you might remember that recently it was boyfriend's birthday. you might also remember that the weekend of boyfriend's birthday, i had some friends over, and completely ignored any birthday-related festivities for him. that is at least, only until money supermarket launched their charcoal challenge campaign, challenging us to throw a barbeque for less than £50. challenge accepted! with the budget in mind, and a free - slightly belated weekend on the cards, we rallied the troops and headed to a park in south london to celebrate his big day...
a few days earlier, with budget in hand, boyfriend and i headed to the supermarket. buying sausages and burgers in bulk, as well as store-own bread and rolls saved us about a zillion pounds, as did buying all of the ingredients for a variety of salads to make the day of the bbq. on the menu was a 4-veg slaw, a seafood salad, a posh potato salad, and a less-inventive garden salad. all in all, the fresh veg and dressings were probably the most expensive buys, but, you can't beat fresh produce.
on top of the four salads, 20-odd sausages, and 16 burgers, there was about 30 chicken kebabs made fresh on saturday morning... turns out, i'd underestimated how much food we'd prepared, and we needed some help getting it all to the park (we don't have a car). we found an abandoned trolley on the walk there, and piled all of our bags and platters of food in... a few minutes later, boyfriend had the genius idea to use it as the barbeque! i've never used a disposable one before, and had no idea how hot they got. it's just as well he was a quick thinker, because in that heat, we would definitely have set the park on fire.
we turned up about an hour before the rest, and set ourselves up under a giant, shady tree by the train line. picnic sheet down, and food spread out, our guests slowly started to trickle in. the boys lit up the barbie and we wolfed down the spread. liz had brought some pimms with her, so while the boys played in the park with their £1 frisbee (at one point, trying to catch the frisbee in their mouths. there were some sore noses and bloody gums throughout the afternoon), the girls lounged in the shade, sipping on pimms and chatting away...
as the sun started to make it's way down, we begrudgingly packed our loot back into the trolley (cooled down with some iced water), and trudged back to the flat... with several visitors in tow! iced lollies and homemade ice cream (this recipe! so much yum!) filled the next few hours, as well as too many 'which would you rather' type questions, until tiredness set in, and the visitors set off.
it was a long day. we'd been up at 8am preparing, and didn't get the flat tidied and dishes done until midnight. hostessing and making sure people are ok is very tiring work! boyfriend enjoyed the belated birthday barbeque though, and we're chuffed to have put on such an awesome spread for our closest friends on such a brilliantly sunny day.
thank you so much to money supermarket for setting us the charcoal challenge - i would say that we totally nailed the challenge. a feast for ten people for fifty quid? someone give me a medal.
