Dinner For Neil's Work Friends

Seems like ages since I posted a chalk board menu. This was a very labor intensive meal that took me two days to pull off, and created a fair amount of anxiety.  Usually when I make a dinner party I make things I have made before, tonight was all about pushing the envelope.  Luckily it all worked out and several new favorites where discovered!

The fish balls and the friend dumplings where both good but the fish balls with the cucumber relish where a perfect combo of spicy hot and cool n'crunchy.  I made the wonton wrappers for the dumplings (yes I know they look like samosa) and found it to be very easy, the problem then of course is you have t cut them in to uniform size and well, that took a while...well worth the effort.

Sorry the pictures are so blurry, not sure what was happening I wasn't wine soaked enough to justify such shoddy cameraman-ship.

Above is the cucumber relish on the left and the peanut pineapple sauce on the right.  Originally I was going to make Pineapple Salsa but then decided that I wanted to make peanut sauce with pineapple in it.  What a great combo! 

To the top left of the cheese plate is a bowl that is hard to determine from this picture but it is the  honey coconut cashews  - WOW this is a very simple recipe with big rewards.  It was pointed out that the mixture could be flattened out to make granola bars (and of course you could had dried fruit or whatever).  I'll post the recipes in the coming days.

 

This pie was very time consuming and I had many problems along the way, like the glass candy thermometer breaking and shattering glass into the just finished custard.  Grrrrrrrrrrr.  But all in all it was a hit, , my thought on it is that it is the interplay of the crust with the thick mouse filling that makes it work and I think it might be better if made as a tart.  I served it with local strawberries that had mascreated in a little sugar and unsweetened whip cream.