Christmas Dinner - 2008

We drove down to my brother's house in Texas again for Christmas - a trip that almost didn't happen due to my employment situation. I was laid off the Friday before Christmas, if you hadn't heard, and it kind of freaked us out for a minute. Especially when we found that the car needed a not-so-cheap repair that same day. Thanks to some help from the parents and falling gas prices, we went ahead. We were very happy we did. Being around family was just the thing we needed. And being able to contribute my skills in the kitchen was validating.

In putting together the menu, I swapped out a few standards again, for variety's sake. I also took another pass at a few recipes I'd tried recently, for practice. The menu was:

Lemon Rosemary Roasted Turkey with Gravy
Green Onion Buttermilk Biscuits (not served)
Cheddar Buttermilk Drop Biscuits
Lime Cilantro Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Poblano Gratin Potatoes
Classic Green Bean Casserole (The Cook's Illustrated Version)
Best Potluck Macaroni and Cheese
Cornbread Stuffing with Sausage and Fennel
Vegetable Casserole with Tofu Topping
Sour Cream Apple Pie
Cranberry Eggnog Tart
Gingerbread

I came down with a pretty bad headache on Christmas Eve, so I wasn't able to get all of my prep work done then, as I hoped. This was a big factor in dinner getting on the table about 2 hours late (7 instead of 5, as planned). I did, at least, get all of the desserts taken care of.

On the day of, my mom was a HUGE help in the kitchen. I was able to give direction on things to cut and prep and have complete confidence that she would know what I was talking about. My aunt asked my brother and me where we learned and we both answered that while we don't remember any specific "How To" sessions with her, she really taught us a great foundation. My brother also tended the turkey on the grill after I prepped it while I worked in the kitchen. There is no way I would have been able to run back and forth between the two.

There was one mishap, the Green Onion Buttermilk Biscuits, which I caught early and was redundant anyway. I didn't read carefully when mixing and used baking soda instead of salt. I tasted one and not only was the flavor off, but the soda aftertaste lingered for 30 minutes. Ugh. I threw them out. What I didn't realize until very late that day was my brother and sister-in-law had already snuck one and discovered how foul they were, but apparently weren't going to say anything out of niceness. What really sucks is that this was the first time ever that I've messed these up.

Entries for the individual dishes, including recipes and comments, will follow over the next few days. If a recipe has already been posted, I'll be updating the original post if there were any neew discoveries or findings.

Menu: Italian Dinner

This past weekend, we had our lovely and talented neighbors and friends, Heather, David, Edward and David over for dinner. In thinking through the menu, I threw out the idea of gnocchi on Facebook and they bit.

I made a tradition Italian dinner course progression. The menu was:

L'antipasto (hot and cold appetizers)
Bruschetta al Maccit (Bread with Fava Bean Puree) and Zucchine Sfrante (Zucchini Puree and Sun-Dried Tomatoes), Pizza Bianca
Il primo ("First Course" - hot dish like pasta, risotto, gnocchi, polenta or soup)
Gorgonzola Stuffed Gnocchi with Tomato Basil Cream Sauce
Il secondo ("Second Course" - the main dish, usually fish or meat)
Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken Breast with Rosemary
Il contorno ("Side Dish" - salad or vegetables)
Ratatouille/Caponata
Il dolce ("Dessert")
Duo of Lemon Panacotta and Tiramisu with Raspberries and Hazelnuts, served with a Raspberry Coulis
Il caffè ("Coffee")
Coffee
Ammazzacaffè
Limoncello

We had a great, great evening. The conversation was stimulating, everyone was engaged and people seemed suitably impressed with the food. On that level, I would give the evening an A.

The only thing that I needed to push it into the A+ level was to remember one thing: Portions. When you have five course to work through, if you're going to make it to the big finish, you have GOT to pace yourself on the first few acts. If the diners are too full for dessert at the end, it doesn't matter how damned good it is.

Now, when I broke down the actual dishes, it didn't measure up quite so well. My measure is, "If you were served this meal at a restaurant, would you have been happy with it? By that measure, I'd honestly have to give myself a B-. Just about every dish had at least one significant flaw to be corrected. On the upside, those errors are very identifiable and easy to fix. So, it was an excellent, actionable learning experience.

