"Dinner's better with friends"

It's Monday again. Where do the weekends go?! Although this weekend was particularly nice so I don't mind so much somehow!! :) Also, Spring had sprung in my kitchen this morning (courtesy of our friends yesterday - thank you!) and there's nothing like a vase of tulips to brighten your day if you ask me!

Anyway, we had friends round yesterday afternoon to play and they stayed for dinner. I couldn't decide what to cook but it was Sunday so I went for Sunday Roast with cheesecake for pudding and I think it was a great success!!! Nothing particularly out of the ordinary I know, but Sunday roast is a firm favourite in our house and you can cook a much bigger selection of goodies when there are more of you which I like!

We had the usual meat (chicken), roast potatoes, vegetables etc then little sausages (from Sainsbury's) bread sauce, stuffing (both from Tesco) and gravy. All gluten free of course and all really tasty. I had a slight gravy panic - I'd cooked the chickens and made stock the night before so I mixed that with an extra stock cube and cornflour. It tasted good but the colour was a bit pale to start with but actually, once it cooked through it was fine. Phew!

For pudding we had cheesecake. I've got an old Tanya Ramsay cookery book that I haven't used for years but there's a lovely baked lemon cheesecake recipe in there that I used to make all of the time. I don't tend to bother with the baking part these days but as we had guests, I thought I'd push the boat out :) :) :) !!! TLC and I made it together on Saturday afternoon (just substituting the digestives for Tesco Free From Digestives). There's a layer of sour cream on the top and I was in two minds as to whether I should leave it off - would children like it? But she tried it and said she liked it so I went for it. I'm not sure if it was the cake or the lashings of mascarpone that she liked best but she asked for thirds (I drew the line at two portions just for the record!!) so I think she liked it and after all, that's what it's all about. That said, her brother was equally happy with an apple but then he takes after his Daddy......!!! :)

The children had played beautifully all day and everyone seemed to have a good time but my favourite part of the day was when TLC said at bath time "dinner's more fun with friends". Ah, melted my heart!!! She's right, much like Winnie the Pooh told us "a day without friends is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside", it's lovely to have friends around.

Hope you all have a good week. :)

#cooking