Friends to dinner

I love having friends round for a meal - I love cooking, I love eating and I love seeing other people enjoy things I have made.

Our good friends Maggie and Alan came round on Friday for a joint celebration of our 13th wedding anniversary and their 30th anniversary. They were staying the night as well, which meant that Alan could have a drink and relax.

We had asked them to come at around 5pm so that we could have to start with. I had made some parmesan spiral and we had bought some anchovies in a provencal sauce, some wasabi coated peanuts and some rice crackers.

I made a prawn cocktail to start, which seemed to go down well. For the main course I stuffed chicken breasts with Boursin cheese, coated them in breadcrumbs and baked them in the oven. These were served with loads of roasted vegetables - red and yellow peppers, squash, onions, garlic and courgette, roast potatoes and garlic green beans. Dessert was a strawberry fool, with home made lavender shortbread and a chocolate dipped strawberry. We had bread and cheese later in the evening when we had room in our tummies!!

Mags and I drank champagne and Ian and Alan started with beer then went onto red wine.

As usual we put the world to rights during the evening, and had a brilliant time. It is funny how chance meetings can turn into great friendships. Maggie had phoned a couple of years ago after seeing my hairdressing advert in a magazine. We clicked immediately and kept in touch almost daily by email when they went back to the UK at the end of the summer. Now they live out here permanently and we are still in touch almost every day. We are so lucky to know them.