Saffy

I have a jar of curry powder that gets used for one recipe only in this house and that is a meatloaf that my kids like. I make curry a variety of ways, using a pre packed paste, or from scratch either paste or dry curry too. Depends entirely how much time I have. I do keep a tub of green and red thai curry pastes in the fridge since we have often have a thai curry for a quick dinner. I am happy to use a quality purchased product, but even more happy if I have the time to create something from the beginning as well.

I have some wonderful lime recipes. Keylime pie being my fav, also thai foods with lime juice additions. I would love to have some more recipes that contain limes since we have some beautiful organic limes about at the moment. If you feel like sharing your fav lime recipes I'm listening :)

I just wanted to say thanks for all the wonderful suggestions. The couple came over tonight for dinner and we had Creamy Pumpkin soup Roast chicken cooked with lemon, thyme, majoram and oregano on a bed of onions with a yoghurt and garlic sauce. Roasted pumpkin, kumara and potatos with piripiri ( just a hint) Couscous with pinenuts and almonds A choice of chocolate tart or Gascon apple/walnut pie ( apples macerated in brandy and sugar, filo pastry case all frilly on top.. pretty but not too fancy. ) for dessert Coffee and florentines and finally a nice slab of farmhouse brie with quince jelly Dinner went well, the company was good and everyone except me had seconds. So I really hope they went away feeling good. It is the first time I have ever really felt anxious about serving a nice meal to someone .. strange feeling.

Interesting suggestions! Looks like I am going to need to be creative with this one, nothing like something a little unusual to get the creative juices flowing in the kitchen :)

LOl no the three noisey children do not often accompany us out to dinner :) They have never actually met this particular couple, and they are looking forward to meeting them on Saturday :)

I LOVE to cook, but the one thing that has always utterly frustrated my attempts to produce the perfect result ( actually even a result that is edible) is Candy. Broad group you say.. yep.. the only one I can get right is toffee.. forget fudge or coconut ice, or anything else. I might as well just throw all the ingredients straight in the rubbish bin before I go to the trouble of trying to make something that is worth eating. That's where it usually ends up! For those of you that have trouble baking, lets swap secrets, you tell me how to make candy I will teach you how to bake!

Someone has given me a lovely looking bottle of elderflower cordial. I have never used cordials really and would love some ideas for some fun/delicious things to make with it. I thought about making a jelly with it, but I am not really sure what flavours would combine well with the elderflower. Do any of you use cordials often, or make your own ?

How very true and of course absolutely the most important thing of all. Thank you for the suggestions too I think I will stick with unintimidating. Since it is winter here a cook out is definately out of the question, but something nice and warming would go down well. I think I am going to do a nice Roast chicken with thyme and lemon with a garlic and yoghurt sauce ( in a jug so they can choose to put it on or not, as they wish ) a selection of seasonal roast veges, most likely kumara, potato, baby onions and yams roasted with some nice fresh rosemary sprigs. I think I have decided on a chocolate tart with some fresh sliced pears and a handful of honeyed walnuts for dessert. Or perhaps a Gascon apple pie ( made with apples, brandy,nuts and filo pastry ) Followed up with some nice homemade cookies and coffee. Hopefully none of that will be too overpowering for them. btw, I am definately going to stay well clear of anything called cheese surprises :)

Want to make me feel small and pathetic? I would not mind being humiliated in this way any time :)

I am REALLY hoping that we are not going to be invited over for another meal in this lifetime. If we are we decided that maybe we would suggest going out instead or perhaps a picnic lunch where we can take all three of our very noisey children. I think that would do the trick hehe

I honestly don't think they eat out very much. The hubby of the couple was telling his wife how lovely the meal was and what a nice treat to have something so good. He was absolutely genuine! My husband and I could barely get the meal down it was just so blah.. and I don't consider myself to be a really picky person. I think this was the couple that frozen dinners and instant meals were created for! I suspect that might be the kind of thing they usually eat.

I use one of two methods for getting those lovely little cloves free of their papery wrapping. The flat of the knife technique or cut the very tip and the very bottom off the clove and then make a slit down the length of the clove not quite all the way through so it is cut in half, the skin then slides off in one easy piece, very quick and no smashing the smitherines out of the garlic :)

I love brown rice, and we have it quite often. One of our fav ways to eat brown rice that is really simple is this. Cook 2 cups brown rice - rapid boil method seems to work well so the rice still have a bit of texture to it - drain and cool Add in around 80 - 100 grams of sliced almonds or toasted pinenuts 1 cup of fresh or canned corn kernels half a red bell pepper diced one stick of celery sliced finely Italian flat leaf parsley to taste salt/ fresh ground pepper olive oil and lemon juice to lightly coat rice tossed through A lovely summer rice salad great with cold meats , instead of the lemon and olive oil you can substitute it with a wonderful garlicky aolii

Thanks for the chuckle the sad thing was that I think she really tried hard to make a nice meal! That is what was so scary about it all, I can't imagine what they would eat normally.