Write-ups of the individual dishes and recipes to follow as updates to this post and individual dish entries.

Italian Night

This actually happened right before our trip.

We'd been meaning to catch up with our friends Steve and John for a while. A bit of urgency was introduced when we found out that they had vacationed in Barcelona a couple of years back. We really wanted to pick their brains before we went. In the various planning emails, we were going towards a dinner out in the 'hood, but then Steve suggested an Italian place. That kicked off a domino chain of thoughts which prompted me to volunteer.

It was a perfect storm of Italian dishes colliding in my head. In thinking about local Italian places, I remembered I wanted to try the Lemon Pannacotta like I had at Ante Prima. Also, I had a recipe for Pizza Bianca from Cook's Illustrated I needed to make that weekend. Then there was my general plan to make some more tomato sauce for the house also that weekend. Finally, I was zeroing in on my target of making Gorgonzola Stuffed Gnocchi for Channing, having just bought gorgonzola to have on hand for when I finally got around to it. No time like the present.

Fortunately, they bit. So, the menu was:

• Gorgonzola Stuffed Gnocchi with Broiled Chicken in Tomato Sauce


• Roasted Broccoli


• Pizza Bianca


• Zucchine Sfrante


• Lemon Panacotta with Lemon Sauce

So, the blow-by-blow:

• The gnocchi pretty much worked great. I used my standard recipe, properly made with Russet potatoes this time instead of Yukon Gold. I did forget to drain the potatoes while they cooled and left them sitting in the water, which made the texture a little off. But not a disaster, by any means.
  
  My made-up method for stuffing them with the cheese worked pretty well. I rolled out the cylinder of dough a tad thicker then usual and then rolled that flat. I then placed a chunk of cheese at about every inch, rolled the sides of the tube back up and then cut the pieces in between the cheese chunks. I then rolled the individual dumplings, being careful not to puncture the dough with the fork. The results were pretty large and I think I could have been more efficient, so I'll have to look up how to do this right. But for now, this was fine.



• For the red sauce, I made the Chopping Block sauce again, but used the canned tomatoes per the option given in the recipe. I let it simmer and reduce for a good 2 hours, which was a big, big mistake. That sodium in the canned tomatoes I mentioned before? Well, when it's reduced, you can really taste it. I had added none to the recipe at all, but the end result was way too salty for me. Channing, John and Steve didn't seem to think so, but I thought it overpowered the gorgonozla.



• The Roast Broccoli was a big hit, even with Channing. Recipe: Toss broccoli with with olive oil and kosher salt, roast at 450F for 20 minutes. That's it.



• The Pizza Bianca gets its own entry.



• The zucchini was supposed to be an appetizer, but I got a late start with it and just served it with dinner. Though it was a half-assed effort (no fresh basil available, for instance), it went over well.



• With the Pannacotta, I just added lemon extract to taste to the plain recipe, about 1/2 teaspoon. It could have taken a little more, but I wanted to keep it delicate. For the coulis, I used the lemon sauce from the Treebeards Gingerbread recipe.

Indian Meal: Whoa. High Praise, Indeed

Well, that went well.

We were going to get together with Ebru and Fuzail on Sunday and Fuzail said he wanted Indian food. I realized that I had never cooked Indian for him and, him being Pakistani, raised on the stuff and a great cook in his own right, I wanted his input.

In reviewing posts over the past few days, I also noticed that I hadn't had a clean success with the Saag Panir yet and this would give me an opportunity to give it one more try. Likewise, I hadn't enjoyed a success with my own Aloo Paratha either and I wanted to try out my new griddle that I got for Christmas. So, I invited them to come over instead of going out.

The menu was:
Aloo Paratha
Murgh Saag (Chicken with Spinach - Broccoli used here)
Bengali Red Lentil Dal
Saag Panir
Spiced Rice

This menu hit a good balance. We had representation of meat, lentils, green vegetables and starch. Channing would eat the chicken and spinach dishes, so his tastes was covered. It would have been a full meal for a vegetarian as well, going with the spinach and the dal.

Ebru and Fuzail both seemed impressed. Ebru was happy to see the spinach and broccoli, as she hadn't had vegetables yet that day. Fuzail was pleased to see the dal.

