menu: the anniversary party

cowgirl creamery mt. tam

spiced olives + herbed olive oil almonds

glasses of kölsch, albariño, a nice rosé + prosecco

david's fancy mezcal

------

three amazing pizzas from ragazza

asparagus w. green garlic, preserved lemon, ricotta, ricotta salata + an egg

pork belly w. tomato, calabrian chilies, beet greens + pecorino

pizza margherita for the kiddos

buttermilk asparagus salad

i've made this on three different occasions in the last week

brown rice salad

if you like bacon, you will love this salad

------

assorted bi•rite cookies

balsamic strawberry + salted caramel bi•rite ice cream

We had such a nice time at our tenth anniversary party last Friday night. It was super-intimate, with just four couples, one two year old redhead, and our own party of four. We live in a hotbed of amazing food right now, so between cheese, treats and ice cream from Bi•Rite Market, a growler of beer from Magnolia Brewery and pizzas from Ragazza, pulling the menu together was fast work.

There were a lot of other people we would've loved to have celebrate with us, but I decided that the last thing I wanted to deal with on our anniversary was other people's kids making a ruckus with our two loud and stompy angels. A little ruthless, but sometimes you've just gotta do what you've gotta do. It was a wonderful little get-together. Ten years is really something to celebrate. 

This weekend we'll do a little more celebrating. Our friends will be watching the kiddos most of the day Saturday so we can get down to SFMOMA before it closes until 2016! There is a Lebbeus Woods exhibit we've been dying to see (I was introduced to his work way back in architecture school and have followed him since), and then there is The Clock, which I don't really understand yet but have heard a lot of buzz about. Then we'll see where the rest of the day takes us. 

Have a great weekend, and be sure to come back on Monday because I just made a really great donut pan recipe that I can't wait to share with you.

xoxo!

a simple easter menu

Easter 2013

We had a picture-perfect Easter. It's such a calm holiday compared to others. Oliver is at the crazy-magical age of 3 1/2 where everything he says is usually made up of joy or comedy, with the vocabulary to back it up. Watching him look for eggs was really awesome. He is easily astounded and really loud about it!

I spent less than an hour in the the kitchen working on dinner this year. Twenty minutes the night before pureeing a tapenade for the lamb by hand, because I have been blender-less since December when I burned out the 18-year-old motor on mine making Mexican hot chocolate tablets. Then the rest Hasselbacking some fingerling potatoes and working on the lamb. Easter is a holiday I like to celebrate with food, for sure, and this was the easiest Easter dinner I've ever made. 

deviled eggs

shocking!

lamb chops with pistachio tapenade

recipe from smitten kitchen

hasselback fingerling potatoes
adapted from this martha stewart living recipe

asparagus stalks
quickly braised (fried) in leftover pan juices (fat)

easter bunny cake

recipe here

Confession: This was supposed to be a donut post today, but I had another fail. Hasselback potatoes in the donut pan seemed like an excellent idea. Not so much!

menu: drinks with a side of dinner

bottle o' prosecco

two loaves sweet baguette

three asian pears

half pound hot coppa

thinly sliced

variety of cheese ends from local cheesemonger

cube of ski queen sweet cheese

end of the season shishito peppers

blistered with olive oil and salt

hot mustard and a bowl of olives

not pictured

bag o' walnuts

This was dinner two nights in a row last week. The first night was premeditated, the second was a result of having a late afternoon glass of bubbly before making dinner, and happily realizing I wouldn't have to cook if everyone was willing to eat the leftovers from the night before. I had Stella make cheese tags for all the little bits of cheese so we knew what we were eating. Those cheese ends are the way to go if you want to sample a bunch of amazing cheeses without paying a lot of money. Each of those pieces were less than two bucks. Good deal.

People around the globe eat these types of meals all the time, but it only occurs to me every now and again to just throw a whole lot of little things together on a platter and call it dinner.

I rarely ask outright questions here, although I always love to hear whatever people have to say about what I write, but I'm curious about this. Do you have an easy, throw together meal that requires little or no cooking? David and I both marvel at how hard it is to remember what I know how to cook, and I'm always panicking at dinnertime. I used to keep a binder full of go-to recipes, but I'm looking for new, super quick ideas. Got any?

menu: vegetarian cookout

eggplant spread with pita bread

margaritas

hoegaarden white ale

------

grilled asparagus

skewers of tofu, kohlrabi, eggplant, zucchini and sweet pepper

brushed with parsley oil and grilled

macaroni salad

from the fannie farmer cookbook

summer corn salad

bloody mary tomato salad

double this recipe, even for a small meal

------

rhubarb bundt cake

watermelon slices

Our friends Windy and Derek hosted a wonderful vegetarian barbecue party over Memorial Day weekend. In a year I have only done five (now six!) of these "menu" posts, because it's not every day I have an occasion to create one. The menu for this get together was so nice, and so special in that it was so satisfying and so delicious and healthy, that I had to share it. This is also the fourth out of the six "menu" posts that include Windy and Derek. What's up with that? We like to eat together, and to try to impress each other with our cooking, what can I say!

Our two contributions were the delicious summer corn salad from 101 Cookbooks (on Windy's suggestion, but you know I love me some 101 Cookbooks), and the inimitable, AMAZING Bloody Mary tomato salad that was floating all over the interwebs this past week from Running With Tweezers. It was beautiful in this meal, and I made it again the next night for dinner, where it was damn, damn good again. I am loaded up on vitamin C, for sure.

