Stunning way to start a dinner party

Tonight's Menu = caramelised walnut, beetroot, pear and goats cheese salad, followed by rare roast rib of beef, finished with a dessert duo. 4 mini pear and almond tarts and 4 mini chocolate souffle tarts.


So I made up this salad, I wanted to achieve a textural medley with the perfect blend of sweet and savoury, now you'd have to ask the dinner guests if they agree, but I think I succeeded.

First I put a few handfuls of baby rocket on the platter and gently tossed with some extra virgin olive oil, mostly for aesthetic reasons, it looks prettier when the leaves are glossy.

Next I dotted the leaves the roughly quartered segments of roasted beetroot (the beetroots were some that I had bought on special ages ago but didn't actually need for a recipe so i boiled them whole, with the skin and tail on, and froze them. I defrosted the beetroots, roughly quartered and roasted them with salt, pepper and a little olive oil at about 180℃ until tender).

Next step is dotting the salad with soft goats cheese and quartered, but thinner more like segments of firm but ripe pear, I used Corella, do this just before serving so they don't turn brown.

The best part of this salad is definitely the caramelised walnuts.
to make the caramelised walnuts I just roasted the walnuts in the oven at 180℃ for about 10 minutes until golden, but keep a close watch in case they burn. In a saucepan put 1 cup of caster sugar and put over medium heat and allow to dissolve. Because you haven't added any water to the sugar you can stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is a golden amber colour. Once you have achieved the right colour add the nuts and stir quickly to coat the nuts completely and turn out onto baking paper using 2 forks to separate the nuts before they form a clump.

Scatter the nuts over the salad, just before serving to ensure they don't loose their crunch.

And Voila! On the table, is now an amazingly tasty salad with varied, but complementary textures and the caramelised walnuts look so impressive that people will be taking about this one for ages.
Only one difference I would make for next time, the salad lacked astringency to counter the sweetness of the pear and walnuts so when I tossed the rocket leaves with EVOO, I would add a couple good squeezes of ultra fresh lemon juice.

Just to gild the lily, I served the salad with some lightly blanched asparagus spear which I then wrapped with prosciutto and grilled on the BBQ.

SOUR CREAM COFFEE CAKE WITH APPLE-DATE FILLING

OK, so when I saw this recipe in '1,001 low fat vegetarian recipes' by Sue Spitler, I was excited. Pretty simple recipe. I love apple and date combo, sold! I was reading the recipe and I turned to my mum and said " they forgot to put the coffee in the recipe!" her reply " not a coffee cake, it's like a tea cake, you eat it with coffee".  So very literal of me, but awesome cake.

Here we go, as low fat and low in sugar as I could manage with it still tasting amazing.

1/2 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup of unsweetened apple sauce

(this can be a little hard to find,
so you could always 

just stew a few apples with
no additives and use that)

1 cup of Stevia, granulated

1/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 cups of plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons of bicarb soda

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 cups of low fat sour cream

APPLE-DATE FILLING 

(I recommend doubling the apple-date filling)

1/2 cup of dried apples, coarse chop

1/4 cup of chopped and pitted dates

2/3 cup of water, minimum

1/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon of plain flour

1/4 teaspoon on nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon of salt

CREAM CHEESE ICING

2 tablespoons of light/low fat cream cheese (Philadelphia)

1 cup of powdered/ icing sugar