Illumination evening 2013

Starter with salmon

Apple Mac

Yesterday evening a group of great friends meet in my little garden for the annual illumination evening in my little park. While the starter was prepared by my cousin, we started the barbecue evening with a cocktail called Apple Mac, where I have got the recipe from this year´s Summer TV with Anne & Anders. We started by tasting the original recipe, and the majority decided it was to dominated of alcohol, so the amount of apple juice was increased. I will later share this adjusted recipe with you.

Hannibal the Cat - resting in the future olive grove

As starter we got a mix of olives, where all the stones afterwards were frown around in my little garden, so lets see, if I have an olive grove in 20 years time. As usual Hannibal the Cat was curious about, what was going on, so he took a little nap on the grass next to the tables.

As the "real" starter we got salmon slices rolled around a filling of cheese, fromage frais & dill served together with salad leafs, tomatoes, lemons and bread. A good start for the rest of the evening.

Cold slaw

The meat part of the main dish was ham mignon as the first part followed by a selections of some great tasting sausages :-)
The non meat part of the main dish was a selection of:

•  freshly dug up potatoes from the garden of my friends in Horsens.
• cold slaw made from pointed cabbage, cucumber, radish, Greek yogurt and traditional Danish smoked cheese (rygeost).
• Summer salad made from salad leafs (from the garden in Horsens), Summer white cabbage, garlic, asparagus, cucumber and date tomatoes
• tzatziki

Summer salad

Tzatziki

Twist bread baking "fancy" and "retro" style

As the finishing dish I have made dough ready for baking of twist bread, which we should bake over a fire bowl using some fancy twist bread stick with stainless steal for placement of the dough. It was almost before a "revolution" was breaking out in garden over the use of such fancy "kitchen equipment" among the guests. So some of the guests went looking for the fresh branches, as they wanted to make their twist bread in real retro style !!!

However, the "retro" bakers soon discovered, that a branch is giving a much smaller hole in the baked twist bread. And in this hole you can fill dark chocolate, strawberry jam, Nutella or Belgian nutella, which turned to be something of a hit.

While we were baking twist bread we could enjoy the illumination with tea lights of my garden. Sitting by a open fire has similar relaxing power as water for your busy mind.

Even though that the guests had to bring the food for this barbecue evening, they also brought some amazing hostess gifts. My cousin gave me a new cooking book called "Sunde kocherier", which I am looking forward to test out in kitchen.
My very good girl friend knows me to well, so she had found a small game called Box Quiz with the topic of food !!! She wisely enough decided not to choose the quiz with focus on cheese, as this would give me and other friends too big an advantages due to our educational back ground.
My good friends from Horsens had recently been in England, where they had found these two coasters with a cat drinking gin tonic :-)

Cheers for a great evening with very good food and some fantastic company of some great friends :-) You are all invited back for a new illumination evening in 2014.