Dinner party tomorrow

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Starter
Acorn-chickpea cracker with goat cheese and honey apple cider pickled bay capers

Entree
Slow-roasted lamb with Moroccan spices
Browned butter mashed potatoes
Roasted celery root and fennel with home-grown red pepper flakes
Green beans in aromatic white sauce with crispy onions

Dessert
Clementine-apricot sorbet in candied clementine peel with cream and roasted bay nuts

For those of you who are coming, anticipate.  For those of you not, look forward to the next time you are in town! (Or be very, very afraid...)

If nothing else, my weird palate delighted in the components that were concocted today, largely without recipes.  Credit Nimue for occupying herself with a crochet project, aside from the occasional    "Come here, kid, and taste this" moment.

Cheesy Gloop for Dinner

In the beginning, there were roasted veggies.

Then there were leftover veggies.

Then there was stuffing made of the leftover veggies plus some other leftovers and

a stray piece of chicken.

Then there were leftover leftovers.

And they were frozen.

After some time, they were unearthed and thawed and GLOOPIFIED!!!!

And Ma said it was good.

Demon child

A few pictures from Halloween:

Firstly:  It is hard to photograph a wiggly demon child

Second: Front view.  She made most of the helmet herself

using a bike helmet, chicken wire, and paper mache.

I wired up the orange pulsing LED in the forehead crystal.

Third: Back View.  The tail is made of fleece yarn, which is a very satisfying soft material

Fourth:  Happy trick-or-treaters, despite Nimue's grousing that is was just WRONG to go do Halloween at someone else's house.  Their pillowcases were almost full by the end of the night.

And of course, the obligatory tentacle pot pie (eaten a couple of days early, since we weren't at home on Halloween)