Simple pear and strawberry trifle. Kept it very small-kid and convalescent Kavi-friendly this time, with strawberry jam (I don’t usually use jam in my trifle), no sherry, and non-dairy Cool Whip instead of real whipped cream (Kavi’s avoiding dairy for another day or two until she’s fully recovered). (There’s a nice bottle of sherry on the counter, though, so you can either add a glog to your trifle or just drink some…)
We’re hosting potluck and board games and knitting / crochet this afternoon. Kind of a low-key version of our traditional Christmas party + New Year’s open house. I sent out invites late enough, I suspect not too many of our good friends can make it, but maybe a few, and we should have some new folks coming for knitting. A chance to make some new friends, perhaps.
I’ve been mostly in hunker down mode for a while, but I don’t want to stay there forever — time to open up a little, reach out to the community, breathe.
Okay, I promised Kavi a mango fluff, so make that next, so it has time to set. Beef smoore and ginger-garlic chicken made, next I think a quick carrot-cucumber pickle. Will set out yogurt instead of making a raita, because that way, the yogurt can either go with the curries or be eaten with berries.
And if I’m feeling ambitious, maybe some Sri Lankan noodles — Amma used to make those for New Year’s, if I’m remembering right. But there’s a bit of cleaning and organizing to do too, so we’ll see.
Open house 2-6, bring some food or drink to share. Or just show up, and please help me eat all the food I want to cook. 🙂
Tried an experiment tonight — usually when I make Sri Lankan Beef Smoore, I use chuck. But brisket was on sale (half the price of steak), and I couldn’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t work — just maybe take a little longer, so I’d need to start a little earlier?
So I tried it, and it was good. It’s not quite as sliceable as chuck, which usually ends up with a roast beef kind of consistency — when you slice this, it shreds some. Yet I didn’t cook it so long that you can easily use two forks to shred it the way you might normally with brisket. (Maybe another 30 minutes would have gotten it there.)
So it ended up a texture that’s sort of neither one or the other…but a deliciously tasty texture, easy to eat with your hand. Kevin did fine with a fork. 🙂
I spent most of the day hauling stuff around the house in a big re-org, and stayed up most of last night nursing Kavi (so tired!), so I wasn’t really up to cooking anything else.
But I’m thinking I’ll save this to put out at the potluck we’re hosting on Sunday (Kavi is FINALLY on the mend from her traveller’s bug, so we should be an illness-free house by Saturday, knock wood!), and tomorrow I’ll make a veg. or two to go with it. It could use a cabbage & coconut mallung, or a bright carrot pickle, or a fresh kale sambol…
Recipe is in my Feast of Serendib cookbook. This took 2 hrs marinating time + 2 hr 15 min. simmering time. You can also cook it in an Instapot to speed things up — link below.