3 Part Birthday Feast - Part 1

One of my very close friends, Miss V, recently had a birthday. And as a surprise I decided to invite her and her partner over and cooked a 4 course gourmet meal. Well my interpretation of gourmet, not exactly restaurant worthy.

Since every birthday should be celebrated with bubbles, I decided to start with Cocktails and Canapés. It was a lovely evening, except for the usual Melbourne chilly breeze, so we decided to have the C & C course alfresco.

For the featured cocktail I made Fuzzy monkeys. The first time I had this cocktail was at Society on Bourke Street. I fell in love with it instantly, so when I got home I found a recipe and ever since I've been making them at home.

Fuzzy Monkey

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Here is the recipe I use. They don't taste exactly the sam

e as the ones I had at Society, but pretty damn close!

RECIPE

10 mL Voka

10 mL Peach schnapps

10 mL creme de bananas

30 mL peach nectar

METHOD

Put all ingredients into a shaker with some ice. Shake for a few minutes and then strain into a talk champagne glass. Top the glass up with your favourite bubbly. I used Asti Ricadonna because its incredibly sweet and goes well with the peach flavour.

Onto the canapés. I wanted to make something very easy, but at the same time impressive. What better way to impress some one then with miniature pancakes. I'm a particular fan of bilinis, only for the simple fact that you can put almost anything on them and they'll taste like a little bite of heaven. I made three different canapés.

Bilinis with smoked salmon and sour cream

Garlic crispinis topped with duck liver pate

And chilli anchovies 

Platter full of canapés

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I wont bother explaining the anchovies and the crispinis because they were so damn easy. Oh ok....I'll give you a quick explanation. The chilli anchovies were literally chilli infused anchovies on a toothpick and the garlic crispinis were sliced bread cut into triangles and then toasted in some garlic infused olive oil and then topped with some Maggie Beer pate. Very delicious, even more so when I put in 0% effort to make them.

The bilinis were a little more involved, but only slightly. The only work needed was to make the miniature pancakes. Make about 1 cup worth of your favourite unsweetened pancake mixture and then fry them in a little butter in 1 table spoon sizes. One cup makes about 20 bilinis. Make sure to let them sit on some absorbent paper, if you don't they can be a little greasy from the butter. Then top these little discs with your fav topping. 

 

Naked and not shy bilinis

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It didn't take long for all the fuzzy monkeys to be drunk and all the canapés to be eaten. That meant that the next course needed to be served.