We have some aquaintances coming for dinner on Saturday and I have a bit of a dilemma. We were invited to their home for dinner more than a month ago and I ate the worst meal of my life at their house. Don't get me wrong they are very nice people. But I don't think a cookbook has ever entered their house. We were served rice which was a small miracle she somehow managed to have it slushy and gluey and lumpy all at the same time. Vegetables that were microwaved beyond recognition in olive oil and salt and pepper. And a pile of ground beef with one mushroom cut into slices that she called " beef stroganoff " No seasonings, nothing. ::sigh::.. anyway .. these people are coming for dinner, and I don't want to embarass them by cooking something that seems really extravagant, I also don't want to cook anything that has very strong flavours, since they are used to eating very bland food. So I am in a bit of a bind with respect to what to make. I would really welcome any ideas at all for a meal which is nice but not showy.. Thanks

I have to say it ... I am a closet tapioca pudding fan.. I like sago too.. sigh .. I don't know how after all this time and all the good food in the world.. I still like Tapioca pudding. A comfort food I guess, reminds me of being little and watching TV in my PJs with a bowl of creamy sweet tapioca pudding. Ok I think with this post I have just destroyed any possibility of having some credibility on this site :)

I pondered a while over replying to this thread. Since I am not American I wonder if I have any right at all to tell you what your national dish is. The first thing that sprung to mind like the rest of you was hotdogs and hamburgers. Then I thought nahhh .. those two things barely qualify as food based on the way they are usually prepared. My thoughts then turned to some of the things that for me opitimise American cuisine. Biscuits and Gravy, red flannel hash, cowboy baked beans and country ham. Grits. All the wonderful spicy cujun cooking that is just mouth wateringly good when it is prepared with zest and a heavy hand on the hot stuff! Gooey Fudgy brownies and Pumpkin pie. NY Cheesecake.. nothing like it!. Key Lime pie and those wonderful ribs that Americans do so well. Po'boys and NY Bagels.. now those are things worthy of being proud of as Americans :) Forget the hamburger and the hotdog.. go for Blackened fish and pie that makes your hips bigger just looking at it

I love Kulfi, but can't seem to get it right.. always turns out too " chewy " so I am going to be interested to see the recipes :)

Last night.. a rushed dinner to feed a small army Fresh fettucine with carbonara sauce and hot buttered leeks and bacon. Some fresh parmesan grated over the top. Rhubarb and almond jalousie with thick cream for dessert.

I am one of those people that will eat just about anything and like most things. But Cilantro/corriander just makes me want to run to the nearest bathroom and wash my mouth out with soap.. it would taste better! There is nothing I hate more than ordering something WITHOUT Corriander to see those offensive little green sprigs sitting on my plate tainting the rest of the dish. Tamarillos are another .. even the smell makes me feel ill. Lastly and fortunately this is not the kind of thing that you have to eat too often. Crocodile steaks.. they are truely disgusting.. like chewy old smelly fish.. bleh

JD that is so funny - you gave me a good laugh there, I can just imagine the immigration officers doing that. 3 sheep would hardly be worth mentioning. Thanks for sharing that story :)

I just about choked on my toast and marmalade when I read your post about the price!!!!!!!!!!! 9 quid!!! that is so expensive!! 9 quid is about $27.00. I could buy a leg of mutton here for about $10.00 and a leg of lamb for about $15.00. You are paying 3 times what we pay here. Maybe there is some advantage to living in a country that has 70 million wool clad residents afterall.

Ok it sounds like I might have to try it again with all these skate advocates here. I love fish of almost any kind and I was so suprised to find one that I did not like! I don't think it was frozen, since here by law the seller must state if fish has been frozen when you buy it so you don't take it home and re-freeze it. Here you can only buy it on the bone.. wonder if I could convince my fishmonger to fillet it for me :)

Just out of interest, was it expensive? Here Mutton is waaay cheaper than lamb. Not hard to find at all. I am not sure how much mutton NZ exports, since the demand overseas seems to be for lamb. I have dropped the New Zealand Beef and Lamb marketing board an email to see what they have to say about it all :)

hmm ... I could not honestly say .. since I had cooked the garlic etc first and the aroma of that was very pervasive