#2: Kent’s Favorites + secret birthday dinner

Since Kent’s birthday was the next day and we were 2 weeks out from our wedding, dinner party #2 featured a significantly simpler menu than our first. I had only one untried recipe, and took the Easy Way Out (tm)  for dessert.

I had deemed this meal Kent’s Birthday Dinner, so he had approval rights on the menu. 

MENU

Speciality Cocktail

• Rosemary-Lemon Fizz with vodka or gin (from Dave's Dinners: A Fresh Approach to Home-Cooked Meals)

Appetizers

• Olives
• Cheese board with crackers (I forgot to write down what cheeses we had)
• Cantalope wrapped in proscuitto

Salad

• Iceberg wedge with bacon & blue cheese dressing (various recipes)

Main Course

• Peppercorn-encrusted Beef Tenderloin Filet (from Pioneer Woman Cooks)
• Green beans w/ red peppers & pine nuts (from my mom)
• Boiled Red Potatoes - with butter, salt & pepper

Dessert

• Bi-Rite Creamery Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake

Wine

• 2008 Ladera Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon
• Again, I forgot to write down the wines (I blame the Ladera), but they were tasty.

THE PREP

Shopping and cooking did not start nearly as early in the week this time, though I did again stick with the detailed prep plan.  Way. too. Detailed. 


A snippet.

      6:45 -  take out cheese, crackers

      7:00 -  take meat & butter out of fridge

      7:15 -  start boiling water

      7:30 -  meat  on stove

               -  start potatoes

      7:40 -  meat in oven

               -  peppers on stove

      8:00 -  serve salad

      8:15 -  server dinner

THE VERDICT

Dinner was a rousing success! Perhaps it was all the wine. The meat came out perfect. The potatoes were soft & creamy. And the ice cream cake was, of course, a well-received finale.

The tricky part of this menu was the blue cheese dressing. It was an unmitigated disaster. I made 3, yes 3,  different recipes and they were all terrible. In the end, I sent Kent to the store to buy edible dressing. 

I have a newfound respect for good blue cheese dressing and will continue my search for the perfect recipe. I suspect it involves buttermilk. I am not convinced mayo is required.

THE PRETTY PICTURES

You can see the complete Flickr gallery here. 

Dinner Party 1: Pork Roast with more pork

2011 is the Year of the Dinner Party. Conceptually, this means Kent and I are aiming to host a dinner party a month. I am using it as my opportunity to plan menus, buy flowers for the table and put on makeup for a dinner at home. 


January was a cooking-challenged month so a dinner party didn't happen. Our first dinner party happened at the end of February.

Not to start small, I decided to make an almost entirely never-been-made before menu, and several complex multi-step dishes. 

THE MENU

Appetizers

• Crudites with avocado lime dip from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
• Gammy’s shrimp wrapped in bacon - My grandmother Gammy’s cooking was mostly terrible, but this appetizer made it to my recipe box. I would not call it gourmet, though I would call it delicious. 

Salad

• Field greens with toasted pine nuts, pears, Gorgonzola and shallot vinaigrette (also from Deborah Madison)

Main Course

• Roasted pork stuffed with proscuitto and lemon with a white wine sauce courtesy of Bon Appetit: December ’10
• Roasted Broccolini with lemon (also Bon Appetit '10)
• My mom’s macaroni and cheese recipe. It’s decadent and in high demand in NJ.

Dessert

• Homemade chocolate chip cookie and (not-homemade) vanilla ice cream sandwiches 

Wines

• There were a variety of white wines brought over for dinner. After 2 days of cooking and several glasses of said wine, I forgot to write down what we had.

THE PREP

Menu planning happened off and on for weeks. I had some constraints: 1 pregnant vegetarian, 6 hungry meat-lovers, and a no-go on beef for this meal. Once I settled on pork over fish or lamb, I created a grocery list and detailed prep plan. Here is just a snippet.

       6:00 broil shrimp, arrange salad, put aside sauce stuff

       6:30 put roast in, arrange broccolini on pans

       7:00 appetizers/drinks

       7:15  put mac & cheese in

       7:35 dress salad

       7:45 pull roast out, put broccolini in, make sauce

       8:00 serve dinner

I made cookies on Thursday and prepped mac and cheese on Friday night (my social calendar is smoking hot).

THE VERDICT

There were no disasters. However, it might have been wiser if the entire main course was not never-tried recipes. The pork was OK - it was too dry, too lemony and took way longer to cook then expected. The clear winners were the mac & cheese and the ice cream sandwiches. There was nothing but silence for the 5 minutes it took everyone to devour their dessert. Success!

THE PRETTY PICTURES


See complete collection on Flickr.