Today I Ate...: Come Dine With Me Anxiety

We had friends round for dinner on Friday night. Cooking for other people automatically puts pressure on me but as these were our former competitors in our own version of CDWM it was very hard to get out of competition mode. I didn't go all out this time but I did feel a bit like I was going to be marked. This is probably why my first pavlova turned out like this:

Disaster Meringue

Typical. So despite my forward planning and making this the night before I had to make a new one.

The rest of the dinner was:

Nibbles

Instead of a starter I made some crispy pitta things and a cream cheese and pesto dip as well as some goats cheese and figs wrapped in parma ham. Not too much effort but still nice.

Italian Chicken, Pancetta and Bean Stew

This was really easy to make and very tasty-I think we'll have it again. I served it with a Jamie Oliver tomato salad which was really nice despite my reservations. Salting the tomatoes really worked!

Final Pavlova

This was much better than my original but having lazily bought extra thick cream I had the disaster of it being so dense that it broke the meringue. It turned out ok but next time some old fashioned whipping needs to take place.

My other weekend eatings were:

Courgette and Sweetcorn Burger

This was at the newly opened New Cross House and was really rather nice. I never go for the veggie option but this was a winner. I'll definitely be back to sample some of their pizza from the wood fired pizza oven!

Chinese Takeaway

I wish I could say I was healthy and just had this soup but I actually just gobbled the rest up without taking a picture. Perfect Eurovision food!

Dipping Egg

Dinner was at The Anchor in Hullbridge:

Lobster Bisque

The croutons were too salty but otherwise a nice dish.

Roast Chicken

Nice enough but I wish places didn't substitute their normal menu for a Sunday Roast one. Not everyone's that traditional!

Grand Desserts

We almost didn't have a dessert-what a mistake that would have been! A lovely selection of mini desserts with the Sticky Toffee Pudding outshining the rest for me.