No. 7: If I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a cake

On the weekend I had a little BBQ to wish my friend Mmaskepe bon voyage, before she headed off for a month back home in Botswana. Her daughter Tab, and my daughter Amy and her boyfriend Kent, were also invited.

I met Skep when we were both working for a few years in Darwin. Tab, her daughter, is an artist who does amazing photographs and prints, and is starting her own business making unique cards and stationery. Many thanks to Tab for the photo montage on the left!

Having grown up in Botswana, a beautiful but landlocked country (or should that be beautiful and landlocked?), Skep never got to taste seafood as a child, but instead grew up eating plenty of meat and vegetables. She genuinely can't understand why people would eat something so odd-tasting as fish; when I try to describe a delicious seafood dish to her, her response is, "but what about the taste? Are you trying to tell me you actually like it??"

So it was a no-brainer to cook meat and vegies for Skep and Tab. I made balsamic sirloin steak with fennel, served with mushroom and pecorino salad (page 92), and couscous salad with chicken and lemon (page 116), followed by blueberry cake (page 148) for dessert.

The date, balsamic, and oil marinade for the meat is excellent - just remember (unlike me) to chop the dates before putting the ingredients in your blender; the effect will be much less startling, I'll guarantee. The marinade seeps into and tenderises the steak, and the result is really delicious. The accompaniment is a melted light cream cheese sauce with garlic and parsley - yum! The steamed then grilled fennel was also very good, especially with some lemon squeezed over. And the salad was nice and crunchy, though perhaps not so appealing to those who don't actually like mushrooms (Tab).

The hit of the day, however, was the couscous salad with chicken and lemon. I coated the chicken with moroccan spice before grilling and slicing it up, and it was really delicious. There's a great mix of fruit, veg and herbs in with the couscous, and we all loved it.

However, I can't give such a strong recommendation to the blueberry cake. It was the first time in years - in fact since I was a hippie child bride earnestly cooking from "Recipes for a Small Planet" - that I'd used a bunch of ingredients including wholemeal flour, raw sugar, canola oil, and buttermilk in a cake. I followed the recipe exactly, but the batter wasn't of the consistency to "spoon into the prepared cake tin" - it was more like a pancake batter, very pourable, and it took ages to cook. The resulting cake was very dense, with an appearance very much like the picture in the book, and a consistency to match. My guests were very kind, but all I can say is, the two punnets of blueberries I used for this cake could have been put to better use...

Here are some comments from my guests about the meal (with apologies to Iron Chef):

Skep: "It's a winner! The salad is light but fresh and crunchy at the same time. The fennel works really well and complements the steak - especially with the lemon."

Tab: "The couscous is definitely my favourite. I love the textures - the crunchy almond, the fluffy couscous..."

Amy: "The steak with cheese sauce tastes rich and decadent - you'd never know it's low fat."

Kent: "I like the couscous too. It's really simple and tastes great. The fact that it's healthy is a bonus!"

Skep and Tab are two of the most vivacious women you could ever meet, and we had a hilarious afternoon. Has everyone else in the world but me been following international versions of "Idol" on YouTube? Tab had us in stitches with her impersonations of certain Eastern European and South East Asian contestants (I'm afraid to name countries for fear of litigation!) Have to go now, have a date with YouTube...