Local Luxury Dinner Party: Planning the Party

This luxury dinner party was made in advance of the results announcement from round 2 voting in Foodbuzz’s Project Food Blog.  While I didn’t end up advancing, I had a great time in the first two rounds and the dinner party was a success!

The first step in hosting any kind of party is to pick a theme and plan a menu.  The theme for this party, as given in the challenge prompt was:

Celebrate!  You've made it this far, and the next challenge is to hold a party for your friends and family.  Whether you're an experienced host or an entertaining newbie, get creative and host a luxurious dinner party where your guests will discover new tastes and exotic flavors.  Share your hosting secrets with readers, like how to cook for a crowd, plan a menu, or involve guests in the prep.

But what does luxury really mean?  And how do new tastes and exotic flavors fit with the luxury theme?  Does luxury mean rich, over the top foods?  Does it mean sparing no expense and picking up the rarest ingredients?  For my party I decided that luxury translated to a four-course, leisurely weeknight meal with all homemade dishes.  And it also meant the luxury of being able to purchase almost all of the ingredients from local farmers markets and vendors.

Like many home cooks, I often get stuck cooking variations of the same dishes each week.  So the hubby and I did a little brainstorming about what we don’t usually cook at home.  We quickly realized that Italian was a cuisine that isn’t represented often in our menus.  Sure we cook pasta every so often, but never a four course Italian meal.

Now that we had luxury + Italian decided, the next step was menu planning.  When we have guests over for meals, I like to ask if anyone has food allergies or severe food dislikes (some people just hate cilantro!).  Since this was a set menu, I wanted to make sure that our guests would be able to eat a little of everything.  For this party the parameters were no walnuts, fish, or excessive cream.  I added these to the list of the hubby and my food quirks and started making lists and researching recipes.

Instead of taking a detailed list with me to the market, I took an outline of the courses.  This meant the menu would be full of local, seasonal delights!  I visited my regular stops at the Copley Square Farmers Market - Atlas Farms and Stillmans at the Turkey Farm – and came home with most of my ingredients.  A quick stop at Whole Foods yielded some local whole milk and a few other ingredients.  With these fresh ingredients I created my simple, yet ambitious menu.

Since the party was planned for a Thursday night at 7 (I get home at 6), advanced preparation was necessary.  I put my list making skills to work and created a game plan for the week.

I left just a few things for Thursday and gave the hubby a honey-do list.  Luxury means pulling out the fine china and crystal!  We’ve been married for five years and have not taken full advantage of the beautiful set of china that we own.  This was the perfect reason to take out the goods and create a beautifully set table.  I added my grandmother’s candlesticks and candles to finish the look.

Another entertaining tip – know your limits!  With that in mind, I’m going to split this party into a series of posts for each course.  I’ll share tips, recipes, and pictures for each.

Thanks to Eric and Jen, our gracious guests, for waiting patiently while I photographed the dishes between each course.  And thanks to Jen for picking out a delicious Italian wine pairing for the meal.

Next in the luxury dinner party series, the first course:

Antipasti
Atlas Farm heirloom tomato salad
Fresh ricotta cheese, basil infused olive oil
Fresh cracked pepper

Assorted olives, gigante beans, and artichokes

Italian Sesame Bread and Olive Oil

Daring Cooks Challenge: Stuffed Grape Leaves

This fall is flying by! I missed the official posting date on the 14th, but didn’t want to skip sharing my October Daring Cooks Challenge. Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

Going into this challenge I had mixed feelings about stuffed grape leaves. Every time I have ordered them in a restaurant, there is something in the flavor that doesn’t quite appeal to me. I thought that maybe it was the seasoning in filling (often thyme) or maybe the lamb. But I was willing to give them a try in my kitchen to see if I could pinpoint the flavor that I don’t like.

I decided to use a recipe from my trusty Joy of Cooking cookbook. Since I wasn’t sure how I’d like the finished product I used ground lamb (the hubby’s choice). I soaked my grape leaves, prepared my filling and started rolling!

