Austrayan Dinner & Leila's farewell

It was my turn to cook for the international dinner party this week. I thought long and hard about what to cook and, with some very helpful advice from my friend Claire (world culinary expert) decided on the following menu:
Damper with beetroot dip (apparently beetroot is very australian)
Aussie meat pies with mashed potato and peas
Beetroot and chocolate cake
Lots of Australian vino, followed by an Australian movie. The only ones we could find in the video shop were Babe, The Castle and BoyTown. In the end we chose BoyTown - I'd seen it before but highly recommend it....

I think everyone had a good time. It was one of those scary dinner parties where you've never made any of the recipes before, but they seemed to work just fine. I reckon the best bit was the damper - I'd never made it before but it's so easy (takes about 10 minutes prep time) and tastes so good...

Sadly, my friend Leila (from Germany) leaves to go home this weekend. So, as a special treat, I gave her the rest of the chocolate icing to eat!!!