dinner with the carrot cakes

As you have probably gathered we had Mr and Mrs Carrot Cake to dinner last night. We had a lovely evening. Got quite drunk, ate lots of food, and I think I have almost persuaded Mr Carrot Cake to get himself a Mac! Although that might just have been the drink. We had a Moroccan style evening. The first course consisted of butter bean dip, aubergine dip and roasted peppers with baked pitta breads (tear the pitta bread up into chunks, sprinkle a little olive oil, black pepper and some course sea salt, and bake on a high heat for about 5 minutes or so - turns them fantastically crispy). The main course was a version of this monstrosity that I made last year. This was an amazing mixture of couscous, fennel, red peppers, courgettes, aubergines, garlic cloves, red onion, sweet potato and huge chunks of spicy roasted lamb. The veg are all baked covered in olive oil and honey.

Anyway, my new sophisticated version involved dicing all the vegetables into one cm cubes and roasting in the same way. They were then mixed with couscous and packed into timbales. Very delicate and very delicious. These were served with lightly roasted lamb neck fillets and baby tomatoes, with a prune and ginger sauce ( which I have to admit to buying!)

Pudding was my patented Faux Chocolat Brulee (Mrs Carrot Cake is a chocoholic) with baby apples. This time I flavoured the chocolate mixture with Calvados.

Very, very tasty. Even if I say so myself.

Mrs McMuffin claims a thanks for choosing the vegetables with such care, and inspiring the meal.

Got to go now. I am starving and my roasted lamb shanks are waiting.