Some memorable meals

So things have been backing up over here and I've got a lot to blog about.

First, it is clear from all the green in my photos that Spring is in full swing. I am LOVing the beautiful artichokes, asparagus and spinach at the market. And, the first signs of Spring are in my garden too --with the seeds in the ground for peas, radishes, romano and yellow beans, lettuces... and the first little sprouts of arugula are shooting up already. So, while we're not in the clear yet (there was frost on the car just this morning), it does seem to be almost here.



One night, our dinner consisted of just huge globe artichokes dipped in butter and lemon juice, and roasted asparagus with olive oil and salt. Simple and to the point.

On the next night, we needed some protein so I had bought a boneless sirloin steak on a whim (it looked so good) and I cooked an easy recipe for Steak and Olives I had seen somewhere for inspiration. But really, no recipe necessary; just use brined olives, green or black, lots of garlic and chili peppers cooked in olive oil, and then pour that over the sliced pan-fried steak over a bed of baby arugula with lemon. I loved the tangy olives with the bite in the garlic-chili oil which complemeted the flavors of the meat perfectly.



And, for dinner last night I invited my friend and co-worker Betsy and her husband over for dinner. Was I nervous cooking for someone who cooks for a living? Yes. Should I have been? Yes. Well, not really. Betsy is the most unassumingly excellent cook I know. She can do literally everything in the kitchen from pastry to savory to breads and soups, French, Italian, everything. She's also cooked in a number of great places from Austin to New York and Chicago. I am lucky to work with this lady.

So what to do? I kept my Spring theme and settled on an appetizer of crostini with two different spreads (sorry no photo of the finished product, and they were so cute too!) One was a chick pea and garlic puree, and the other was a fresh pea and mint spread. Both turned out great. We sipped Prosecco and nibbled on those in the kitchen while I finished the rest of the meal.

These are the chick peas I had soaked overnight; then simmered with celery, carrot, garlic, potato and parsley until tender, then mashed, seasoned with dried chili flakes, generous amount of salt and lemon, olive oil.



Then, our first course was a soup that was the epitome of Spring. I found it in the River Cafe Italian Two Easy cookbook that Claudia inspired me to buy recently. It had potatoes and pancetta, asparagus and spinach, pureed and garnished with fried asparagus tips and drizzled with olive oil (again, I did not have my wits about me to take photos of the final dish). But it looked like this as it progressed...







The main course was a roasted chicken (an old standby) with lots of crisp flavor and creamy polenta. Simple and honest. Homey even.



And for dessert, because I know better than anybody that Betsy has a sweet tooth: a delicious blueberry-lemon-olive oil cake (from Jamie O's Italy) served up with a healthy portion of lemon cream (homemade lemon curd and whipped cream). I love anything with lemon cream on the side, but this was a cake that complemented the simple, rustic quality of the meal without too much excess. And it was delicious for breakfast too!



One thing I've learned is that it never helps to get nervous to cook for people. Sure, there is always lots of pouring over cookbooks, planning menus and all that, but in the end if I am organized and my intentions are good (that I just want to give to friends) I always end up making a memorable meal AND enjoying myslef while I'm at it. Just don't expect me to do the dishes.

Seasonal dinner #3

I wrote previously on the seasonal cooking club that I started this year with some friends interested in learning about what is in season when. We then look around do see what we can find here, prepare our parts of the meal, and get together for a dinner party based on seasonal ingredients. It can be hard sometimes to figure out what produce is in season locally, though eating locally and seasonally are two different things.

For example, right now in some of the cooking magazines I read they have recently started including a section on seasonal ingredients (see bon appetit's new "at the market" section), a general indication of what's in season generally and some recipes on how to prepare those things. Early Spring brings us asparagus, artichokes, carrots, peas and lettuces. Whether they are grown here in Tennessee is another story. This is where the difference between buying seasonal or local comes in.

I, like most people I know, was so eager to see the first signs of Spring at the grocery store in the form of lovely green asparagus and artichokes! They were practically falling off the stands at Whole Foods, abundant in all their glory. But come to find out, they're not local at all--these came from California (the asparagus) and some varieties came all the way from Peru! But I learned that they're on their way here in our gardens too, for those of you who have the patience to grow them--it takes 3 years before you even see the first crop!

I learned that last bit at an organic gardening workshop I attended at Eaton's Creek Organics on Saturday. We talked about composting and worm castings, beneficial bugs and how to till the soil with manual tools (all really cool stuff), but the best part about it was seeing what was actully growing right now, which wasn't much. But the first few asparagus stalks were starting to come up like triumphant symbols of Spring and fortitude. Tana, the farmer, went around and pulled a few out of the ground and handed them to us to eat. I have never tasted anything so good and so fresh in my whole life! It was literally like a bite of Spring.

When I got home to prepare my dish for the party with the asparagus I'd bought at W.F., the taste test yielded a predictable result: there was no comparison between the flavor of the one picked in Calif. --who knows how many weeks ago-- and trucked across the country, and the one I had eaten right out of the ground yesterday. I realize this might seem obvious, but experiencing it first-hand instead of just reading or hearing about it was very enlightening.

Back to my dish. After much deliberation and changing my mind at least six times, I decided to try a recipe from the april issue of bon appetit. It was an asparagus-ricotta tart with comté cheese.



It called for one sheet of frozen puff pastry. You may think it's strange that I use that store-bought stuff, being a pastry geek and all, but that is one thing of the frozen variety that we use from time to time even at the restaurant because it is so very difficult and time consuming to replicate all those flaky layers of thin pastry. And, I'm told it isn't any better than the frozen stuff. So I bought a box with two square sheets in it and used them both to make two tarts, one with the soppressata the recipe calls for, and one without for the vegetarians at the party.

Both were equally yummy and easy to make and I will definitely make this again. I may even try it with fruit or other veggies and different cheeses. The comté (a french gruyere) was perfect on it, and the skinny little asparagus looked pretty. The soppressata was a bit too oily though, and next time I would use a dry salami.

The main dish at the party was a braised chicken with artichokes and mushrooms made by Amanda and a first course of parsnip soup with garam masala made by Catherine; and dessert was a gingerbread with vanilla ice cream and rum sauce made by Laura. We drank our share of good wines--mostly whites from Austria (Grüner Veltliner was the winner as it goes really well with green vegetables).

So I stocked up on artichokes, asparagus and big, beautiful radishes in anticipation of some Spring cooking. More on what I'll do with them soon!