For a late Summer night, in pictures

Last week was a busy one and it ended with a gorgeous gathering of friends here at our Table.

Menu for a late Summer night

Saturday's guests will enjoy:

To start
Rare roasted beef, garden salad and butternut squash crisps

To follow
Cod with braised lentils and proscuitto

To finish
Home grown apple and rhubarb crumble with elderflower ice cream.

For an Autumn state of mind, in pictures.

This menu is definitely up there with one I'd most like to eat myself featuring several of my favourite things. We welcomed guests, some new to the supper club experience, a couple of fellow supper club hosts and some experienced supper clubbers too. There was fun, laughter and lots of "mmms" at the Table and a guest appearance from E, who did not hear my plea on Friday and was simply desperate to meet the guests (and then feign shyness). It's a good job she's cute!

To welcome Homemade buttery oat biscuits with stilton mousse and apple.

To amuse Butternut squash, ginger and chilli soup.

To start Venison carpaccio, parsnip puree, parsnip crisps, Parmesan and rocket.

To follow Armstrong's Hake, creamed cabbage and bacon, crisp potatoes.

To finish Rum and raisin ice cream, pear crumble, brandy snaps.

For our faraway friends, in words and pictures.

We absolutely love living Edinburgh. In fact, the only thing we would change is to have all of our wonderful friends and family live here too. We often hanker for a long walk, a cup of tea, familiar laughter, sharing ordinary everyday moments with those we love. 

With the happy excuse (we're sticking to it) of more birthday celebrations, we got to do just that and welcome some of our dearest friends (and others in spirit) to do all of the things we miss, together, and to indulge in a Charlie and Evelyn's style dinner. The menu was, like the company, sunny, warm, comforting and a rare treat created by Mark Sargeant for friends, cooked by us and possibly recognised by avid readers of Waitrose Kitchen (September 2012).

Hot smoked salmon mousse, buttery homemade oat biscuits, served on a fabulous shoal of fish charger (a well chosen birthday gift, thanks to The Riachs...expect to see more of that here).

Stilton gougeres (also served on an excellent birthday present, this time a piece of Edinburgh Skyline Highland Stoneware, thanks to The Reids).

To start Smoked duck, fig and orange salad.

To follow Rock turbot (rather than monkfish) with sweetcorn succotash.

To finish Peach, nectarine and apricot crumble, blackberry ripple ice cream, brandy snaps (next time we'll try Mark's suggested maple mascarpone).

Happy days.

Brandy (free) snaps

This morning, I am making that tea room classic brandy snaps. Conjuring up memories of doilies and cream oozing from the crispy curls. These brandy snaps will not be filled with cream however, they will stand as wafers on tonight's cinnamon ice cream and add some extra crunch to the juicy plum crumbles.

The recipe I'm following is South African and uses honey (rather than golden syrup) and no brandy (practically healthy). So why the name? Some quick online research offers several possible explanations including the most obvious that brandy should be added to the sticky mixture, or that they should be enjoyed with a snifter of brandy or even that brandy should be stirred into the cream filling. Any ideas?

Tonight we're serving them brandy free.

If you've never made them before, they're surprisingly easy although my mix needed to chill overnight to achieve the required firmness. I found for optimum results, baking for ten minutes at 180 worked best and cooling for four minutes before rolling (around a wooden spoon handle) achieved the best curls! Well, just in case you were wondering.

Here are the photos step by step:


From this...

...to this.