Roasting

We invited S and T, A and B,  and S and R round for an anglophone dinner. I recently took advantage of a 99-centime Kindle offer on Sabrina Ghayour's book Simply, so I decided to go a bit oriental. I've always been sceptical about cookbooks on Kindle, but actually on the iPad it works pretty well. 

This is S's starter from the book, roasted mini plum tomatoes which are served with balls of salted and drained Greek yogurt. It was really delicious. He also tried a recipe for pear and chickpea salad with harissa and maple syrup dressing, which was less successful, perhaps because the pears I bought were unripe and tasteless. Then a lamb tagine with couscous, then cheese, and the delicious orange tart I made for the first time recently to finish us off. It was a late night, and thank goodness for the dishwasher.

Extra: there were a few tomatoes left over and on a whim S decided to make some of the lovely caramel-coated tomatoes we haven't had for ages, because I made some caramel in order to decorate the tart with shards. He did a test and it was perfect -- sadly he then ignored my exhortations to do the rest immediately, and let the caramel go solid in the pan. Attempts to remelt it resulted in tomatoes coated in a chewy mass that we had to scrape off our teeth with toothbrushes when we tried it. However, the extra is what the tomatoes would have looked like if they hadn't been chucked in the bin. When you get them right, they really are delicious and surprising.