French 75, Negroni, Grand Mimosa's & a Rusty Nail

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Were some of the cocktails I was rustling up tonight.  Turns out I am quite the mixologist...but more on that later :-)

Tesco delivery arrived just after 8am.  A couple of food items that I'd ordered for Hogmanay had a best before date of 30th so returned them along with some of the 16 croissants they'd sent in substitution of the 4 I'd ordered.  We do like a toasted croissant but even with guests visiting, we wouldn't get through 16!

And so I hit the ground running with the final food prep.  Started with the veggies. Carrots peeled and chopped, asparagus blanched and wrapped in parma ham and onto baking tray with a grating of parmesan cheese, baby potatoes into a food bag with olive oil, chopped garlic and rosemary ready to be tipped onto an oven hot tray and roasted till crisp.  

Moved onto the salmon sides, drizzled with fresh lemon and lime juice, some grated rind of both, and lemon and lime slices to decorate.  Last but not least the salsa verde.

David hadn't been idle during this and had finished getting the house ready and the hall floor washed, as well as some last minute shopping.

All our prepping over the last couple of days worked as when Alan and Gail and Natalie and Jim arrived (five minutes early) followed by Ele and Kenny (a respectable five minutes late.  They know us well :-)) the candles were lit, the nibbles were on the coffee table and the cocktails were ready to go!  lol

Jackets off, greetings over, I got down to making the cocktails.  OMG!  There's a reason I've never worked behind a bar (actually there are many reasons! hahahaha!) the main one being my cavalier attitude to measures!  I have three lots of measures and they're all different sizes but I decided to go with the largest ones, which is fine till I realised instead of a half measure of one ingredient, I'd used a full measure, so to keep the drink balanced I had to use double measures of other other ingredients.  I have to say no one was complaining!  And I made such a mess with the fruit garnishes.  For reasons known to no one I decided to use the smallest chopping board known to man!  Not great when chopping lemons, limes and oranges!  I was really pleased with my new OXO veg peeler though as it sliced the thinest peel, perfect for twisted peel garnishes.  I decided against trying to light a slice of orange peel to release the oils though, which I think was probably one of the best decisions of the night!

Miraculously, even though I had enjoyed a couple of cocktails on an empty stomach, we managed to produce the cooked  food in perfect order, with everything ready at the time it was supposed to be, with none of it over cooked, and we all enjoyed it.  Phew!

While the toffee apple crumble was warming in the oven (and smelling divine.  That caramel sauce is amazing!) we played the game that was in the Christmas crackers.  

We each had a small bell and a sheet of Christmas carols converted to numbers that corresponded to numbers on the bells.  A conductor was chosen (me to start!) who read out the numbers and whoever had the bell for that number, rang it. And so we created beautiful carols in unison, our little bells tinkling out Good King Wenceslas, O come All ye Faithful, Jingle Bells to name a few.  Well that's what I am telling myself...in reality it sounded completely random as we all competed to ring our bells, no-one keeping in time and forgetting our bell number and ringing anyway and falling about laughing.  It doesn't take much to amuse us!

Everyone declared the toffee apple crumble a triumph and it's something I will definitely make again.  I did provide a lovely fresh fruit platter for those not wishing to indulge in the crumble but I returned a large amount of the fruit to the fridge when dinner was over.

Some relaxation and more chat after dinner till Alan, Gail, Natalie and Jim headed back to Edinburgh and Kenny finished off the evening with a malt whisky and Ele, David and I had a cup of tea!  Woo hoo, rock n roll!  That said,  we did stay up till almost 2am.  Lets see if we manage that at New Year!  :-)))