Come Dine With Me!

I was very pleased that I'd decided to take the whole day off work today as I had so much to do to prepare for the Come Dine With Me evening. Originally I was just going to have the afternoon off!

My first task of the day was to take the kids to school and then it was back home to prepare the beef stroganoff. I was still a bit worried about this dish as I hadn't got the flavour completely right the last time I'd made it. Keith cut the rump steak into strips for me, I fried the onions in butter and then browned the meat. After cooking the mushrooms I made a beef stock and then let the whole dish marinate in the fridge, to be cooked later.

After a very quick breakfast I cleaned the conservatory and set the table and I was really pleased with the finished result. Keith sprayed stars onto the windows and put up some fake icicles while I sorted all the crockery and cutlery out. We moved a table into the conservatory as I wanted us to have our pre-dinner drinks in there rather than the chaotic living room!

The rest of the day was spent cooking and cleaning and at 2pm I had to go and pick Sophie up from school as she was finishing early today. From the school we popped over to Tesco's where I bought some fresh fruit and nibbles and then it was home to make my Blinis. My meringue for my Pavlova hadn't turned out very well so I threw it away and started all over again. This time I made sure the egg whites were really well whipped!

The Blinis turned out fine so I set them aside and put the beef Stroganoff into the oven to cook slowly. By the time I concentrated on myself I was shattered! The girls arrived at 7.30pm and by now the weather had turned really stormy. They thought the conservatory looked beautiful (it did) so we had a couple of cocktails -a choice of either a Moscow Mule or a Black Russian - and then it was down to the meal. I was really pleased with how everything had turned out, especially as I do get very nervous cooking for friends! The beef Stroganoff had a lot more flavour (I added French mustard) and my Pavlova was a huge success. I'm definitely making that again!

It was a very late evening and the girls didn't go until 1am as they had to wait an hour for a taxi so I was dead on my feet when I eventually made it to bed!