↑ Anticipating a good time ↑
On Sunday our friend Andrea came over. We met her in May at this event at The Royal Conservatory of Music, having both been invited by our mutual friend Izzy.
We got along right off having some laughs at the reception. She is also a musician, playing keyboards, and we’ve been wanting to get together to play some music together since then.
Last Sunday was the day for this. She came over in the late afternoon and we jammed out some of Nick’s original songs. She’s really good and it was a lot of fun.
We took a break for dinner … Nick made some curries, two different kinds, one a beef with tamarind sauce, and the other a chickpea and potato with coconut sauce. They were served over Basmati rice with corn and peas mixed in it. There was sliced egg, Raita, and Branston Pickle on the side. mmmmm.
To drink, Andrea and I had beer, which went perfectly with the food. Note how casual we are around here with our beer bottles right on the table. (We were already drinking out of the bottles while we jammed so no reason to get all classy and bring out glasses just for the dinner part, right? haha) Nick went for some red wine.
↑ There are my recently thrifted Double Sided Pyrex Dish (here) and Corelle Plates (here and here) getting some action. ↑
And Andrea brought dessert. I don’t want to spoil the surprise by talking about it so I’ll let the pictures do the talking …
It was too dark to get a good picture of my piece of cake, but since she insisted the leftovers remain with us, I had some for breakfast the next day and took these next pictures.
How cute is that? She made a Peekaboo Pumpkin Cake. She got the idea of how to do it here, making homemade Pumpkin and Vanilla pound cakes instead of using boxed-cake as is used in the tutorial. The recipes she used were: Vanilla Pound Cake << [update: sorry the recipe from BrighteyedBaker.com has been taken down] and Pumpkin Pound Cake, which made more pumpkin cake than was required for the recipe, so she made an extra little loaf that she brought to her neighbours.
It was topped with Brown Butter Icing, that was so good that I want to make it again. I found a recipe that makes enough for a loaf size cake at Martha Stewart, here.
Andrea sprinkled some sparkly sugar and cinnamon over top that added a pretty finishing touch.
The whole dessert experience was excellent, from spying it through the cake carrier, to seeing it on the counter, to revealing the surprise inside, and to eating it.
These are the pie pumpkins we got on our road-trip to the country last week, (shown here). Might as well use them to decorate before roasting them.
↑ I got the vintage tablecloth from ebay. ↑
Also I put this orange cactus in an orange pot on the table as I thought it looked quite seasonal (although it has looked like this since July). Nick got it for me as a surprise in the spring, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep it alive or not, as I’ve never had a cactus before, except for the one I had in high-school, that went from being upright and perky to bent right over and dying in the span of about a week. But this one is doing ok. I didn’t want to risk transplanting it so I just put the little pot it came in into a bigger one, for looks and stability.
All in all it was a really nice Sunday evening and we are looking forward to playing music with Andrea again soon.
Thank you for taking a look,
xo loulou
