My Sunday Dinner

I’d like to think of My Sunday Dinners as a tradition I started 2 years ago, where the family gathers around the dining table for a meal together. In this age, it’s not as simple as it sounds, especially with teenage children who have their own activities. It requires everyone to make an effort to be home at the same time, mobile phones set aside (after the food pictures are taken), and talk to each other.

Last weekend was special …. Patrick’s 19th birthday celebration! Just the 4 of us spending time together over good food, delicious wines, honest conversation & music. What should I cook for dinner, that’s befitting of the occasion but does not require me to be in the kitchen for long?

Planning the menu…following is the conversation I have with myself!

1. What does everyone like to eat, and is easy to make so that I can spend time at the table with the family? Steak! Quality steak, with good marbling only requires a simple seasoning for the beefy flavours to shine through!!
2. What goes well with steak…Potatoes!  Cheesy potatoes! I can pre-boil the potatoes, then mash and season it while it’s still warm, in fact I can add brown butter, shallots, bacon bits and cheddar into the mash. Better still, put the mash in a pool of cream & cheese, so that it forms a cheesy custard when grilled.
3. Some greens…maybe beans! Par-boiled then fried with butter in the same pan as the bacon yumzz. Plated with the steak for a less guilty pleasure!

1. For starters, I was inspired by a recipe I saw on a cooking show. It had a dollop of yoghurt on which to rest the poached egg. I’m thinking of cream cheese, shallots and fresh tarragon to add to the yoghurt! Poached egg on top, decorated with fried cubes of cured lard, home-made pesto (easy to make ahead from fresh herbs in mom’s garden), mentaiko in my freezer!
2. Dessert! Since I have yoghurt and cream from other dishes, I will make frozen yoghurt. Just 3 ingredients (500g yoghurt, 120g cream, 165g sugar) whipped together then frozen. This will go perfectly with a sticky date pudding (made 1 day before), as the tangy yoghurt will balance the sweetness of the pudding and toffee sauce.

We had a great time together! Patrick helped me to poach the eggs, while the hubs and Jill helped to decorate the eggs and take beautiful pictures. The kids played us their favourite playlist, and showed us what was trending on the videos. Too many cocktails, and 2 bottles of wine later, we were ready for bed…ZZzzz