Back to reality – a birthday lunch

We're back home and to reality too. It's our friend's birthday and we're hosting a Sunday Lunch to celebrate.

The lunch is salad – boring, I hear you say – absolutely not is my reply.

I love to serve a combination of both hot and cold dishes. The hot dishes are such that they can be made ahead, at least in part and then pulled together easily on the day.

I love potatoes with salad and I don't mean potato salad, I mean hot potatoes. There are two potato dishes I have in mind – Dauphinoise or Tartiflette – both, as you may have guessed, are French and both delicious. Oodles of flavour – tick! Not had Tartiflette for ages – the downside is it contains bacon, so not suitable for the veggie, the upside – smoked bacon bits in a bowl on the side so no-one is short changed. Another tick!

I also love cheese, in any form, and even though I say so myself, make a cracking (meaning excellent!) Three Cheese Tart – my own recipe.

The attraction of both these hot dishes is I can prep and part cook ahead.

There are the usual “salad” suspects – have a look at my menu :

Sunday Lunch for Shirl

Cubed Halloumi Fries

Tartiflette

with smoked bacon pieces on the side

Sweet baby peppers and asparagus

Three Cheese Tart

Beetroot – relish or honey roasted or baby beets

Sliced Ciabatta with Balsamic Vinegar and Extra Virgin

Olive Oil to dip with black olives on the side

Smashed Avocado

Tomatoes

Green Stuff

Large salad bowl with lettuce, cucumber and whole

spring onions – easy for the onion avoider!

Mixed meat antipasti

For the fish lovers

Smoked salmon

Scallops and king prawns stir fried in

black bean sauce

The cracking Three Cheese Tart recipe up next.