Easter Post Mortem

A wonderful lunch even if i might say so myself...

We started with a platter of cheese, grapes and prosciutto, some marinated baby figs, and some crisp flat bread.

The prep went well, but there are always a few hiccups, but no one besides me noticed.  That's the great thing about home cooking.  There are no harsh critics around.  For some reason the butcher decided to trim my pork loins and gave me two neatly trimmed squares.  When you intend to roll the pork, you need the untrimmed loin so you can wrap it sufficiently to hold the stuffing.  Never the less, with some baking paper and string, we managed to hold our prune and apple stuffing in place.  The crackling didn't crisp sufficiently, so as I suggest below, I simply crisped it up under the grill and that rescue recipe worked fine.

We ended up having the green beans with tarragon and walnut, rosemary roast potatoes and the roast vegetable salad.  We roasted our vegies on the BBQ so it was rustic and delicious.

All that was served with some crusty bread, apple sauce, and cranberry sauce with orange and port.

We had a big party a couple of days before, and had about a kilo of fabulous chocolate cake left over, so I decided to make Black Forest Trifle in individual dishes for dessert.  I made this the night before to maximise the flavour....and to take the pressure of on Easter Sunday.  It went down a treat....

Black Forest Trifle has the same components as a Black Forest Cake: chocolate, cherries, kirsch liqueur and whipped cream. 

If you don't have any good leftover cake, use some chocolate brownies, or chocolate sponge.  Sour cherries are best.  I used a jar of  Morello Cherries that are packed in light syrup, which I heated in a saucepan, and added about 3 tablespoons of sugar and reduced slightly before cooling slightly, before adding the Kirsch.

Then whip 300ml of heavy cream with a little icing sugar and vanilla. 

Place some chocolate cake into the bottom of the dishes, place a couple of spoonfuls of the cherries and liquid over, then a layer or whipped cream.  repeat so you have two layers of each.  As with all trifles, you need to refrigerate to allow the flavours to all meld together, so they are a great dish to prepare when the workload is heavy the next day.

Just before serving, I sprinkled finely grated chocolate over.

You could do this in a large or individual bowl, but glass is best because they look great.  I served mine in Bodum thermo-glass (See www.bodum.com).  They are insulated so they keep frozen and chilled desserts that way for longer, but are also great for cafe' latte.  They are great for tiramisu, trifle, parfait and lots of other pretty desserts in them.  I have a Bodum cast iron fondue set on my wish list, but can't find one anywhere....