Some random shots from the day and the meal:

 If you can't tell how grey and cold out it was from this shot of corn.....

.....then this should convince you.

David and I were color coordinated, he in his wool shirt and me in my lower-back-pain-inducing wedges.

 This is the Bloody Mary salad. You serve it on a bed of sliced blue cheese. I'm going to

go grab my leftovers right now. True vegetarians note, this recipe includes Worcestershire

sauce, which contains anchovies. Soy sauce is the recommended substitute.

We were in and out of clouds for most of the meal, plus I'm only just learning

how to drive my new used camera, so admittedly this photo is shamefully framed

and lit. This is the whole incredible spread though. So energizing.

Digging in.

 Two of everything.

Unless you're serving more than six or eight adults, you don't need to double up the corn salad recipe. This was wonderful, and will be even more wonderful with sweeter corn later in the season, but there was a lot left over from the double batch. And I know at least David and I had thirds of this!

Under the trees. We've been here before.

Oliver was the oldest little one there. He and his sister do so well at grownup

soirées (she typed proudly). He stinks at sharing though!

I like my "menu" series. It's really helpful to me to go back and look at them to remember the things I know how to cook. Am I the only one who blanks out when someone asks me to bring something to a party, or when I need to bring a meal to someone (especially one with dietary restrictions)? It has become a good little data base for me. Also, a nice reminder of social times for when times get a little less social around here. It comes in waves like that, you know?

menu: a perfect spring cocktail party

---menu---

blood & sand 

lillet rose spring cocktail

white wine

------

pickled vegetables

windy's deviled eggs

fontina risotto balls

fried pickles

icebox crackers

parmesan walnut salad in endive leaves

ahi poke on wonton crisps

wasabi creme fraiche

crispy chorizo

point reyes blue cheese & granny smith apples

crudités w/ buttermilk peppercorn dip

------

chocolate eggs

quatro leches cake

french macarons

c/o abby & jason

David and I hosted a little pre-Easter cocktail party on Saturday night. It has been a long time since we threw a nice-sized party. We started slow, inviting friends with no-or-very-small children, to keep the chaos level to a minimum. It was just lovely. 

I cooked for two days, and didn't document the food that well. Trust this though, if you make the things on the menu above, even in double batches, you will have NO LEFTOVERS. The next day being Easter and all, we ended up making simple tacos, because there was no way I was going to cook again so soon. Did you know you can actually get sore and tired from intense stretches standing in the kitchen cooking?

A fun time was had by all. David and I are still talking about it and dreaming up our next get-together. 

Those Blood and Sand cocktails were a HUGE hit, highly recommended!

The day before the party I got as much done as I could. I had prepared the pickled vegetables a few days before, so they were all set. Highlights included:

Preparing the icebox crackers by making and chilling

the dough, then slicing and baking. Super fun.

Frying a lot of wonton strips to go with the ahi poke.

This was a tough one, preparing risotto but not being able to eat it,
instead chilling it to be made into little balls the next day!

I prepped the crudités and made the dip of all dips, Martha Stewart's
buttermilk peppercorn dip (cue choir of angels).

I baked two, count 'em, two batches of tres leches cake. I used three pans. One batch went into an 8" x 12" pan so the cake baked thicker than the recipe called for. I put those pieces in the bottom of the bowl. The second batch went into two smaller pans, and came out thinner. Those went on top. This makes a lot of sense. Think about it.

Note:
I am writing this three days later, and the leftover cake has still not broken
down and gotten too mushy. This is a fantastic cake recipe, Joy the Baker!

The morning of the party, David took the kids on a liquor run, and  I swung into action. It was super manageable due to the 4:00 party start time, and all my previous preparatin'.

I diced the ahi and made the poke. It was so good, an amalgamation of online recipes.

Next time, more soy sauce and a little heat.

I prepared the risotto balls for frying. I fried the balls and the cornichons

(pickles) right as guests arrived, keeping some warm in the oven.

I made the quatro leches concoction, later to be poured over the
layers of cake squares and left to sit for four or five hours.

I also stuffed the endive leaves with the parmesan-walnut salad I had made earlier

in the morning and fried the pre-sliced chorizo right before guests arrived.

Like I mentioned before, I didn't document the food that well, especially once the party got going. The light was falling dim, and I was having too much fun to take photographs of food. I'm also feeling more and more awkward about walking around tables of food and photographing them when other people are around. I was at a party in December where as soon as the food came out, four people whipped out their phones to start shooting. It's a sign of the times, I suppose!

Fontina risotto balls.

Fried pickles in the upper righthand corner, quick pickles in the foreground.

 I was refilling the ahi poke plate (upper left) every ten minutes!

A rainbow of macarons.

 Two of our favorite ladies right on trend with their neon nails. I need me some of that polish! The pink is from J. Crew, the tangerine-ish color is Essie. Gotta get it. Stuffed endives below their hands, by the way.

We relaxed our "no shoes in the house" policy for lady friends who wanted to stay fancy.
Fancy Windy on the left (on her way to a Mad Men party after ours!), fancy Annie on the right.

The giant menu on the wall!

Gemma and Oliver. 

We had planned on ending the party at 7:00, but were so happy to have guests stay much later. I spend the last half hour or so chit-chatting and washing dishes. We went to bed with a clean house, after all that! A perfect end to a perfect spring cocktail party!

I'm smiling on the inside, at least. Dishes are done, and the Easter bunny is on his way!