Masterchef, not

Each July or thereabouts six friends, myself included, gather in the north coast town of Ballina for a weekend celebration of the birthday of our host who resides there. It is always a casual weekend of laughs and memories of times past. Three of our group usually concoct a meal for the Saturday evening which we fondly refer to our Masterchef meal.

The meal in fact would not satisfy the judges of that television series for most aspects but it the meal - homely and ordinary as it may be - is one that we always seem to enjoy immensely.

Last year my contribution was to laboriously cut up the vegetables for the soup. I have no pretensions to being a cook. This year I focussed on photographing the preparation and outcome whilst two others did the bulk of actual cooking.

Even as photographer I didn't completely succeed at my task somehow managing to completely fail to photograph the sweet potato and pear suit which was the delicious starter.

Here are the other two courses.

Home made beef pies

Pie, mashed potato, mushy peas and carrots

Baked Alaska (sponge, ice cram and meringue)

This may not be a meal to merit 'hats' but we love this annual treat.