Easter Hosting for 16

Coeliac and nut free recipes for everyone to enjoy (Without inadvertently killing anyone)

Hello and a very Happy Easter to you! The day when it’s perfectly acceptable to eat mini eggs at any time of the day, in fact, it’s expected.

This week has been a very busy one - culminating in a lot of hosting and a lot of reuniting with old friends which was SO good for the soul. You can make new friends, but you can’t make old ones, as the saying goes, and the gang goes back as far as primary school. It was AMAZING to have everyone in the room at once. I wish we’d have all taken more photos, I barely took any, but equally it shows what a great afternoon we had because our phones were all ignored for hours.

Two of our friends are coeliac and one has a very serious nut allergy. So we were on red alert and ran the kitchen like an army camp - NO ONE was allowed within a 5 metre radius of the peanut butter or anything else nut related for the 24 hours prior to Good Friday, for fear of contamination. Hardly anyone has ever died as a result of my cooking and I wasn’t about to have someone keel over now. Imagine the paperwork.

This week it’s a short ‘Happy Easter’ post as I have been chasing my tail all week - but read on for a few table ideas and how we fed everyone. Fun fact, mint Matchmakers and Mini Eggs are gluten and nut free! (Orange Matchmakers might be too, but we didn’t have any to test, annoyingly, because they’d sold out!)

I have a supply of old platters that look so pretty on the table. Nothing matches

We brought the garden table in and hotch potched the tablecloths together

The table centres are geraniums wrapped in brown paper and tied with blue twine.

I thought I’d share the menu as we all ate the same. I am RUBBISH though as I completely forgot to take photos of the food!

We ordered a couple of large Bavette steaks from the butcher - they use a marinade called ‘Greek Passion’ and it is GF and contains no nuts. it is absolutely delicious barbequed, and is a very underrated cheaper cut of beef, which is perfect to feed a crowd.

Gav made some chicken kebabs and we bought lamb cutlets - BBQd lamb is my favourite thing ever.

I made two huge tartiflettes. FIND THE RECIPE HERE

Tartiflette typically uses Reblochon cheese which can be hard to find. Whenever I see any I tend to buy a couple and freeze them, but this time I ordered a big one from our butcher.

This is what you are looking for - I just did a quick google search and found some on Ocado

I made crushed roasted new potatoes and scattered rosemary and sea salt over them before serving

I also made OTTOLENGHI'S 3 RICE CHICKEN SALAD which is SO GOOD - I dropped the chillies as one of us is intolerant, and it was just as delicious. I’d definitely suggest making this the day before you need it as it’s quite time consuming to make

We had extras like coleslaw etc and had a couple of gorgeous big salads courtesy of my marvelous sister-in-law Kate, who came to my rescue.

For pudding, I made a pavlova - the Delia Smith way and Kate made a flourless cake based on another Delia favourite

The most beaten up cookbook - but a good one!

It was a huge success and we waved goodbye to the last 2 of our guests at 1.30am - sadly - because it was Chris and Nan, who are heading home to Sydney next week and we don’t know when we will see them again, so we held on to them, chatting in the lounge until none of us could keep our eyes open any more!

A 2am goodbye - Gav had scurried off because he realised he’d left the garage lights on all day and it was lit up like a Christmas tree haha

ANYWAY!

We are doing it all again today and by the time this arrives in your inboxes, the turkey will be cooking away and we will be all reset for round two! We are hosting 18 today and I am looking forward to it hugely! We had to cancel our big Boxing Day, family lunch because of the dreaded lurgy so it’s ‘take two’ today!

I really hope that you have a lovely day, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. I will be back next week with some lovely little decorating ideas that you can easily do at home.

I’ll be reporting to you from Cornwall where we are building the new media unit we bought from DIY ALCOVE CABINETS and I can’t WAIT to style it all up!

We have half a wall that needs wallpapering too, so I will keep you posted

First a quick dash to Ardingly Antiques Fair FIND YOUR NEAREST FAIR HERE on Tuesday to pick up some cushions that Maria - the wonder that is half of FOY &Co Interiors has made for me - they offer a making up service and I highly recommend them for curtains, blinds, cushions and upholstery.

I am looking forward to a mooch round with my Mum, too. We never know what manner of ‘RustyShit’ we may stumble upon that insists we take it home with us. HA - you almost hear Gav rolling his eyes. But whatever it is, will be an essential purchase OBVS

Ok - here is where I will leave you!

Have a cracking Easter, enjoy the long weekend

Much love

Sally xx