Sweet Home Dinner

Posted on November 22, 2009 by admin_admin

It was gorgeous and a wonderful evening. Alexis was down from Connecticut for the day and stopped by to stay hi while I was stringing the flowers for the ceiling. Of course I invited her to stay for dinner, and she was such a wonderful addition to our party – and got to hear lots of stories about Fairfield (where we all grew up) that either scared or intrigued her! Ha!

It’s an artistic group, so it was really fun to create a colorful table with bouquets of color pencils over brown craft paper that begged to be drawn on. I used it as the easiest place cards ever – just wrote everyone’s names above their plates.

The flowers were simple, but added a punch of color. I bought four bunches of carnations in yellow and three shades of pink, and kept each color in its own vase rather than mixing them. It made the flowers look cohesive and at the same time, with the colored pencils, made the table as a whole very colorful.

I then strung blossoms on three long strands of thread and hung them from the ceiling for something more festive and with a little bit of South Asian flair.

We made gorgeous doodles.

mosaicc029a8a12365810ee7ba98c79040ae60c68648d2 And the food…Anna brought her gorgeous macaroons made with organic sweetened condensed milk, but I was so consumed with eating them that I completely forgot to take a photograph. Just imagine perfectly browned, chewy golden macaroons, and you’ll have a good sense of how lovely they were. Please continue for the post-mortem on my dishes.

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Sweet Home Dinner: Timing

Posted on November 20, 2009 by admin_admin

timer

Timing a dinner party is one of the most important skills a host can have, and is also one of the most difficult. Cooking always takes longer than you think it will, talking with your guests is fun and takes you away from what you should be doing in the kitchen, and once you get behind it’s very hard to catch up. I’m certainly not always on time, but I try my best to ensure we eat when I said we would. I don’t like going to someone’s house for dinner, expecting to eat fairly close to the time I arrive, and having to wait…and wait…and wait. I’ve definitely done that to guests, but I really hate doing it. To avoid that fate, I will literally print this out for myself and post it on my kitchen corkboard so I know exactly what I need to be doing when. Without it, I always forget something vital that had to be done at a certain time so everything else could be finished at a certain time….I’m terribly forgetful and have to constantly refer to my timeline to be on time!

I’ll write something longer on how to time your parties, but as an example for now I’m just going to lay out my plan for my upcoming dinner party on Saturday, which starts at 7pm. Unfortunately, the last minute nature of the pasta dish means I won’t get to hang out in the living room much with my guests, but no worries – the kitchen will just become part of the party, and our cocktail hour won’t be a full hour anyway. We’ll just get started with dinner as quickly as possible!

Friday:

Shop
Make the zucchini appetizer
Make the herb butter

Saturday:

Make the soup during the day and refrigerate
6pm: Set the table
6:45: Slice bread and put in foil to warm up, preheat oven to 400 degrees F
7pm: Guests arrive, cocktails and appetizers until 7:45
- Start making pasta and gorgonzola sauce – this will mean I won’t get to visit with the guests at the beginning, but making this ahead just doesn’t sound very smart
- Put bread in the oven
- Warm up soup on the stove
- Put green beans on the sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a little honey
7:30: Pasta and green beans go in the oven, make sure soup is warm. Direct everyone towards the table and serve the soup.
7:45: Pull everything out of the oven, let rest while finish soup – they will be fine sitting for a few minutes until served!

Specialty Bourbons

Posted on November 20, 2009 by admin_admin

risen_oct27_buffalotrace_post

We all have our giant bottle of Maker’s Mark in the liquor cabinet (or is it just me?!) and maybe one nicer bottle for special occasions or for the visiting bourbon aficionado. So new ideas of bourbons to choose are always lovely. The Atlantic reviewed smaller bourbon labels last week. After describing bourbon distilleries as either foxes, who know many things, or hedgehogs, who know one big thing, Clay Risen noted that some foxes produce smaller labels that may be hard to find but can be worth the hunt.

Sweet Home Dinner: Menu

Posted on November 19, 2009 by admin_admin

Remember when I decided I needed to try gluten-free pasta to see if I could substitute it in for my tagliatelle with gorgonzola? I ran down to the store the other day for the ingredients to make classic mac and cheese with rice pasta, and couldn’t find rice pasta. However, they did have quinoa pasta and corn pasta, so I chose the corn because it came in classic elbow macaroni and cooked it up. It tastes good! Honestly, I couldn’t even tell the difference. Plus, according to the wise comments, rice pasta falls apart anyway – so I will take that to mean my choice of corn pasta was a genius move on my part and even if the store had had rice pasta, I undoubtedly would still have chosen the corn because I just know things like that….yeah….

So this is excellent, and will let me go with my original menu idea of soup followed by pasta and simple veggies, and maybe a nice brown bread for the gluten eaters. One of my guests offered to bring macaroons for dessert, which are obviously gluten-free and sound soooo good! I’ll just save the balsamic truffles for another time; it’s always kind of a nice feeling to know you’ve got a dessert in your back pocket that will go with almost any meal and no one has seen it before. We’ll start with a nice simple zucchini and goat cheese appetizer, which I can not only make the day before, but will be extra vegetables (always good!) and a little protein in the cheese.

