mega 13 course birthday meal

It was Dougall's birthday a couple of weeks ago and I made him and a friend a 13 course meal. I cooked and cooked and cooked until I could cook no more. It took about a day and an evening and here's the result: (order may have been different, I can't remember it all now!!)

cream cheese and walnut and roasted peppers palmiers

- tastey! 

Spiced macadamia nuts - very nice but didn't realise how expensive macadamia nuts are!

Toasted walnut and stilton balls - not for the faint-hearted

gazpacho with caraway and pimiento twist - twists were fun to make

cherry soup - reminiscent of mulled wine and liked by all

Forgot to take photo - courgette noodles with chashew and sun dried tomato sauce. courgette in thinly peeled sliced are delicious alternate to noodles, who would have thought...

Spicy coconut and beetroot soup, rather lovely and the herby yogurt that went with it rather unnecessary. lots of work though.

asparagus spirals - would have been yummy if i hadn't picked dud, rather stringy asparagus!

Not a success - apple crumble cocktail. Would have been better if I had checked if we had ice. We didn't. So the crumbled digestive and apple sauce that was supposed to be decorative on top just floated around in the drink in a bad way. oh well.

Stuffed tomato - with gruyere and cream sauce. Nick's fave, although there is a LOT of cream in the sauce, so could probably be better with less cream and just the gruyere. Dougs said nice rocket and dressing underneath!

meh. Parsnip pudding. just a tarted up version of mashed parsnip really, not that exciting.

Blueberry tart - a fave from my childhood, wanted to see if it's still good. it is. delicious almond crust and fat blueberries covered with apricot and grand marnier jelly.

chewy biscotti a success with everyone - lots of dried fruit in those! served with limoncello - recipe said to make it, but that was one step too far so I bought a bottle. Great with the biscotti. 

So that was the whole meal - recipes are here: (I had to add a half pint of water to the courgette recipe, otherwise it wouldn't blend, still tasted great.)

can't find the palmiers recipe, but plenty similar on BBC good food website. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spiced_macadamia_nuts_76146

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/stiltonandtoastedwal_78906

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gazpachoshotswithpim_93819

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/warm_cherry_soup_15890 (totally ignored the thing about the cherry stones because it was too hard and I had no hammer)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spicybeetrootandcoco_85158

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/16/vegetarian-main-course-recipes (courgette noodles are in this article)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/asparagus_and_puff_00402

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/dec/04/christmas-vegetarian-recipes-shaun-hill (parsnip pudding is in this article)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/biscotti_with_limoncello_55604

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gruyre_stuffed_tomatoes_08076

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/apple_crumble_cocktail_95570

you'll have to email me if you want the blueberry tart recipe, that's old and not online as far as I know!