But the capper for me was when he said that he thought the spinach was better than his mother's. Honestly? I thought it was my best effort with that recipe yet. I followed the regular recipe and used packaged frozen fried panir, rather than frying it myself (which seriously adds to the oil/fat content). Personally, it was a touch watery and bitter. Gift horses, right? I think I'm going to look for a new recipe, though.

The Paratha went pretty well. I think that I did over-knead the dough a bit, making it a bit tough (I noticed this when rolling). Also, I should have wrapped the dough directly when chilling it, instead of covering the bowl. The top of the dough ball dried out a bit and I had to mix that back into the dough to re-hydrate it. I also need a bit more practice regulating the temperature on the burners under the griddle. It's one of those large two-burner deals and, like most nice newer stoves, all of my burners have different BTU/heat outputs. So, getting an even heat across the surface will take some practice.

Menu: Indian for the Family

My dad and stepmother came to visit us for pre-Christmas. In the past few years, they've come the same weekend as our big Holiday Party, bring tamales from Texas for the event. There was a conflict this year so they came up the week before. Which was great, because usually a LOT of visiting time is lost to party preparations. And recovery. The less said about that, the better.
In making arrangements for this trip, I realized that, despite all of my talk about cooking over the years, I haven't actually cooked a meal for them since 1988. Seriously.

And boy, that was a disaster (though everyone was very nice about it).

So, with the new kitchen and all of my skills, I figured it was way past time. Also, Karin is quite an excellent cook herself, so I thought it was a good opportunity to try out the collaborative cooking thing.

She's on a restricted diet these days and though she can always find something good on a menu and insisted that we not factor that in to planning, I did anyway. Because I think that boundaries force you to be more creative and, also, might as well improve the chances of success. The two good fits, cuisine-wise, were Italian and Indian. We wanted to show off Anteprima, so Italian was covered that weekend. Also, for all their trips here, they'd never been up to Devon Avenue. So, when getting the few ingredients I don't have on hand (fresh fenugreek or curry leaves, for example), I have to chance to show off a new part of the city.

Turns out it was a win for me, too. I usually go to Patel Brothers (2542 W Devon Ave), as they're the biggest and seem to have everything (except a meat counter). Because of parking (always a challenge up there), I ended a little further west on Devon than usual and in front of the North Water Market (2626 W Devon Ave - between Rockwell St & Talman Ave). Oh my. This place is amazing. The produce section is literally four times the size of Patel Brothers and the layout is much easier to navigate. I ended up getting all of our produce there, the fenugreek, the breads (frozen) and some basmati rice to replace the bag I'd been having problems with recently. I think they really enjoyed the experience, with all the people, the variety of foods and the Bollywood music over the PA.

I'm not sure if their spice and sauce collections are as extensive or cheap, but overall, I think that North Water has become my new favorite. On reflection, I think that maybe I went to Patel Brothers more because they were further east on Devon (I drive east to west on that stretch) and more brightly lit outside. We also picked up some pakora and samosas at Kamdar Plaza (2646 W. Devon Ave - a basic Indian grocery with a great sweet shop as well) as I didn't want to be frying at home that night.

For dinner, the menu was:
Pakora and Samosas
Naan and Paratha (purchased frozen)
Sweet Tamarind Chutney
Spiced Rice
Aloo Ghobi
Bengali Red Lentil Dahl
Murgh Saag (Chicken with Spinach)

Here is the problem with coming back to these posts after a long time. While I generally have an excellent memory, I can't remember if we had anything for desert. I can't imagine that we didn't, but it sure as heck wouldn't have been rice pudding because of the no dairy requirement. Anyway. I eliminated the currants and cashews from the rice because dried fruits and nuts are also restricted. No worries. Also, to avoid butter, I used grape seed oil, which worked just fine. The Murgh Saag was the new thing for me; a recipe I'd looked at for a long time in Razzaq's Indian Lowfat Cooking, but had never made. That will get its own post.

Overall, this worked out really well. The prep and cooking to for. ev. er, though. I think because there was a lot of chatting and less "focus." We started cooking at 7:00/7:30 and didn't serve until 9:30. There's just no way. This should have taken half that time. But everyone had a great time and I managed to deliver without embarrassing myself. I'd give it a B+.

