Austerity Feast

Wonderful weather prompted us to invite a few friends over for a mid-afternoon meal to be eaten in the garden on Sunday. The same weather had kept me from shopping, so I had to improvise with stuff from the garden and stores. Not exactly an austerity feast, but we resisted the temptation to rush out and buy a ton of ingredients to feed the five thousand - well, seven.

Last of the Swiss chard made a good soup with a couple of onions, some potatoes to thicken it, and liquid from a roasting chicken (defrosted from our intervention stock the day before). Same chicken (covered and stuffed with herbs to lift it) with a load of lettuce and other leaves fresh from the garden went farther as a salad than it would have as a chunk of meat each. And in between those courses three pizzas with different toppings, cut into slices and presented on a huge plate, filled stomachs and interested palates (especially the anchovy and chilli one, hot hot hot). 

On a perfect sunny afternoon you can get away with a lot. No pudding - just cheeses - met with approval instead of violence, as we could cut and nibble away while talking. Maybe we are going to have the first proper summer for about six years. The sunshine makes a huge difference. Our guests brought some good wines, we added to the list, made sure everything was well chilled (only whites and roses in evidence) and the warmth turned them into something special. 

One more 'course' preceded the above, a cheap and cheerful Cava chilled to death and made into rhubarb bellinis. Hugh F-W's idea, 500g of rhubarb stewed with sugar and orange juice for 15 minutes then the syrup (once chilled) sieved off and used 1:4 with the fizz. Surprisingly it was absolutely lovely, but then again we did have that sun.