An E.L.A.I.N.E. Course Birthday Meal

For my 36th birthday, I decided on a 6-course meal party, with each course starting with a letter of my name, hence the E.L.A.I.N.E. course meal celebration. The meal could be a cuisine, a drink or just an ingredient, and a really fun theme to play around with. I decided to place all the letters of my name on the table (from a previous children's birthday party) and moved the letter of the meal as the dishes were served. I wanted to play a game such as "guess the meal" but as the party started it completely slipped my mind. Perhaps I should look into doing "Games Night vol. 2".

 To start the evening of with and celebrate the first letter of my name - E - I served an Easy Breeze Cocktail. This cocktail is a combination of vanilla vodka (actually requires grapefruit vodka), cranberry juice, grapefruit tonic (in the absence of the grapefruit vodka), lime cordial, a slice of lime and ice. It had a slight bitter taste due to the grapefruit but really enjoyable and one can easily go for a second one! I made this cocktail extra strong to get the party started quickly.

For the second letter of my name - L - I served lettuce cups as an appetiser. I filled these with chicken, coleslaw mix, green salad onions, made a mayo and honey sauce and drizzled with almond oil. These bites were deliciously fresh and crunchy. These were particularly nice at it could be rolled as a wrap which makes it the perfect party snack.

For the A-course meal, I decided to use avocados in the form of mashed avo and avocado oil. Together with the avo items I served various elements of which one was nacho based with nacho chips, cream cheese, sour cream, feta and cheddar cheese, sliced jalapeños, spicy salsa and black beans. Other elements comprised mini wraps, rice cakes and crostinis which went perfectly with the avocado oil. It turns out that this is one of my new favourites which I'll definitely serve in future.

The letter I served as the main meal of the evening. I did decide to serve N before I - but let's focus on I for now. The final choice was Indian cuisine - one of my favourites and regular lunch treats! For this occasion, I ordered from my favourite Indian restaurtant - making Indian is on my to-do list (after two failed attempts already). On the menu was butter and garlic naan bread, basmati rice, mild lamb korma as well as mild and medium butter chicken! This was definitely a favourite of the evening, with sadly barely any leftovers.

For the letter N, I decided on a shooter, but because my last course also entailed a shooter, I decided to swop around N and I, serving the shooter before the main meal. This shooter is called a Ninja Turtle shooter and consists of coconut liqueur, melon liqueur and pineapple juice. To finish off the shooters, each shot glass required a TMNT colour on the rind of the glass made from coloured sugar, however at this time of the evening, I wasn't in the mood. Nevertheless, the shots were divine and had a very tropical taste. 

For the last letter of my name, dessert was the most obvious choice. As I have two E's in my name, I found it fitting to have two items on the dessert menu - espresso liqueur and eclairs - the chocolaty and creamy kind! The perfect sweet to end my E.L.A.I.N.E. course birthday party!

The Invitation