Lunch

The neighbours came around for lunch. I had originally planned fish in beer batter but the cod didn't look too good in the shops yesterday. So I decided to do a steak and mushroom pie using little whole button mushrooms and some Caffreys in the gravy. Followed by pears poached in white wine and ginger (slices of ginger root) with a chocolate sauce. Considering we had a bottle of champage to start and two bottles of red wine as well the chocolate sauce possibly didn't need the cherry brandy. Actually I think the chocolate sauce was better when it was chocolate, golden syrup and butter.

I may be biased but I have to say it was all rather good. No idea how to recreate it, I don't work from recipes, but it was a very nice meal. Actually I started doing the poached pear a few years ago (I mean I thought it up a few years ago, not that I started poaching the pear for today a few years ago, after all I didn't know that we would have people around today a few years ago did I)and I think it works very well (when I don't let it boil dry, have been known to get distracted during the main course and forget that the pudding is bubbling away). The root ginger really adds a nice tang. Try it, peel and half the pears, saucepan with white wine and a liberal addition of sugar, a dozen thin slices of ginger (which can be used as decoration later), and poach for half an hour.