Menu: Thanksgiving Dinner

I love cooking for Thanksgiving because it gives me the opportunity to eat a ton of my favorite foods, all at once. This is ambitious looking, but for the most part, I've done this before. So there won't be any surprises.

The Menu:
Treebeards' Mushroom Soup
Roast Turkey
Cornbread Stuffing with Fennel & Sausage
Green Onion Buttermilk Biscuits
Garlic Cheese Grits
Roasted Garlic & Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes
Lime Cilantro Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Spinach Cheddar Bake
Ginger Lemon Cheesecake
Chocolate White Chocolate Mouse Raspberry Tart

Our friend Ebru is bringing Orange Glazed Green Beans and Chris is bringing a fruit pie.

This menu has been pretty fixed over the years. I've been going through a ton of Gourmet back issues and seen some great ideas, but each item here hits a particular flavor point for me.
For instance, there was a great cheddar mashed potatoes I found, but I already got cheddar in the spinach.

There are a few additions, though. Ebru's beans with the orange will compliment well as there seems to be a shortage of green veggies. Chris's pie will balance the "creamy" deserts. I'd generally avoided sweet potatoes before as we already have too much starch, but I think this cilantro lime variation is unique enough that it will work well. The results and recipes to follow.

Indian at Home - The Chopping Block Recipes in Action

The past Friday, Jenni, my bud from Northwestern and the Indian Vegetarian class came over with her husband Dan to practice the recipes from our class. Our friends Chris & Joe and Rotem joined us for the meal.

Overall, this turned out very, very well. We used all of the recipes from the class, except for the Dal Soup as neither of us was that impressed with it. Jenni and Dan brought Thai Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango for desert. So, the menu was:

Vegetable Pakoras
Cilantro Chutney
Sweet Tamarind Chutney
Aloo Paratha (Potato filled fried griddle bread)
Aloo Gobhi (Potato and Cauliflower)
Spiced Rice with Currants and Cashews
Thai Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango

The spiced rice turned out much better than it did before. It was much more flavorful, which I chalk up to cooking the spices longer than our teammates did. Also, adding the cashews in afterwards was, as I expected, a better strategy.

Aloo Gobhi was the once thing we had been the most hands-off of in class, so it was good to get the experience. It turned out to be really, really easy and tasted great. I'm digging the leftovers.

The mangos, while technically a bit underripe, were absolutely perfect for the rice desert. They were ripe enough that the were purely sweet, with none of that starchy taste (like in an underripe banana, for example), but they were a little crispy. That texture played exceptionally well with the coconut rice. I'm going to make this on my own as soon as I get the recipe from Jenni.

Of course, it wouldn't be me at the stove without a few learning moments. This time around they were:

• The Immersion Blender: I tried my new immersion blender on the chutney and learned some basic technique. The most important being, the deeper the blade can get, the easier going it will be. We were using this with bowls that were much too shallow.
• Dates: Just because the first few dates you get out of a package don't have pits, don't assume that all of them will be pitted. Jenni ran afoul of these at least twice with the immersion blender (which can be quite startling) thanks to my stupid assumption.
• Paratha: You can't roll these out all at once and then fry them - they need to be grilled up as soon as they're each ready. I rolled and stacked these, thinking the flour would be enough to keep them from sticking to each other before I moved over to the stove. Nope. I ended up with a big mess of dough after the first few and had to pitch all of the rest.
• Menu: We got raves for everything, but the one thing I noticed when it was all laid out was that there was an awful lot of starch on the table. We didn't realize that by taking the soup out, we lost our one protein dish. So, next time around, I would add a vegetable (like saag panir) and/or a protein (meat, lentils or chickpeas).

I also really liked the communal cooking thing. For the first time every doing it on my "turf," I was really comfortable giving up "control" and was really not stressed. Of course, this also speaks to Jenni as a cooking partner. Also, the new kitchen is fantastic for the sheer amount of workspace, which helped a lot.

Menu: Overreaching (Poached Chicken with Buerre Blanc, Broccoli with Mornay and Pumpkin Bread Pudding)

We were having folks over for the season premiere of Heroes last night. I went a little overboard...

