Come Dine With Jemma

Selection of Olives
Scottish Mussels with Spicy Tomato Sauce
Lemon Chicken and Pea Risotto
Tangy Lime and Mascarpone Torte

So, what do you normally do on a Monday evening? The obvious answer may not be, Come Dine With Jemma, but that's what three of us did last Monday. We previously discussed rules and regulations and it was with excitement that we all attended our first! Well, excitement, that is, apart from Jemma, who found it all a bit nerve-wracking, until we arrived and she settled beautifully into the evening!

What can I say...well, not too much actually All scores are held secretly by an 'independent adjudicator' until we have all hosted!

So, onto the food and the evening: Olives some stuffed with pimento pepper, others with chilli - delicious. Even Stacy tried one!

Last minute menu change for starters as the (super)market didn't have the promised mussels they said they would, so Jemma chose to keep the same sauce and toss in some prawns instead. With lots of crusty brown bread and butter to dip and soak up the soggy tomatoes, it all mopped up beautifully. Delicious with just the right about of heat and spice.

Chicken Risotto - great flavour combinations. The chicken was baked in the oven with lemon zest and juice - a little overcooked, as admitted by the cook herself, but this didn't detract from taste, and the peas were plentiful and sweet!

Intercourse Entertainment, (again, as suggested by host) got a few odd looks, until all realised she actually meant between-course, as opposed to intercourse - entertainment! A game of Bowling on the Wii came first and it was Donna who claimed victory with a late run of strikes and spares! We couldn't help a splash of karaoke, with the Wii remotes for microphones as we got a bit distracted, trying to choose a song for the staff to do for Christmas at school! Finally we chose 'All I want for Christmas'. Not sure we're up to Mariah Carey's standards, but...

Back to pudding - rich and creamy with a chunky biscuit base. Again, great flavour combinations, made perfectly.

To end the meal, a box of yummy After-Eights was produced, but only if we played a game. Two of us had never played before, but two had, one as a drinking game! Place the After-Eight flat on your forehead. Now, you can only eat it if you can wriggle it to your mouth without using your hands! It took a couple of tries but I think we all succeeded in the end! Lots of eye-brow wiggling and funny faces were pulled...tongues out, desperately reaching to flick it up and into the wide hole! All good fun!