Never Ever Ever Ever Ever

... miss lunch at Rachel's House if you're invited!  

I'm pretty certain I don't even need to add words to this page to prove why you should never ever ever miss an invitation to lunch at my friend Rachel's house.  Honestly, she puts on the most beautiful spread at every occasion. This luncheon was for our dear friend Alice who was celebrating her 80th birthday!   I'm after Rachel to start a blog about her lunch and dinner parties and then turn it all into a book ... you can see why:

Hostess gift, birthday gift and party favours.

I make it a habit to never ever arrive to a lunch or dinner engagement without a hostess gift of some sort. I like to bring flowers, and while Martha Stewart frowns upon bringing fresh cut flowers sans vessel to a dinner party where the host may be too busy to source a vase and put the flowers out, I say poo poo to you Martha! My friends have got it all going on and can handle such a little aside.

Party Favour

The theme was Alice's Blue Dress so I bought Blue Belle and Iris bulbs then attached a note about friendship and some of the lavender from my garden

Rachel explaining the dishes to Doris

NOM NOM NOM

Asparagus with chopped egg

Quinoa salad made by our Kadra

Blue

My plate piled high!

Asparagus, quinoa salad and chilled lemon trout over baby greens...

Iced tea - a southern staple

Local cantaloupe and strawberries thank you Doris!

Mmmm TOFU

Have I ever mentioned that I was a fish eating vegetarian for a good 8 years or more? I am allergic to pork so I have to avoid all kinds of foods that may come in contact with pork. I ate chicken for a long while before I grew soooo tired of it I gave up eating meat all together. It's only been in the last three years that I have been "trying" meat. It started with a few select cuts of beef from Whole Foods where I could get grass fed free range beef. It was good. My body was craving red meat and so I happily ate it for a while. When I was pregnant I didn't meet a steak I didn't like!

Then we moved to the middle of no where south where pork is the state food and laws governing the processing, antibiotic and steroid use in the production of meat are to say the least, lax. Finding free range non medicated meats are like trying to find a synagogue in NC. There has to be some somewhere....but where? The shift away from meat and all the highly processed foods found in the grocery stores was an easy one.

For the most part I find meat gross and after seeing too many documentaries on how cruel the meat packing industry treats their animals and birds I now have an ethical reason to say no to meat again. I've been cooking a lot of vegetarian dishes again and am feeling a whole lot better about my diet and my body feels better too. Whenever I have a few ingredients in the fridge I think will work together I throw them in the Google bar and see what recipes come up. This one was awesome!

Baked Tofu with a Tahini Crust

I served it up with quinoa and red beans and a mixed baby greens salad with apple, cranberry, red onion and sunflower seeds. I topped that sucker with a drizzle of blue cheese dressing.

The meal was simple to make and all came together in about 35 minutes. Finley and i devoured it. My kids hasn't met a tofu product she doesn't like!

Alicia Silverstone has a really great web site called The Kind Life about all things sustainable, earth friendly and veggie. My friend Sharon turned me onto this site and I love it so I thought I would share it with y'all.