If you are here from my YouTube channel, you know I hosted my first full, sit-down dinner party for my two best friends last week and I used a lot of recipes that I cannot find the sources for, they are handwritten or random pictures from my mom, so I wanted to document them for you, in case you wanted to try what I made!

If you haven’t seen the video and are interested, feel free to check it out here!

Out on the Table:

Boursin and Gluten-free Crackers

Potato chips (Ms. Vickie’s because they are gluten-free)

Salad: Warm Pear Salad with Lemon Goat Cheese and Candied Nuts

Serves 4-5 depending on size of pears.

Candied Nuts

• 1 c. pecans
• 2 tsp. honey
• 2 tbsp. water
• juice of half a lemon
• pinch salt
• sprinkle of cinnamon
• sprinkle of chili powder or cayenne pepper (or both!)

1. Toast pecans in oven at 350F until lightly browned and fragrant, ~10 minutes, set aside.
2. In a frying pan combine honey, water, lemon juice. Let water evaporate.
3. When honey just starts to turn brown, remove from the heat and add the toasted nuts.
4. Toss to coat the nuts with honey mixture.
5. Transfer to a large dry bowl and sprinkle with spices.
6. Can be stored in a dry container.

Lemon Goat Cheese

• 1/2c. room temperature goat cheese
• Grated lemon zest to taste
• 1 squeeze lemon juice
• pinch salt

1. Place cheese in bowl, add lemon zest, juice, and salt.
2. Mix well, cover and set aside.

Warm Pear Salad

• 3 heads frisée, however this is hard to find so some light fluffy green, I like arugula.
• 2 pears
• 6 slices Prosciutto or Serrano ham
• 1/4c. butter
• 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• Juice 1/2 lemon
• Pinch salt
• Pinch black pepper

1. Slice pears into wedges.
2. Mix vinegar, lemon, salt, pepper in a bowl add greens.
3. Wrap ham around each pear wedge. I typically cut the ham in half to have more slices of pears.
4. In a large sautée pan, melt butter on med-high heat, add wrapped pears and brown on one side.
5. Reduce heat to med-low and brown other side.
6. While pears browning, get out salad plates and divide lemon goat cheese across plates. Use the back of a spoon to smear the goat cheese across the plate as the base of the salad.
7. Remove pears and add to bowl with greens and dressing.
8. Toss to coat.
9. Divide salad and pears among salad plates on top of lemon goat cheese.
10. Top with candied nuts.

Main: White Wine Miso Braised Post Roast

• 3-4lbs beef chuck roast
• black peppers
• 2 tbsp salted butter
• 3 yellow onions, roughly chopped
• 3 shallots, roughly chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 2 cups dry white wine
• 2 tbsp. white miso paste
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 tbsp. Chinese 5 Spice
• 1-2 tsp. chili flakes
• 1/4c. tamari (for gluten-free) or soy sauce
• 2 cups broth
• 2 cups chopped carrots
• 2 dried bay leaves
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme
• toasted sesame seed for serving
• potatoes (depending on size, roughly 1/2 – 1 per person)
• milk
• salt

1. Preheat the oven to 325F.
2. Arrange the roast in the bottom of a large oven-safe Dutch oven. Season with black pepper.
3. Snuggle the butter, onions, shallots, and garlic around the roast. Mix the miso and tomato paste into the white wine. Pour the wine mix over the roast. Add the Chinese 5 spice, chili flakes, tamari/soy sauce, broth, carrots, bay leaves, and thyme. Cover and roast for 3.5 to 5 hours or until very tender.
4. Prep mashed potatoes to your preference, I make mine with milk, salt and pepper. Don’t forget to salt the water you use to boil your potatoes!
5. Crank the heat on the oven to 425F. Cook for 20 minutes, until deeply caramelized on top. If needed, add broth/wine to keep onions just barely covered. (both my mom and I skipped this step!)
6. Remove meat onto a cutting board to pull and chop into rough pieces.
7. Plate in one of those high-sided plates if you have one, or I used extra-large salad bowls, there’s a lot of the gravy, so there’s a decent amount of liquid on the plate!
8. Spoon mashed potatoes into the bowl.
9. Top mashed potatoes with meat and use tongs to remove carrots from liquid, use a ladle to spoon liquid over meat, potatoes, and carrots.
10. Enjoy!

Dessert: Nutty Orange Roulade

This is from a Northern Irish cookbook, if I can find it when I’m visiting my parents next I will share exactly which one. However, it would be a thrift-find, I highly doubt it is still available in print. I will share the original recipe and in brackets the North American substitute! You do need to make this by weight, not cups.

Prepared swill roll pan

• Parchment paper
• Cooking spray
• swiss roll pan or quarter sheet pan

1. Take your clean pan and spray with cooking spray, this will help you parchment paper stick.
2. Crumple up your parchment paper, this will help it not roll up. Flatten back out.
3. Lay your parchment paper over the pan, cut at a diagonal from each corner to create square edges with your parchment paper. Don’t worry if it doesn’t hold square, one you pour the batter down, the weight will help it hold.

Roulade

• 4 size 3 eggs – separated into yolks and whites (4 large eggs)
• 125g (5oz.) caster sugar (granulated sugar, this isn’t an exact sub, but is as close as most NA grocery stores get)
• 25g (1 oz.) ground almonds
• 1.25 mL (1.4tsp.) almond essence (almond extract)
• 25g (1 oz.) flaked almonds (slivered almonds)

Filling

• 250 mL (8.8 fl. oz) fresh Northern Ireland Double Cream – whipped (whipping cream, tbh. I don’t really measure, just eyeball it!)
• 60 mL (4tbsp) dry white wine
• 3 oranges – peeled segmented, chopped and drained (3 cans of mandarin oranges, drained, some roughly chopped, some whole for decorating)

1. Preheat oven to 400F, 200C, or Mark 6.
2. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together until creamy and thick.
3. Fold in ground almonds and essence.
4. Whisk egg whites until stiff, fold into yolk mixture.
5. Pour into prepared swiss roll tin, scatter flaked almonds over top of batter.
6. Bake at 400F, 200C, or Mark 6 for 15 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven, leaving roulade in the tin, cover with a clean tea towel and leave until cold.
8. Fold wine and oranges into cream (leaving whole segments for decorating, I just eyeball the quantity of oranges in the cream).
9. Dust greaseproof paper with sugar, turn roulade onto greaseproof paper.
10. Remove lining carefully, you will need to gently peel the paper away from the roulade.
11. Spread filling over roulade.
12. Roll up and decorate. I (and my mom) top with with more whipped cream and whole segments of mandarin orange and some flaked almonds, but the instructions say to decorate with shreds of orange rind.

I hope you enjoy if you choose to make any of these!