The menu:
Mixed Greens with White Wine Vinaigrette
Poached Chicken with Lemon-Tarragon Buerre Blanc
Broccoli with Mornay Sauce
Pumpkin Bread Pudding

The meta reason for this blog really pushed me here. I realized I had been light on content this past week, an indication that I had not been getting in the kitchen like I should. So, I was looking to catch up a bit.

Ugh. Not my best moment in menu planning. The two biggest issues were 1) I made a sit down meal - and a fancy sit-down meal at that - for what should have been casual, on the couch fare 2) I didn't get done until 8:45 when we were planning on an 8:00 start.

I put this one together after going through the latest issue of Gourmet and last week's Good Eats section in the Trib while on the train. The Trib section highlight was an offering of 10 recipes for chicken breasts, the first of which had a buerre blanc, the sauce I didn't get to make hands on last week in Sauce class. If that isn't a sign...

The bread pudding addressed a few things: 1) we had a lot of stale bread from the last dinner. Those artisian loaves, even from Jewel, have only a one day freshness in those paper/cello bags and I'm really tired of wasting those 2) on Top Chef a few weeks ago, Tre was kicked off for screwing up a bread pudding, which everyone called easy. So I had to see how easy it really was. 3) Channing likes it.

I thought I could crank this whole mess out in the 60 minutes, which if I didn't have to prep, I probably could have made. Also, I can't talk when I cook - my short-term memory is just too crappy. Fortunately, I didn't attempt the cookies I was thinking about.

While a bit late and too formal, it went okay, overall. A B/B-, I think. The execution errors were small; the buerre blanc broke and one of the chicken breasts was underdone. The points off are not for the actual food quality this time.

Le blow by blow (to be moved to individual recipe entries once I post those):

While it's hard to mess up a vinaigrette, this batch was quite good. I cut the mustard (the Terrapin Ridge Cracked Pepper-Lemon-Thyme again) to 1/2 part, with 1 part white wine vinegar and 3 parts olive oil. So, I kept the taste from last time, just dampend to a smoother level. I think that doctoring it up with a little fresh pepper, lemon juice and thyme would be nice next time.

The mornay sauce went well. It seemed to be a bit thin, but after adding the swiss cheese, it turned out just right.

Poaching the chicken turned out really, really nice. I've done this for salmon before, but this never occurred to me. I think this would be much, much better for salads. It was very tender and it's easy. It's impossible to burn, of course. The super-thick chicken breasts are the bane of my existence in general and, in this case, one of them turned out under done.

The buerre blanc was both a failure and a success. I made two significant errors here. The first was not adding the lemon and tarragon until after the shallot/white wine reduction (though that seemed to reduce down decently - maybe it wasn't a bad mistake after all). The second, for sure, was that I forgot to reduce the heat when adding the cold butter. Not surprisingly, the sauce completely broke. However, it tasted amazing. This is spectacular stuff.

The bread pudding was as easy as its reputation. This turned out really nicely. Next time, I will try to use fresher bread (one day old), as this was really, really, really stale, but overall, this was a very successful effort.

Menu: Filet Mignon and Sauces

Our friends John and Anita were in town for the weekend, so I figured I'd whip up a fancy-pants meal for them, to a) practice my sauces and b) show off the fancy new kitchen, which Anita had never seen. John had only seen it before we moved in.

The sauces I went with were a balsalmic viniagrette, bernaise (a variation on the hollandaise) and mornay (a variation on the bechamel). It was going to be relatively low risk as I pretty much made all three before. We had tackled the mornay specifically in class the previous week, I had just finally succeeded with the hollandaise and the vinaigrette, well, that's really hard to screw up.

The menu:
Spinach Salad with Vinaigrette
Filet Mignon with Bernaise Sauce
Steamed Broccoli with Mornay Sauce
Corn Basil Pudding
Peach Raspberry Pie a la mode'

Overall, this went off much better than the last meal (the Pork menu). I'd rate it as a solid B.

Timing remains an issue for me. I've decided to start serving from the kitchen, rather than family style. In part, this is because plating and presentation is kind of neat. Also, it makes it a little easier to control. I also want to be able to eat with my guests, so managing courses is tricky. In this case, I served the salad with the meal all at the same time. The timing was a lot tighter than before as I didn't want the beef to get cold, the broccoli to get overdone or get cold (which it does almost immediately) and the sauces to do whatever horrible thing they might do if they set for too long.

