Menu for saturday dinner with friends

"Easy-to-make" menu for a pleasant saturday dinner with friends. START with a creamy mushroom toast with Mum's handpicked chanterelles from "Sörmland" in sweden. Prepare a nice thick bechamel sauce with a little bit of garlic, onion, parsley and a dash of white wine. Add the fried mushrooms. For the MAIN COURSE grilled salmon on a bed of creamy spinach sauce and fresh pasta. Grill the salmon in oven, then place it on the fresh pasta with some spinach sauce, (simply prepared in the pan with thick cream and herb spices). Decorate with lemon. DESSERT : For the lemon tart : mix 2 dl of water with juice and peel of two lemons, add 2 tablespoons of maizena. Boil up and stir. Separate 4 eggs, beat the whites and add the egg yolks to the sauce after cooling off. When whites are hard and "white" add 1,5 dl of sugar, mix carefully. Place lemon sauce in  the pastry, smudge carefully the egg whites on top of it and bake in oven for appr. 15-20 minutes. The whole meal goes well with a  fresh and fruity chardonnay from our region, Burgundy! Enjoy!!

New year's buffet

What a joy to be invited for a delicious New year's buffet with all the good ingredients! To start champagne  of course, and my dear fiend Lenia (who is an excellent cook) had prepared grilled mini-toasts with ham & cheese, and homemade samosas with either hot goat cheese and honey or shrimps with mango. Sauce to go and fresh strawberries and rasberries. Yum! Have a hard time remembering all that we ate but, to start with lovely fresh oysters (direct from a who is an oyster farmer friend), smoked salmon with a creamy herb sauce and toast, small lobsters with aoli and small potatoes, goose liver with confit, cheese platter (Chaource, Mont d'Or, Roquefort, Chèvre, Epoisses, Soumatrain, Comté etc). For the sweet part a blend of small "petit fours" and a homemade yule log. Last but not least a Chablis Grand Cru Réhoboam (6 litres!), the rest is history ... Happy 2012 everyone!