On Saturday I managed to feed 10 members of my family and myself, without poisoning anyone; as it's been 48 hours I now feel confident enough to say this with a degree of sincerity. It was the latest in a "series" of lunches (that makes it sound wayyyyy more serious and formal than it is) that family peeps have been holding over the past 18 months. After two cousins, my mum's cousin and my Mum's turns coming and going it was basically my turn, plus having moved out again finally, I had my own kitchen.
Now, with my minimal cooking experience at cooking for any more than 2 let alone 11 people, everyone just said do a stew, do a stew, it's easy. I don't like stews. Yes, that is a sweeping and pretty incorrect statement really but they aren't my meal of choice. I then still thought that low and slow was the way to go, plus the budgetary factor playing in, and I settled on pork belly. Initially I was planning on cooking the Pork Belly, Beans and Watercress recipe from One by Florence Knight, but once I tripled the recipe and realised that I would need 2.25kg of butter I decided against, though still stuck with the beans. Ended up panicking and googling frantically on the Friday and ended up with this but ignored the onions. I went to the butcher to get the meat (£12 from Dombey's in the market which was seriously good value plus he de-boned and scored the rind for me) and didn't really think much about it until I went to get it out the fridge before putting it in the oven and realised it had nipples......... Ew.
I mean, I don't know what else I was expecting. It's the bottom of a pig. That's where nipples are. Still was completely gross and when it came to carving I made my cousin cut them off. Though we only removed two of four so two got eaten...
I also made a couple of mezze from Sabrina Ghayour's Persiana (Cacik, Borek (actually made my Mum do these as I got stressed), Batijan al Rahib (smoked aubergine salad, got so much burnt aubergine skin everywhere trying to do this) and Feta and Pistachio dip. Meant to go and buy nice flatbreads from the market but totally didn't have time and ended up with Tesco's pitta bread which wasn't quite the authentic vibe I was going for...
Then drunkenly had to make Nigella's Chocolate and Pear Pudding in my car-crash kitchen, using a food processor which I definitely didn't clean particularly well so had the odd bit of feta and chilli still lurking around. But it worked and I ate it and everyone else ate it so it wasn't that bad.
The night ended with a Christmas tree getting attacked by three of us in the middle of Atlantic Road, but it was dead so I don't feel too guilty.
All in all though, am pretty bloody pleased with myself for actually managing to cook it all. To some people, that wouldn't be much, but to me, it was a really big deal. And like I said at the beginning, no one died, always a bonus.
Now, with my minimal cooking experience at cooking for any more than 2 let alone 11 people, everyone just said do a stew, do a stew, it's easy. I don't like stews. Yes, that is a sweeping and pretty incorrect statement really but they aren't my meal of choice. I then still thought that low and slow was the way to go, plus the budgetary factor playing in, and I settled on pork belly. Initially I was planning on cooking the Pork Belly, Beans and Watercress recipe from One by Florence Knight, but once I tripled the recipe and realised that I would need 2.25kg of butter I decided against, though still stuck with the beans. Ended up panicking and googling frantically on the Friday and ended up with this but ignored the onions. I went to the butcher to get the meat (£12 from Dombey's in the market which was seriously good value plus he de-boned and scored the rind for me) and didn't really think much about it until I went to get it out the fridge before putting it in the oven and realised it had nipples......... Ew.
I mean, I don't know what else I was expecting. It's the bottom of a pig. That's where nipples are. Still was completely gross and when it came to carving I made my cousin cut them off. Though we only removed two of four so two got eaten...
I also made a couple of mezze from Sabrina Ghayour's Persiana (Cacik, Borek (actually made my Mum do these as I got stressed), Batijan al Rahib (smoked aubergine salad, got so much burnt aubergine skin everywhere trying to do this) and Feta and Pistachio dip. Meant to go and buy nice flatbreads from the market but totally didn't have time and ended up with Tesco's pitta bread which wasn't quite the authentic vibe I was going for...
Then drunkenly had to make Nigella's Chocolate and Pear Pudding in my car-crash kitchen, using a food processor which I definitely didn't clean particularly well so had the odd bit of feta and chilli still lurking around. But it worked and I ate it and everyone else ate it so it wasn't that bad.
The night ended with a Christmas tree getting attacked by three of us in the middle of Atlantic Road, but it was dead so I don't feel too guilty.
All in all though, am pretty bloody pleased with myself for actually managing to cook it all. To some people, that wouldn't be much, but to me, it was a really big deal. And like I said at the beginning, no one died, always a bonus.
Those nipples are too funny but glad it turned out ok in the end
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