Entertaining made easy!

Wow, what a weekend – I am completely exhausted but it was all worth it. We haven’t been entraining much in the last while and somehow we ended having three gatherings at our place in a row, pretty much coincidentally.

On Thursday I had quite a busy day and knew I would only get home late so I pre-prepared my fail safe Butter Chicken Curry with steamed rice and sambals and bought a slab of Cote d’or chocolate.

On Friday Adam and I cooked together with starters of Vietnamese spring rolls followed by a wild mushroom Laksa and ending off with a vanilla ice cream topped with amaretto and coffee. It was a surprisingly easy meal and right up my alley, flavours wise.

We had a big crowd for lunch on Saturday and I knew that some people would come early and some late, so I just made up a DIY selection of Mexican style dips and a big platter of nachos.

All the above meals took between 30 minutes to an hour to prepare and were so satisfying. Colourful, tasty, relatively well balanced and pretty inexpensive too. My guests were happy and I was happy that I hadn’t had to spend too much time preparing. Think I will be doing a lot more entertaining this spring!

I did also make a short video on how to make Vietnamese spring rolls as I have had many unsuccessful attempts before; and following this technique has made it so much easier for me.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Makes 10

100g of rice vermicelli noodles

¼ cucumber, julienned

Small bunch of spring onions, cut into diagonal pieces

Fresh coriander, mint and/or basil leaves, washed and picked

1 large carrot, julienned

1 cup of finely shredded cabbage

100g unsalted peanuts, roughly chopped

8 Spring roll rice rappers

Dipping sauce

¼ of a cup sweet chilli sauce

¼ of a cup soya sauce

2 Tbsp lemon juice

1 clove of garlic

1 cm of fresh ginger

Bring a medium pot of water to boil. Boil rice vermicelli 3 to 5 minutes and drain.

Fill a large bowl with warm water. Dip one wrapper into the hot water for 1 second to soften. Place the wrapper onto a plate and leave a few minutes until the wrapper is tender and pliable. In a row across the center, place a handful of vermicelli, fresh herbs and other ingredients leaving about 6cm uncovered on each side. Fold the uncovered sides inward, then tightly roll the wrapper.

In a small bowl, mix the dipping sauce ingredients.