Feeding +20 people in 20 minutes...

A VERY INFORMAL AFFAIR
ELLE’S BIRTHDAY
BRING SWIMWEAR AND DRINK
MEAT WILL BE PROVIDED

Flo and I have our birthdays 4 days apart in the sunny month of August. This has long meant a month’s worth of excuses to drink twice as much champagne as would be reasonable to celebrate one person’s birthday. This year was no exception.

Our two birthday parties accidentally and amusingly reflect our differences in personality and approach. Unfortunately this comes with an apology from me. At my affair, all the champagne had been poured pre-dinner, causing my 27 guests to strip the laden table of its food within 3 minutes of it being put out. As a result, foodie photos are thin on the ground. Luckily I borrowed one of my recipes from here (thanks Rose), so you can see what it looked like. The others you'll have to imagine.

First, the setting. Sunny Sussex with the weather on our side.

…that’s the idyllic bit over.

People arrived for the early afternoon and immediately jumped into the pool whilst I prepared Piña Coladas in the shade. My recipe is easy to follow, can be bought in almost any convenience store because it started off as an improvisation on holiday. It is also the lowest calorie way of making Piña Coladas that I know of (I challenge anyone to come up with a lower cal version)… and just as tasty.

For the Piñas:

1 carton Pineapple Juice

1 tin coconut milk

¼ Litre white Mount Gay (I always use Mount Gay because it’s pre-infused with nutmeg and other spices and I can’t stand white Bacardi)

Nutmeg and cinnamon to taste

Pour together and shake hard, serve over Ice with an extra sprinkling of Nutmeg and cinnamon. If you don’t have a cocktail shaker, you can do this in a 2 litre water or soft drink bottle. It gives exactly the same effect but looks slightly less Tom Cruise.

These got everyone nicely in the mood, using Flo's left-over Flamingo straws.

As the sun set, we started on the champagne.

Katy wears, violet mini-dress H&M, I wear floral prom dress, Century 21 New York, Lipstick Top Shop Rio, Rio

I’ll only dwell briefly on the food, as there’s no photography of my own but I will say that preparations the night before paid off. It took me exactly 20 minutes (glass of fizz in hand) to get food for nearly 30 people on the table thanks to having pre-prepared the burger patties and pre-fried my fritters, along with my coca-cola pulled pork simmering away in the slow cooker from the morning.

I served: 

Lamb, mint and shallot burgers

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Beef, coriander and chilli burgers

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Coca-cola pulled pork

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Courgette and cheddar fritters

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Home made chilli hummus

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Chilled balsamic-roast pepper salad 

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Green salad picked from the garden

To make the burgers: 

Add 2 packs of your mince of choice to 2 egg yolks, your shallots (finely chopped) and your herbs and spices (mint for lamb, coriander and chilli for beef). Mix by hand, adding bread crumbs until stiff enough to form solid patties - you can speed this up with a little flour too if your egg yolks were large. I stored these over night in greaseproof paper and then fried them for 3 minutes per side on the night. 

To make the Pork:

1 1/ 2 kg of rolled pork shoulder. Cut off the fat from the outside and place in your slow cooker. Cover with coca-cola and 3/4 bottle of BBQ sauce (I used jerk), then cook on fast for 4 hours, then switch to the slow setting for another 3 hours. After the pork has done its time, take it out, drain it in a sieve - saving the liquid- and flake the meat with a fork. Place back in the slow cooker with the remainder of the sauce and a little of its original liquid. Cover and leave for another hour on fast. Finally drain, re-flake and serve with seeded baps, coleslaw and mustard.

To make the fritters: 

Pre-heat your oven to 200. Grate 1kg potatoes with 1/2 kg courgettes, lightly sprinkle with salt and leave for 1/2 hour. Whilst you're waiting, thinly chop a handful of chives and grate a whole packet of mature cheddar. When the 1/2 hour's up, place the grated potatoe and courgette in a dish cloth and squeeze as much water out as possible. This should soak through at least 3 dish cloths. Add in the cheddar and 4 whisked eggs. Mix together by hand, adding in plain flour as you go until the mixture forms a runny dough. Heat the oil in your frying pan until its rising off the pan a little and dollop on serving spoon sized amounts of the dough - cook these like american pancakes in your pan - pressing down on them to make them nice and flat and evenly cooked - should take about 2 minutes per side. Once they're solid, cook them on a roasting tray in the oven for another 5 minutes, cool a little and serve. The beauty of these is that they can be re-heated and the cheese melting will make them soft again, as though they were just made - a rare quality in a fritter.

After dinner the festivities got into full swing with Robbie’s golden rum sangria:

For the Sangria:

2 bottles of Verdicchio (the sweeter, the better)

½ Kg white grapes, halved

1 tsp rose essence

½ litre Mount Gay Extra Old

Muddle together in a jug over ice, drain to serve into chilled, large wine glasses (I prefer mine smooth) or pour straight, grapes, ice and all for a messier more-sangria-like cocktail.

We danced until 5 to my Heaven and Elle club night playlist (the more delicate souls amongst you, don't click on the link), with a midnight swim and some cavorting on hay bales - the less said about that, the better. 

Louby lous got tired and needed to be put to bed early