I figured the mornay was all right sitting for a little while, so my timing was take the meat out of the fridge, bring the broccoli water to a boil, heat the grill, make the mornay, grill the steaks, put the broccoli over the steam, make the bernaise while the meat set, then plate and serve immediately. The sequence is sound I think, but it doesn't allow much room for error.

The only new recipe here is the bernaise, sort of. It's a hollandaise, but the variation involves a white wine, vinegar, shallot and tarragon reduction, which I'd never done. I'll post that separately. I need to go back through and add internal links between these posts as well, so watch for that soon.

The blow-by-blow:

Spinach Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette: Nope, you can't screw this up. This Saturday, I met Marie and Larry down at the Old Town Wine Crush, a wine-oriented street fair. In addition to the fantastic chicken tamale I had at the Adobo Grill tent, I found a tent for Old Town Oil where they had tastings of their products. I bought myself a bottle each of their Blood Orange Olive Oil and their Tangerine Balsalmic Vinegar. I mixed these babies 1-to-1 and spooned over the baby spinach leaves. Raves all around. This is great, great stuff.

Filet Mignon with Bernaise Sauce: This course actually addressed two weak spots for me; grilling beef and the sauce. I'm very nervous grilling beef since I do it so infrequently. So, this was a good opportunity. I went with the filet because, well, I'm not sure. It looks classier, so maybe that's it. But, holy God, it's expensive. This isn't helped by the fact that I went to Whole Foods. Which turned out to be a two-hour ordeal, by the way, thanks to forgetting my wallet at home, the register that my transaction was saved on crashing and the largest crowd they've had early on a Sunday that anyone could remember. Sheesh.

I was aiming for medium-rare and ended up closer to rare, which I guess is okay. It tasted alright. I toothpicked bacon around the sides (more use of leftovers), which generally turned out fine, but was a little inconsistent - blackened toward the edges, a little under in the center of the strip.

The timing got screwed on the bernaise sauce. Maybe it was having an audience or the general time crunch, but my first batch ended up scrambled. Fortunately, I had one egg left, so I went for a second round (though the broccoli ended up a bit over done as a result). The sauce turned out way, way too thin which I think was completely a function of pouring too much of the wine/tarragon reduction in, rather than doing it to taste. And, perhaps I took it off the fire too soon out of fear of scrambling again. So, that's one that needs some practice. On cheaper cuts of meat, of course. As mentioned above, I will post the bernaise recipe separately.

Steamed Broccoli with Mornay Sauce: Mornay was the variation on the bechamel that we made in class. Basically, you add a little nutmeg (three swipes of the grater, if you're using fresh) and swiss cheese to the basic sauce. It was a little thick, but very tasty. Channing couldn't taste the cheese in the sample I brought home from class, so this was an improvement. As I mentioned before, the broccoli was a touch over done as I accidently left the cover on while I made the second batch of sauce. By the way, as I was checking my spelling of "mornay" on Google, I found that according to Wikipedia, "A Mornay sauce is a Béchamel sauce with shredded or grated cheese added. Usually, it is half Gruyère and half Parmesan." Hmm. Okay. I like the swiss, though.

Corn Pudding with Basil: Well, this is a lesson learned. While this was tasty, it wasn't as world-rocking as the first batch. The clear difference was that the corn I used wasn't as fresh. For the first batch, I used corn I had just bought that morning at the Evanston Farmer's Market. This time, it was corn from that same batch, so it was a little old. I had sliced off the kernels and refrigerated them after I noticed the ears were getting a little dried out. So, it seems that fresh corn is the key for that recipe. Oh, and I know that those "hairs" as I referred to them last time are called "cornsilk." Dunno how I forgot that.

Peach Raspberry Pie: I made this to use up the second batch of crust dough I had in the freezer and the rest of the raspberries. I was very careful to follow the instructions for the raspberry variation on the peach pie, even adding a little more sugar. Also, I was careful to get fully ripe (or at least closer than last time) peaches. It tasted just like it should. Just enough tartness from the raspberries, but not too much. The top crust separated a little bit, making kind of a mess from the pie juice,. That may have been a function of a) using a shallower pie pan b) the dough having been frozen before or c) not having made adequate vents on the top. But while it was a little messy to work with, it served up and tasted great.

