Best of Mary's Dinner Clubs - Beef Simmered in Red Wine

And the ‘Best Of’ it was… the idea came from a friend who had planned to celebrate her birthday at Mary’s Dinner Club but had to cancel. Since I had already taken a liking to the idea – the menu remained. Even though things never turn out the same way twice for me, everything was delicious.

Not being a big fan of measuring/weighing and having made the warm artichoke-spinach starter before, I let my imagination do the measuring. The simple mix of flavors of pickled artichokes, sautéed spinach and different cheeses turns into something truly amazing when baked. Enjoyed with homemade pita chips it created a bit of an ‘extra long first course’ again - you just can’t stop….

The main course of beef stuffed with bacon, mushrooms, parsley and shallots and simmered in red wine did not fail me either and turned out nice and tender. I made a ‘vegetarian roast’ without the beef and bacon but otherwise following the same steps for one guest and it ended up tasting almost the same – so vegetarians do not fear - you are well taken care of at Mary’s!

And even the dessert stayed as planned and we had chocolate cake with ginger bread cream – an exciting combination that resulted in the room  turning very quiet at one point until one guests broke the silence by going ‘Hmmmmm this makes me happy’. It sure made me happy – nothing like looking at people enjoying your food!

The evening as such was not a quiet one at all - lots of laughter and interesting exchanges between the Dutch, British, Cypriot, Latvian guests…. Some of them had come all the way from Nicosia for ‘something different’ – thank you for that!

It was one of those evening when we pulled the two tables together and get out ‘a bottle of something sweet’ to sit around a bit more. Love those and am looking forward to another one this coming Saturday - this time more exotic again, the menu will feature Indonesian food. If the flavors of peanut sauce, coconut, chili, banana, lemon grass….  sound good to you – drop me a line at maryanglbe@hotmail.com to sign up