Sister In-Law's (SIL) Birthday

Just another excuse between blog posts!

I was hit from behind by another cyclist and finished up with two broken ribs the previous Sunday.

Its been over a week and I seem to becoming a little more human.

Not wanting to spoil Sue's cooking project and my sister in-law's birthday, I feigned my manly bravado of feeling no pain so that all would still go ahead - silly me. I spent the Monday having scans, etc to discover two broken ribs but fortunately no spleen damage. You'd think that being home for a week convalescing, I would have time to blog - nope!!!

Back to the subject in hand. It was only this week that our friends on the river Cher (Carol and Mikee - well Carol really) commented that Sue hasn't posted on her kitchen escapades. As I mentioned earlier our sister in-law, young Janice Gibbons asked Sue to be her host chef for her birthday lunch with her immediate family.

 Over to you Sue

We started with a minty, fresh pea soup with pan fried scallops and proscuitto crumbs. In my new soup plates. Everyone was happy,,,, even my niece's  husband who received a fair bit of teasing that it was broccoli. He doesn't eat broccoli. Phew...what a relief!'

My SIL has plenty of bench space. I managed to take up most of it!  Please note my glass of WATER in the foreground.

I made my own confit duck. Proud of myself. This started at a restaurant a couple of weeks ago when I ordered confit duck and it wasn't. Shock! Horror! It was slow roasted and quite pleasant but not the real thing. A three day process but worth it. Made potato bake thing with cream in muffin tins (not sure what to call them..galettes?) The duck was on a bed of garlicky spinach. 

My SIL made some lentils to go on the plate because she thought I was going to starve everyone. Ha! They were good though. I made a dark caramel and turned it into a sauce with orange juice, red wine vinegar and chicken stock and then reduced it until it was a bit syrupy, then mounted it with a little butter. Was all good.

Jan and I both absolutely lurve it when Leon tells us to smile...but we sort of did.
No pics of dessert by the look of it. I made a Tia Maria baked cheesecake covered on top with a dark chocolate ganache laced with more Tia Maria. Nom nom nom

Just as an addendum - Jan's husband John knew that I needed some pain medication and a glass of scotch was handed to me on arrival, followed by several glasses of red wine.

You will be glad to hear that when it was time to go home, I poured Leon in the car for the trip as a passenger. No sleep that night, and next day we spent 6 hours in the emergency department. Men!