Back to back...

I've just finished a busy dinner shift followed by a chilled lunch shift. It's always easier the next day, as I've had time to plan, I know what's in the fridge, and have had time to think about it over night.

So...the menus:

Dinner

Split Pea Soup
Shepherd's Pie With lentils, pureed chick peas, sauteed grated carrot and beetroot (which was left over from salad at lunchtime) onions and corn.

I'd had a shepherdress pie in mind, with a split pea gravy and carrots, cauliflower, onions and corn in the body of the pie. But in the end, the split peas became the soup (with extra water), and we served:

Steamed Carrots and Cauliflower with Lemon and Parsley Vinaigrette
Boiled beetroot with honey mustard dressing
Mixed Greens . This was stir fried beet greens with garlic and fresh ginger, mixed with steamed horta - a local wild spinach
Guacamole
Lettuce
And a beautiful fruit platter, again made by Carly, for dessert.

Yes, this menu does look a bit like last week's....but we have new guests, and it fit the things in the fridge! I also arrived at the kitchen very late, as a quick 2 hours trip to Rethymno turned out longer than planned. So it was a busy shift, and I didn't quite manage a proper break.


Lunch

Today was far more chilled.

Melanzane Senza Parmigiana This was a variant on the classic Eggplant with parmesan, but as we had only hard cheese, it became eggplant without!
Ruby Tuesday Cabbage Salad with beetroot feta dressing,and toasted sunflower seeds. I'm quite proud of this one. I pureed last night's leftover beetroot with its dressing - only a small container. Mixed in some olive oil and feta cheese and le voila.
Black Eyed Pea dip
Pasta Salad with peanut sauce, corn and green bell peppers I'm also quite pleased with this one.

Apple and Pear Spice Cake and muffins with tahini cream

All in all, not a bad effort!

Pizza Perfect

It's a yoga plus tradition that we welcome the guests with pizza and fruit punch on the terrace at 3pm. And today was my first time on the pizza shift this season.

Richard was lead cook, and, in my opinion, did a superb job on the dough and all the muscle work on the pizza - kneading the dough (twice!) and then rolling out all the bases so they were deliciously thin and crispy.

He also made garlic oil and herb oil (with rosemary) to drizzle on top.

We used chopped tomatos as a base, toppings of stir-fried beet greens, thinly sliced onions,red bell pepper/capsicum and courgettes peeled into thin strips, olives, feta or cheddar cheese.

I also made one pizza with a beetroot puree, mixed with herb oil containing rosemary for a magenta/purple pizza, with courgettes, feta, finely chopped red capsicums. Mmm, beetroot puree is something I'm going to explore more.

Maybe because the pizzas were so good, or because we have a good number of men among the guests (and the chaps eat more!), the oven was struggling to keep up with demand. And the coleslaw (grated white cabbage, carrot and hand-made mayonnaise with pumpkin seeds to garnish) disappeared quickly, as did the lettuce.

All in all I really enjoyed the shift, my first with Richard.

We have some lovely new guests too (who have been here before), so I'm really looking forward to this session.