Just climb the stairs… past the skulls and jack-o-lanterns and you will enter a place of scary tales, giant spiders, ghostly apparitions, and warm hospitality. Monday Night Dining has a special Halloween treat.
Tonight our trio welcomes our favorite readers from our last Halloween dinner, Norm and Dermot, and welcomes Andrea and Bruce. We started the evening with a glass of pink bubbly, that took on a spooky hue in the candle light, and got caught up on life. Meanwhile the ghoulish chefs were huddled round the cauldron, to see what new concoction they could summon forth. Would it be eye of newt flambé or bat wing fricassee??? No… Tonight we start with Jack-o-lantern soup with roasted pumpkin seeds, sage pesto and a splash of heavy cream, served in roasted pumpkins.
The soup had a lovely rich texture, but the sage pesto really set it off, with a fresh zing (especially since the sage was from the garden). An added bonus was the aroma of the roasted pumpkin bowls, plus we could scrape up some of the roasted pumpkin, for added flavour.
Our main course has a bit of a story. One of our guests is a pescatarian, so we wanted a fish course. Shawn found a recipe, that had potential and we tested the recipe the weekend before….. I have a feeling that it inspired Shawn, because in no time he had changed the recipe into what will be a regular offering on our menus… Steal your sole lasagna.. or seafood lasagna with sole, ratatouille and a seafood cream sauce.
If the trial run of the dish was good, the final version was inspired! The fish was cooked beautifully and paired with the ratatouille and red and yellow pepper sauces perfectly.
For dessert, we went back and forth on whether to do a fun Halloween dessert, or stick with more formal. The deciding factor was that a little bat told us our friend Bruce had just had a birthday, which means a Halloween birthday cake, so both traditional and whimsical. We served a Bloody red velvet spider web cake.
This was a fun cake to make. Traditionally red velvet cake would have a cream cheese or buttercream frosting, but since those options are not firm enough to stretch the marshmallow webs across, we used a dark chocolate buttercream, tinted black, which supported the webs better. Topped off with a spider created from molding chocolate and candy eyes and spooky colour changing candles and we had a dessert suited to the occasion.
Once dinner was over, we moved to the haunted salon and our guests shared readings of seasonal poems. It was blustery outside, but tonight our jack-o-lanterns warded off the goblins, so we could enjoy food, friendship and spooky stories. Well a few goblins got past our sentinels, with hearty cries of TRICK OR TREAT, but they were appeased with generous gifts of candy.
Thanks for the update David. Too bad I had to miss it, as it sounds wonderful But a previous promise to a friend took over my day’s schedual and alas, I have not yet learned to bilocate. Please don’t banish me.
Best Halloween ever! I would also add that the sole lasagna tasted perhaps even better the next day as left-over dinner. I love the idea of using vegetables as dishes for dishes if you know what I mean. I’d love to see more ideas in this compostable dinnerware area : ) The poetry, trick or treaters, and good company rounded out a splendidly spooky evening!