A weekend of grown up shenanigans

Since we live out in the boonies, we don't often have weekends filled with social activities, unless we're off travelling or visiting people. So it made quite a change one weekend in August to have a fun-packed weekend of activity.

On the Saturday, it was the annual Stonyhurst brunch that my friend Shaz likes to set up. She had booked us into this new restaurant situated right next to Old Street station, called Serata Hall, for a typical London Bottomless brunch. And yes, that's exactly what it sounds like - a bottomless array of booze to supplement our delicious food, of which place had a lot.

This pizza totally hit the spot

I have to give this restaurant top points. It's one of those places where you order food off the menu, and pay an extra surcharge for the bottomless booze. It gave us the wonderful option of mixing our drinks - opting between prosecco, bellinis and a rum punch. Totally lethal. Despite the massive nduja-based pizza that I used to line my stomach, they went straight to my head (and everywhere else). Great value :D I was also massively jealous of the fried chicken that my friends ordered, served with (weirdly) watermelon. Apparently it worked.

It's always wonderful getting together with my old Stony friends, and having a good old gossip and catch-up. Obviously we didn't want the day to end, and somehow found ourselves in the central London flat of an old Stony boy, sipping wine, listening to the piano and stroking his cat. Very surreal, but a thoroughly pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Poor chap, not really sure why he invited us over since he'd never met most of us before, but hopefully he didn't regret it.

A happy Nicky with her rum cocktail

I did slightly regret the bottomless brunch the next morning, when I woke up with a slightly sore head and the prospect of having some people over for lunch and board games. To my massive self-disappointment, I felt too ill to make it to my Sunday morning Zumba step class, and also had too much to do in preparation for lunch. I had decided to make the classic Sunday roast chicken, with the slight spin that it was going to be Indian themed. That's right - tandoori roast chicken, with spiced roast potatoes, spinach and feta fritters and a home-made peshwari naan. No problem.

If you've never explored the concept of this kind of fusion cuisine, I highly recommend it. I had pre-marinated the whole chicken with a tandoori spice and yoghurt paste the day before, giving it plenty of time to infuse. With a whole fresh lime up its butt, it was the perfect blend of spice, flavour and moistness.

Tandoori marinade on the chicken

The peshwari naan were a bit of an experiment. I've made naan bread before, but they're usually plain. However I've recently discovered a liking for sweeter things and felt like the sweetness of the coconut, raisin and almond stuffing would marry extremely well with the spiciness of the chicken. Man, was I right. I highly recommend this recipe for the naan, but if you're going to do the same thing as me and grill them one at a time, make sure you leave plenty of time for it.

The naan on the rise

There's no need to go into how I made the taters - traditional roast potatoes with a lovely sumac coating to give them a real depth of flavour. But I definitely need to share my spinach fritter recipe - a mixture of defrosted frozen spinach, sliced onion, feta cheese, sliced chilli and some cumin, held together with a sprinkling of flour and an egg. I use little discs to help give these fritters the right shape, and fry them in a little oil and butter until they cooked through and quite firm. They're an old favourite, and one I like to rock out time and time again.

Spinach fritters, the perfect accompaniment

The good news is that everyone seemed to like the food. I made a little tandoori gravy to moisten things up, as well as a coriander chutney to give that extra flavour. There was barely any food left by the time we were done eating, which is just what the cook wants :D As usual, I forgot to take pictures of all the food, but below is the roast chicken and spinach fritter platter. So delicious!

My kind of Sunday roast!!

Well, we were so full after all this good food (also my hangover had disappeared) that we never quite made it to playing any board games - not the worst result in the world in my opinion. We ended up drinking a lot of wine on the sofa, eventually breaking into a tasty cheese board and chatting until the sun went down. Frankly, that's the perfect kind of Sunday for me...

So I named this post 'a weekend of grown up shenanigans' - I like to think that the fancy food and nice drinks made it rather grown up, and the behaviour was certainly shenanigan like. My diet and liver certainly can't take a weekend like that every week, but it certainly drives home the joys of having no real weekend responsibilities and appreciating good food, drink and company.

....Til next time...