Engagement Celebration

We finally got around to having some of our nearest and dearest Christchurch friends around to celebrate our recent(ish) engagement. The weather has been absolutely excellent lately and so we took the opportunity to bask in the sunshine outside on the deck and on the lawn. 

To try and avoid conflicting with other things on we had an open house policy that went from 3pm with the idea that people would turn up when they could and probably head their separate ways by 8pm or so. We didn't end up turning off the music until 3am thanks to the last stragglers!

Foodwise we served up build your own toasts. Basically a millennial take on the 00s crostini favourite. We started with a whole pile of delicious toasted and untoasted breads. We had a selection of spreads such as grilled artichoke and cannellini bean, smashed pea, smoked salmon mousse, goats feta whip and olive tapenade. Next we had plates of fresh and grilled vegetables such as cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, grilled courgette, grilled asparagus and grilled capsicum as well as a good jar of homemade cumin pickled red onions. We also raided the Canterbury Cheesemonger for two huge chunks of delicious cheese. Don't ask me what they were, all I know is that they were the tits.

If you would like recipes for any of our toast toppings I have posted it over in our Recipes Worth Sharing section here. 

I loved the idea of having a build your own set up. It saves a whole heap of prep for the host but also it makes the food fun and interactive and doesn't limit the combinations to whatever I could be bothered putting together.

For dessert we had wee panna cottas as well as orange and polenta cakes filled with lemon curd. You can find both those recipes over on Sophielikescake.com but for ease you can find the recipe links here and here. 

Dylan got everyone sufficiently sloshed on huge jugs of pimms, mojitos and God knows what else to be honest (we have quite a few empty bottles of rum and gin in the recycling bin). In my opinion is was perfect rose and prosecco weather and so we stocked up the fridge and the ice buckets and let people tickle their fancy with whatever. 

It was a marvellous afternoon. We both had so much fun.