The Night of the Donna Feast

I had people over for dinner last night and thought I would show off my Donna skills and do a whole Donna feast!

Here's what I made;

• Pumpkin and goat's cheese crumbles. Issue 54, page 140.
• Roasted potatoes with green beans and speck. Issue 54, page 142.
• Butterscotch walnut tarts with homemade Basic vanilla pastry. Issue 32, page 81. and the pastry from, Issue 38, page 118.
• Mint, vinegar and honey-glazed roast lamb. Issue 26, page 119.

Yes it was quite hectic, but not as stressful as I had imagined.

Tips:

Use the cooking time for the roast leg of lamb (on the same page) if that is what you are using! The recipe I used was for smaller cuts of meat, and my meat didn't cook in time.

We ended up having the roast veggies for entree and the meat for main. This might have been a little bit embarrassing if they weren't such close friends (all you can do is laugh!). You might also like to ask your butcher about cooking times when you purchase your meat.

Use nice sweet moist pumpkin. Mine was a bit dry and didn't do the dish justice.

Donna doesn't say how to make the sourdough bread crumbs. I just put our grill on low a couple of hours before, and slowly dried out slices of sourdough, turning occasionally.

Besides the homemade pastry (which I wouldn't change for anything!) These butterscotch walnut tarts were super easy!

Besides a few little hiccups I think it all went quite well, and our friends were sufficiently impressed :)