Menu - Garlic Lime Pork Chops, Corn Basil Pudding, Savory Green Beans and Pies(!)

Last night, we had some friends over for dinner whom we hadn't seen in a while and missed the housewarming back in June.

This was the menu:
Green Salad with Lemon Thyme Mustard Vinaigrette
Garlic Lime Pork Chops
Corn Basil Pudding
Savory Green Beans
Peach Raspberry Pie
Key Lime Pie

Overall, I'd have to give this a C. Everyone was very nice about it and complementary, but there were pretty significant problems. The flavors didn't work together that well, the pork was underdone and the green beans were overdone. Desert pretty much saved it.

My big goal for the evening was to actually make a workable pie crust. I worked backwards to the rest of the menu from there, trying to keep it more generic/cuisine neutral. In general, this would have worked flavor-wise except the garlic-lime sauce on the pork was a lot more intense than I planned. That sharpness ovewhelmed the other dishes.

Channing isn't a big fan of fruit pies, so I made a key lime pie as well. This worked well with my goal because I hadn't had good luck with that crust before, either, and can't remember if I've ever made a meraingue in my life.

There were some timing issues that could have been worked out if it had planned more meticiously. As a result, the green beans stayed in the pot too long. I also panicked on the pork chops. I got nervous about over-cooking them and ended up with precisely the opposite issue.

Meal - Indian

This past weekend was our celebration of our friend BJ's birthday. For her dinner, I figured I'd give her options without the pressure of having to come up with a menu herself. Plus, I figured this would be a fun way to challenge myself a little bit. So I sent her the following note:

B.J. -
As the Birthday honoree, you have options for your dinner on Friday re: preferences.

Let me know what you'd like and I'll whip up a menu within those guidelines...

Which region/cuisine: Italian, Indian, Latin/Mexican
What meat: Chicken, Beef, Lamb, None
What style desert: Cake, Custard

She wrote back:

Indian chicken w/ custard sounds great.

The other challenge was that this was for a Friday evening, so the more pre-work I could do, the better. I came up with:

Butter Chicken
Red Lentil Dal
Saag Paneer
Rice Pudding
Served with Naan and Paratha

After this plan was set, I came across a mention of Kumail Nanjiani's show Unpronounceable, which seemed really interesting. A theme night emerged - Pakistani stand-up/monologist followed by an Indian meal. We went to the Lakeshore Theater for the 8:00 show and then scooted up to our place for dinner. So my minimal cooking time went to zero. No problem. Every one of these worked really well as make-ahead. I just heated up the breads (bought frozen at Patel Bros.) in the oven and frying pan, nuked the Chicken, Dal and Spinach (Saag) and we were good to go.

Comments on the individual recipes follows. In general, I was happy with every dish, but I found I think this was the fabled case of the flavors overpowering each other. They were all good and B.J. liked them, but there was something missing from having a clear win. For example, the Dal was mind-blowing when I first made it. At dinner, it was tasty but not to the same degree. In eating it on its on as leftovers, back to mind-blowing.

So, I learned a practical lesson in balancing a menu. I think the spices just ended up colliding into each other. In a case like this where all the dishes are served at the same time, I need to pick one to "star" and then find milder, but flavorful, complements.

Menu - Veal Rolls, Fingerling Potatoes, Asparagus and Lemon Poppyseed Cake

I saw the veal recipe in Gourmet and built the meal around that. In selecting sides and deserts, I was going for a cuisine neutral - i.e. no dish immediately identifiable as Italian, Indian, etc. and trying to keep it somewhat light. Due to poor planning on my part, I wasn't able to get to the store until 3:30 for a 7:00 meal. By the time I got home, it was 4:00. This entire meal took 2 hours to prep and cook. There was a little more final cooking once the salads were served (the veal and the asparagus), but that was at the last minute, so that they wouldn't get cold. Comments on the individual recipes are (or, rather, will be) in their entries.

Menu:
Field Greens with White Wine Gorgonzola Vinaigrette
Veal Rolls Stuffed with Spinach and Gruyere
Steamed Fingerling Potatoes in White Wine
Broiled Asparagus
Lemon Poppyseed Cake