Stuffing and rolling went much quicker than I thought and I loaded up my pot with the little cigar shaped packets. On went the lid and after a little while they were ready!

Now, for the moment of truth. Did I like my grape leaves? Did I figure out what flavor I didn’t like? The answer is yes. What is it that bugs my taste buds? The grape leaves! I loved the filling – the ground lamb mixed with rice and seasonings. It was something about the flavor of the grape leaves that just doesn’t agree with me.

The hubby liked the grape leaves and I share them with my reliable taste tester Renee, who said she really enjoyed them.

What to post next? Let's start with pizza.

I have a lot of blogging to do. I’ve got my fabulous four course luxury dinner party (if I had made it to the next round of Project Food Blogger), luxury dinner party leftovers turned into a new meal, fall apple-eating adventures, stuffed grape leaves, unstuffed cabbage, and more!  While I write up some deliciously worded posts about those meals, here’s a quick and easy recipe that is going to become a standard in the Good Cook Doris kitchen.

The hubby and I were having our usual Sunday afternoon conversation at the grocery store. Me: Okay, so that’s all the food for the week, what do you want for tonight? Hubby: I don’t know….. But today, he answered: You know what we haven’t had lately? Pizza! My reply: Oooh…I have a good idea. How about breakfast pizza?

We decided to pick up goat cheese, turkey bacon, spinach, crimini mushrooms, and eggs for our toppings. I came home and did a quick search of my google reader to see if one of my fellow cooks had a good technique for eggs on pizza. A search of “breakfast pizza” brought up the perfect match from Alicia at The Clean Plate Club. Turns out she had almost exactly the same ingredients as what we picked up. Thanks Alicia for the tutorial!

This is a two-step pizza. You have to blind-bake the crust for a few minutes before topping. My order of attack was to start the bacon and spinach and mushrooms first, blind bake the crust while those are cooking, then top and bake. We used pizza dough from Whole Foods. You could also use a prebaked crust like a Boboli or naan too.

I am so excited about how this pizza turned out. The combination of flavors and textures was wonderful. Smooth goat cheese and crispy bacon. Umami mushrooms and tangy goat cheese. I can’t wait to eat the leftovers for breakfast!

Breakfast for Dinner Pizza
Makes 4 giant servings
1 ball of refrigerated prepared pizza dough
1 small log (3-4 oz.) Vermont Creamery Fresh Goat Cheese
4 slices turkey bacon
1.5 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped into bite-sized pieces
1/4 cup crimini mushrooms, diced
4 eggs
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Allow enough time for the pizza dough to come to room temperature
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
Sprinkle a pizza/baking stone with corn meal and set aside
In a medium skillet, cook turkey bacon over low heat, turning frequently until crispy
When bacon is done, cut into bite-sized pieces
Heat a second skillet to medium-low, add a drizzle of olive oil, and mushrooms and spinach, cooking until spinach is just wilted
While the bacon and vegetables are cooking, roll or stretch out pizza dough on the prepared pizza stone
Drizzle with olive oil
Bake at 425 for 5 minutes, being sure not to brown the crust
Remove from the oven
Top the crust in this order:
Crumble the goat cheese and spread evenly over crust
Sprinkle the bacon pieces evenly over crust
Make four mounds of the spinach mushroom mix, one in each quadrant of the pizza
Make an indent in the spinach mushroom mounds
Carefully crack one egg into each of the four indents

Gently place the pizza back into the 425 degree oven
Bake for 15 minutes, until eggs are set
If the crust is getting too dark, tent the pizza with foil
Cut into four pieces (one egg/person)
Season with salt and pepper (or hot sauce) to taste
Savor…and dream about the leftovers for lunch!

Summary:
Prep time: 5 minutes + oven preheating time
Cook time: 20-30 minutes total
Cutting board, knife, two skillets, spatulas, baking stone, pizza cutter, serving dishes and utensils