Zucchini_Rolls_lg As for libations, a non-drinking friend is bringing something tasty and non-alcoholic. For the drinkers, I think the wine will have to marry well with the gorgonzola but otherwise could probably be whatever you like. I’ll probably just ask at the wine shop what they would recommend, as I’m no wine expert. I even went to a lovely wine tasting the other night that was meant to be focused on how to order wine from a mysterious wine list – we all know how foreign those look, right?! This was information I needed! – and I kid you not, the advice they gave over and over was “Ask the sommelier.” So basically there is no way to figure it out yourself. Oh well, I still had a great time at the tasting and got to see friends from college, so it was overall a win.

Sweet Home Dinner Menu

Zucchini Roll-ups

Curried Butternut Squash Soup with brown bread and herb butter

Gluten-Free Pasta baked with Mushrooms, Gorgonzola and Walnuts (continue for the recipe)
Roasted green beans with balsamic vinegar and honey

Macaroons from my friend AC

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Herb Butter

Posted on November 18, 2009 by admin_admin

Making herb butter is such an easy way to make a big impact. Guests tend to be really impressed that you took the extra time to actually “make butter” – even though it takes five minutes, tops – and it can really jazz up a plain piece of bread that would have otherwise not added much to your menu as a whole.

Herb Butter

1/4 cup very soft butter (or adjust to the amount you wish to put on the table)
1/2 teaspoon finely minced herbs (such as chives, thyme, rosemary or basil)
Optional: kosher salt, to taste

If you’re a salted butter kind of person, either use salted butter or add your own salt. A dash of kosher salt in herb butter would throw in a nice flavor, especially mixed with a more subtle herb like basil.

Using a fork, mix the softened butter and herbs together until blended evenly. Place in a mold or pretty dish, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until set.

If you forgot to put out the butter for softening (as I usually do), you can microwave it on low power to soften it up. Do this veeerry carefully, though, because it will melt faster than you think. In my microwave, I put it in for 10 seconds on 50% power. However, every microwave is different, so err on the side of caution in yours.

Fall in Atlanta, Part II

Posted on November 18, 2009 by admin_admin

All right, I have a confession to make. After writing my lovely Atlanta menu and being so excited to shop in the big store and cook in the big kitchen – and I really was! – I didn’t do any of it. We were so kept so busy running around from barn to horse to party all weekend that not only did I not have time to cook, but the only meals we ate at home were store-bought sandwiches. Epic fail, as far as cooking goes. Oh well, it was a great weekend and the menu is still just as yummy. I’ll make it soon enough.

Epic success, though, as far as riding horses goes. I (sort of) jumped for the first time! It was hardly a flying leap, but Hamish and I trotted up to a jump about a foot high and he sort of casually bounded over, and – this is the most exciting part – I stayed on and didn’t even teeter off balance at all! Yeah that’s right. So we did it about five more times. Next stop: Olympics.

Sweet Home Dinner: Thoughts

Posted on November 12, 2009 by admin_admin

Some of my dearest friends are coming over for dinner next weekend. After months of failed attempts to find a night that mutually works for all six of us – with jobs, travel, social schedules, and the usual busy life stuff that everyone has, we’ve finally succeeded. I’m especially excited because this is the first dinner party I’m throwing after starting Brown Butter & Bourbon, so I’ll write about all the planning and execution from start to finish. These are friends I grew up with in Iowa and after we all scattered around the globe for a while, we all moved to New York. Because I moved to Jackson Hole during high school, I missed those pre-college years with them, so it has been wonderful to reconnect and get to know each other all over again. It’s such a warm feeling to discover that you already know someone you actually really like and want to hang out with more often!

So, where to start? Of the five, two are on gluten-free diets and at least one is vegetarian, so this will be a gluten-free veggie meal. I know that to carnivores that sounds like it will be really boring, but come on, guys: just because there’s no meat or wheat doesn’t mean there won’t be filling or have a ton of flavor. Because it’s fall and getting chillier, and because I rarely make soup, I think a lovely soup would be perfect to start. Ellie Krieger makes a butternut squash soup with curry powder, which sounds like it has a spicy kick and switches up the usual squash soup flavors.

Butternut_Squash_Soup_med

Then, a dish that has always gotten rave reviews and is quite filling is tagliatelle baked with gorgonzola and walnuts (sort of a very grownup mac and cheese). Clearly pasta has wheat in it and is therefore forbidden, but I’m thinking of making the dish with rice pasta, which is gluten-free. The only hiccup is that I’ve never tried rice pasta and have no idea what it tastes like, so that’s something I really need to taste before serving it to guests.

If the rice pasta doesn’t substitute well, maybe a little breakfast at dinner with eggs florentine over polenta and baked oven fries on the side. Ooh that sounds good, but I have to think about how to execute poached eggs for six people. Other ideas: eggplant parmesan (too typical?) or a lentil and veggie frittata (with quinoa and maybe a balsamic reduction?).

truffles

Lastly, balsamic vinegar truffles (taking a cue from my Black and White Inspiration), which will be rich enough to end the meal, yet small enough to enjoy without guilt. I can also make them the day before and then forget about them, which is always a good thing.

I haven’t even gotten to decor yet, though I keep thinking of bouquets of crayons and butcher paper – sometimes decor dictates the menu, but with so many food restrictions, I’m going to figure out the menu first. So: I need to try rice pasta and then make a decision.

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