Hospitality (aka big ass food post)
Jul. 16th, 2010 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coffeesnob318I've taken to hosting regular dinners and parties at my house. This is a relatively new thing for me. I am really enjoying it.
I think I enjoy it more than I thought I would because I have a Craig (little shout-out to the Frugal Gourmet). Maggie usually assists me when I have people come over, which is fun for me. Even when my house is 20,000 degrees because the oven is on, I have fun cooking when there's someone there to help me (or at least pour the wine).
During one such dinner, I had Maggie, Ryan, Austin, and Kim over to test some recipes. The appetizer was roasted red pepper crostini. The recipe called for baguette slices. Now, a normal person would just buy a baguette from the local bakery. But I am not now nor have I ever been a normal person, so I was like, "Baguettes - how hard can they possibly be to make?" Luckily, the answer was "not hard at all." So the crostini were served on fresh baked baguette slices.
The main course was pasta with ricotta and heirloom tomatoes. I love me some tomatoes. I eat those little grape and cherry tomatoes like they're candy. With this dish, you serve the tomatoes uncooked, on top of the pasta. It was an interesting flavor.
For dessert (and really, the whole reason I needed a group, as I really should not eat this alone), we had a berry trifle. Maggie made the cake, because I have Cake Phobia (as would you if every cake you had ever attempted from scratch came out as more of an omelette), and we layered squares of it with a marscapone cream and blueberries and strawberries in a sherry sauce. I would have been happy with just the sherried berries. Yum.
Overall, I think this dinner was a success, and we had a lot of leftovers (I sent people home with care packages).
This year, I threw my first ever July 4 party (First #12). There were quite a few people there. We had margaritas and an obscene amount of Pizza Puffs. We played Balderdash, which I normally only enjoy a little bit, but turns out, it's an awesome drinking game (meaning, "game you play while drinking," not the traditional meaning of "game you play to speed up drinking").
The biggest challenge to me was when I had Natalie and Kim over (not the challenge - the company part was delightful) to try glazed salmon. Some of you who are keeping up with my race toward one hundred new recipes might have noticed my aversion to cooking meat. It's not pleasant. It smells so bad when it's cooking. And the smell doesn't dissipate. It hides all around the house - in the carpet, in the sofa, everywhere. So for days after I cook it, I will be smelling it, making me very skittish about cooking it again in the future. Fish is particularly smelly. So I was nervous about the salmon, but I had salmon in the freezer (a present donated by Maggie, as she does not eat fish but had some left at her house from when her sister was living with her). So I made it, and it was good. We paired it with rice and green beans and had butter cookies for dessert. It was tasty, but it's not something I want to cook very often.
So there you have it. And here you can find the recipes:
16. Baguettes from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes
17. Roasted Red Pepper Crostini
18. Pasta with Ricotta and Heirloom Tomatoes
18. Marscapone and Sherried Berry Trifle
19. Pepperoni Pizza Puffs
20. Glazed Salmon
Butter Cookies from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman (still my favorite and most used cookbook to date)
1. Mix 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, and a pinch of salt together in a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, cream together one stick of unsalted butter and 3/4 cup sugar.
3. Mix in a teaspoon of vanilla and one egg to the butter mixture.
4. Mix in half the flour mixture with the butter mixture.
5. Mix in 1/2 cup of milk (more as needed to bring it to a soft texture) and remaining flour mixture.
6. Drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for about ten minutes.
I think I enjoy it more than I thought I would because I have a Craig (little shout-out to the Frugal Gourmet). Maggie usually assists me when I have people come over, which is fun for me. Even when my house is 20,000 degrees because the oven is on, I have fun cooking when there's someone there to help me (or at least pour the wine).
During one such dinner, I had Maggie, Ryan, Austin, and Kim over to test some recipes. The appetizer was roasted red pepper crostini. The recipe called for baguette slices. Now, a normal person would just buy a baguette from the local bakery. But I am not now nor have I ever been a normal person, so I was like, "Baguettes - how hard can they possibly be to make?" Luckily, the answer was "not hard at all." So the crostini were served on fresh baked baguette slices.
The main course was pasta with ricotta and heirloom tomatoes. I love me some tomatoes. I eat those little grape and cherry tomatoes like they're candy. With this dish, you serve the tomatoes uncooked, on top of the pasta. It was an interesting flavor.
For dessert (and really, the whole reason I needed a group, as I really should not eat this alone), we had a berry trifle. Maggie made the cake, because I have Cake Phobia (as would you if every cake you had ever attempted from scratch came out as more of an omelette), and we layered squares of it with a marscapone cream and blueberries and strawberries in a sherry sauce. I would have been happy with just the sherried berries. Yum.
Overall, I think this dinner was a success, and we had a lot of leftovers (I sent people home with care packages).
This year, I threw my first ever July 4 party (First #12). There were quite a few people there. We had margaritas and an obscene amount of Pizza Puffs. We played Balderdash, which I normally only enjoy a little bit, but turns out, it's an awesome drinking game (meaning, "game you play while drinking," not the traditional meaning of "game you play to speed up drinking").
The biggest challenge to me was when I had Natalie and Kim over (not the challenge - the company part was delightful) to try glazed salmon. Some of you who are keeping up with my race toward one hundred new recipes might have noticed my aversion to cooking meat. It's not pleasant. It smells so bad when it's cooking. And the smell doesn't dissipate. It hides all around the house - in the carpet, in the sofa, everywhere. So for days after I cook it, I will be smelling it, making me very skittish about cooking it again in the future. Fish is particularly smelly. So I was nervous about the salmon, but I had salmon in the freezer (a present donated by Maggie, as she does not eat fish but had some left at her house from when her sister was living with her). So I made it, and it was good. We paired it with rice and green beans and had butter cookies for dessert. It was tasty, but it's not something I want to cook very often.
So there you have it. And here you can find the recipes:
16. Baguettes from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes
17. Roasted Red Pepper Crostini
18. Pasta with Ricotta and Heirloom Tomatoes
18. Marscapone and Sherried Berry Trifle
19. Pepperoni Pizza Puffs
20. Glazed Salmon
Butter Cookies from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman (still my favorite and most used cookbook to date)
1. Mix 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, and a pinch of salt together in a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, cream together one stick of unsalted butter and 3/4 cup sugar.
3. Mix in a teaspoon of vanilla and one egg to the butter mixture.
4. Mix in half the flour mixture with the butter mixture.
5. Mix in 1/2 cup of milk (more as needed to bring it to a soft texture) and remaining flour mixture.
6. Drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for about ten minutes.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-07-16 12:40 pm (UTC)I am so grossed out by the smell of meat and that's a big part of the reason I became vegetarian. Sometimes I enjoyed eating meat, but mostly it just grossed me out. Especially beef and pork.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 06:04 am (UTC)Me.
Date: 2010-07-20 10:05 am (UTC)Re: Me.
Date: 2010-07-21 10:44 am (UTC)