I realise this is the first monthly dinner party I’ve held from my 40before40 list (well technically, it’s my second.  I feel I can claim last month’s Bolognese night).  Cheekily, I didn’t specify how many months though! Pressure, be gone…

I’ve never held a Halloween dinner party before.  In my experience, Halloween hasn’t been the biggest event in Australia yet it grows bigger and bigger every year!  And it allows for a lot of fun with experimenting too.

For this first dinner party, I invited three lovely ladies…Karinda, Lou and Anna.  In the end, I decided against fancy dress but we all ended up dressed in black – well done to us and our psychic abilities!   It was actually the entree that inspired me to have a Halloween party (not to mention it was October, duh), and once I’d decided that, the rest of the menu just fell into place:

Nibbles
Drunken prawns
Black cats
Blood and Gore Dip with Halloween shaped toasted bread
Served with a Gin Garden cocktail, followed by Edinburgh Palace by Philip Shaw, an Australian sparkling with a very Halloweenish label kindly brought by Karinda and Piper Heidsieck Champagne from Lou (and another from me, ha)

 

 

Entrée
Seared Scallops with Quinoa and Pumpkin
Served with Champagne

Main
Crispy Skinned Salmon with Israeli Cous Cous
Served with roasted green veg
Served with Champagne, Ballewindi Chardonnay kindly given to me by Anna and G&T’s

Dessert
Graveyard Mango Panna Cotta
Drinks as above

The Gin Garden cocktail was so divine (and I’m not normally a gin drinker, yet I have three bottles, go figure); it was refreshing and went nicely with the nibbles.  I feel those three bottles may not make it through the summer…

Now the drunken prawns somewhat resemble eyes, don’t you think?  I recommend these as they’re ridiculously easy to make; they can be made, assembled and chilled ahead of time and are light and tasty.  Not to mention they’re black and kinda orange, theme suitable – tick.

You may notice a slight resemblance between the kitties and the penguins from the last Bolognese night, no?  I tried using black food dye gel (I got it at Woolworths) and I think for the kitties it worked quite well though the gel made the cream cheese a dark grey, rather than black and I was worried if I added too much it would affect the flavour.  They were sadly missing their tails and whiskers (time became a small thing to overcome), but were still very tasty.  Unlike me, make sure you wear some gloves when assembling them – I soaked the carrot feet and noses in black food gel and water, and whilst they were dry when I was assembling them, I ended up with black splodges on my fingers.  Entirely Halloween appropriate though I must note that black cats are beautiful and not evil in any way.  Please adopt them and love them.

The Blood and Gore Dip (my name for it) was a bit more involved and just required time, as the tomato jam base was homemade, as was the pesto though pesto is quick to whip up (one of these days, the burrata will be homemade too, stay tuned…could be tuning for a while though!).  I urge you to make the tomato jam; it’s a super easy hands off recipe baked in the oven.  Just keep an eagle on it – I cooked it for 15mins less the recipe stated and it was almost past the point of no return.  The tomato jam will be made regularly now – so good on or with so many other things.  I didn’t use the pesto recipe from the blog, I used another that has less basil.  This nibble was so tasty with just a hint of heat, and it looks so oozy and green and bloody that I think it worked well for the theme, and of course it had bats, witches hats, ghosts and pumpkin toasts surrounding it.

I’m all about foods that are quick and easy to share (ok, so that’s not entirely true) and if I’d been able to get ALL of the elements of the Seared Scallops with Quinoa and Pumpkin made ahead of time, it would have been a snap to pull together for serving.  But I only managed the pumpkin element earlier.  So had to make the quinoa salad whilst the ladies were chatting over the nibblies, and then cook the scallops.  I believe this is my first time cooking scallops.  And I’m pretty damn impressed with myself.  I heated the pumpkin before plating, topped with the cooled quinoa salad and finally the scallops.  Even if I do say so myself, it’s an elegant entrée that tastes delicious with lovely textures to pull it together.  I recommend you make this entrée too.  It’s also fabulous served on wheaton biscuits as a canape (I had them with champagne the next day minus the scallops, absolutely delish).

I was planning on making the Salmon with Creamy Israeli Cous Cous black and again, kinda orange, to suit Halloween but decided against the black for the cous cous.  Decided the white could be somewhat ghostly instead.  I have to tell you, this is a dish that I would serve on a weeknight, it’s so easy to make, and will become a regular on my menu as it’s delicious as well.  Donna Hay – I thank you (though Donna, my salmon skin did not crispen up in the oven…?).  And served with balsamic roasted asparagus and broccolini cooked in the oven at the same time as the meal, what could be easier?  Plates were pretty much scraped clean so I think it’s safe to say that all the ladies enjoyed it.

And then it was time for dessert.  If you read my Bolognese # 8 post, you may recall that I had a bit of a fail with converting gelatin in a recipe.  Well, I thought I’d give it another go.   Different recipe this time – Mango Panna Cotta – and they kindly included their own gelatin conversion table too.  Yay, chances of success improved. So, here’s my Halloween take on the Mango Pannacotta (the RIP may have been added to the image, again, time issues, but you get the gist).  The mango jelly was sensational – great consistency and creamy.  The pannacotta, which I also added food dye too, was let’s say, very gelatiny, and not very black, cocoa would have worked better than the dye.  It was not rubber, like my last effort, but it wasn’t fantastic, which is what I always aim for with my food.  It’s not a fail, but there’s room for improvement!  The soil was kindly provided by my garden or perhaps Chocolate Ripple biscuits that I smooshed up, along with Scotch Finger biscuits for the tombstone, so good.  I will get my gelatin skills up to par, thanks guinea pigs in the meantime.

All in all, it was a really lovely night with my gorgeous friends, and that’s all one can ask for.  Happy Halloween Everyone!