Champers in Chateauneuf

We cooked dinner in our villa last night for 16 fantastic guests from the other side of the ‘pond’ who made the special trip over to explore the jewels of the French Riviera. They had rented the house for a week to celebrate 125 years of happiness and it sure seemed like they were having a great time as I cracked open the first of half a dozen bottles of Veuve Clicquot. I can’t quite recall the maths but there were a couple of big birthdays and an anniversary in there somewhere, so all in all it was a great cause for celebration and they probably near on covered the cost of dinner with what they saved on buying that kind of champers in a fancy resto!

The menu included some great canapes which included a couple of garlic spiked Brie roasted in the oven. The starter was a glorious pink filet of salmon on a bed of crushed peas all sat on top of a balsamic glaze whilst they finished off with a the main course ofthat great French favourite, Coq au Vin along with some lovely salty crusted potatoes and stuffed courgettes. We left them tucking into the great big chocolate cake that we made for the celebration. The only pain was that yet again we forgot to take any photos!