Q re food pairings - special green tom chutney and cheese??

[Winged one]

Afternoon grapes,

I am in the throes of partially organising a special 60th Birthday Dinner for this coming Saturday. Part of my responsibilities include the cheese board.

I have a few nice cheeses (Brie de Meaux, Comte, Clonmore and Blue D'Auvergne) and will probably be getting a nice mature cheddar, and some philadelhia or similar. With some grapes for the middle. And I have the bottle of port to accompany all this.

I was wondering if a small bowl of Earthbabe's special green tomato chutney would go well with cheese in general, and this mix in particular. I usually only have3 chutney with curries, so I am trying to make sure I don't mess up with this.

Thanks.
Wings

[mandyballantyne]

Hi winged one,

Sounds like you have got your work cut out, hope you have great time on Saturday.

I would have thought any type of pickle or chutney would go well with cheese?? Not sure what every one else does but i do

Good luck and I hope someone can help more than me!

Mandy

[Hazel at the Hill]

Can we all come? No? oh, pity!

I'm with Mandy - and would say that any pickle or chutney would go well with cheese (also crusty bread and for me, celery), although I won't be able to comment on EB's GTC as I'll be making my first batch over the weekend...

Have a wonderful party!

[Winged one]

Thank you both - I will take out a fresh jar and bring it with me so. I have also been asked my the sis in charge of operations to get some nice deli meats for the hors dourve (sp?) starter (luckily my cheese shop does yummy ones so I have bresaola, tuscan cured ham and a lovely French salami) and to make my way as far as the garden shed (tonight, in the dark, through the builder's rubble maze) to bring some of my onions and garlic too.

I am a bit worried that our starter buffet will be too heavy and with nothing for one sis who is pregnant:
deli meats as above, smoked mackeral, smoked salmon (and S S pate), chicken liver pate, prawns and marie rose sauce, garlic mussels, olives and cherry tomatoes. With some lovely crusty bread from the farmer's market on Saturday morning.

I reckon that a small taste of most things (aoart from the smoked fish) would be fine for preggie sis, but I may be looking for nice fresh salad leaves in the market too, or what else could I do instead/as well.

[mandyballantyne]

What about some bruchetta with tomato & basil or garlic mushroom?

Oh I want to come it sounds too good!

Have fun, Mandy

[Winged one]

Mandy, that's perfect!! The farmer's market has a chap who sells beautiful chestnut mushrooms, so a small dish of those, and maybe the toms on the bruschetta! Might leave some of the fish or pate out after all (they are to be purchased on Saturday in the market) and have both of those instead.

As it's a surprise party, if you can find the house you are more than welcome to surprise us!! Not sure if it's worth the ferry trip though - my bro is in charge of the gravy......

[Winged one]

Thanks again for your advice.

We had a fab family outing to the farmers market on Saturday morning - me, 2 sis's, my dad, OH and the toddler. Dad is there every week, and the rest of us whenever we are home. Toddler got a huge hunk of yummy bread from the breadman - he treat's all his "VIP" little customers very well!! Toddler also recognised (despite not having been there since early August) the stall that sells yummy hotdogs (want saussie!!), and the one that sells the coffee (not for the coffee, but the little sweet case of choccie drops that go with the coffee and usually end up in her mouth rather than ours!!). Got all our materials for dinner between there and the supermarket next door (it's actually a really good one) - 2 trollies going around and various consultations at aisle ends about what one lot were getting and the otehr lot needn't.

In the end, we forgot to heat the garlic mussels (so starters for our dinner tonight!!) - just too much going on. I did some lemon and thyme chicken to add to the deli ham for pg sis. And baby bro made YUMMY bruschetta (they were gobbled down so fast I only got 1! He made lovely little bitesized ones). With our smoked fish, cured meats, roasted peppers and mushrooms (I finally found a use for some jars from my cupboards!!). And the prawns (which were fine defrosting away nicely, till we realised about 10 minutes before serving that they were still RAW!! Panic stations but they did fry beautifully).

One sis gave a time saving tip on the cheese sauce for the cauli - white sauce for lasagne from a jar, with the cheese added in as normal (and I added the mustard for that all important kick). Another sis had bought french beans rather than the expected courgettes, so we threw then into the lemony chickeny juices for a bit of flavour (tasty results!!). And mum's oven wasn't really crisping up the spuds, so we had to give them an extra hot blast once the meat was out - but the onion and garlic it rested on were nice mashed into the gravy.

Dad told the 2 boys to "put out all the cheese" - he having bought some too. So there were 4!! cheeseboards on the table at one point (mum was laughing cos they were in messing mode at that stage and had even put out the parmesan and grated mozzarella that never gets on the board, only for cooking). But the chutney was a great hit - I was (not so gently) requested to leave the jar in their fridge! And we managed to finish a newly opened bottle of port with it.....

One sis made a pavlova, and another the birthday cake. Jelly was only remembered about an hour before we sat down (but it was set by desert cos we melted using half the amount of boiling water and then topped off the remainder with stone cold water).

It was a bit of a panic stations in the kitchen at times (we were all a bit late arriving so we only started work at 5pm, and the boys were behind us again....), but it was a great laugh and mum got her wish - no big party but a really nice dinner that she didn't have to lift a finger to do anything (we left the others at the washing up cos we were staying in IL's so had to get home at a reasonable hour....).

[mandyballantyne]

Sounds just great winged one, glad you all had a brill time.

Mandy