe, but there was discussion that a Laphroig 10 would’ve been better suited). This is all melted together and, once set, cut into chunks using the type of tosg favoured by your village and then nibbled, at intervals. On the first one, you think ‘hmm, not sure that works’. Then you realise you’ve eaten a second. And a third. Then you have to step away for fear of making a pig of yourself. These aren’t particularly beautiful and as such did not get the attention they deserved. For that reason in future I would probably make a point of serving them- with coffee at the end of a meal, perhaps- rather than leaving them for opportunistic grazing.
