Chufi

Well, the first part of the birthdaymarathon is over: brunch with the family. We came home at 2 am last night (or should I say this morning) from a concert, so I did not really feel like baking a cake when the alarm went of this morning. But I did: Spongecake with strawberry mascarpone cream. There was also a layer of Drambuie flavored marmelade on the sponges. It was delicious... the rest of the food: shaping the oatmeal-buttermilkrolls (I'm not very good at shaping things ) and here they are freshly baked, with the carrot soup I made earlier this week: asparagus & mint frittata: Insalata Caprese, and smoked salmon with avocado, with caper dressing. A long day of shopping and cooking ahead tomorrow so I'm going to relax now with the last mimosa of the day..

Klary, can you post a recipe for this? It looks as sublime as it must have tasted! ← I used the pasta recipe from Moby's fantastic Stuffed Pasta Course. The stuffing was improvised.. if I remember correctly (these were done weeks ago, I froze them): grated cooked beetroot, ricotta, lots of chopped parsley, pecorino, salt and pepper. It's hard to give amounts but if you've made pasta stuffing before, you will know the sort of texture you're looking for. (if not, I highly recommend Moby's course!) The sauce is simply Gorgonzola melted with a couple of tablespoons of milk to loosen it, some pepper and grated nutmeg. Chopped walnuts and chives sprinkled on top.

Oh yes, potaotes would be great too. My carrot mix was pretty tasteless after it had given all its flavor to the soup, the confit was really the star of the cake so anything starchy would work well I think. btw i served them with creme fraiche with some chipotle in adobo stirred into it, to cut the sweetness, mmm..

so where does the veal stock that Wendy mentions come into this?

Today I accidentally made a great dish with onion confit. I had some in my fridge (defrosted by accident, because the label said it was blackberry sauce ). I made a big pot of carrot and potato soup today. After pressing it through a sieve, I was left with a pan of smooth soup and a lot of carrot debris. The carrot mush looked somehow to good to throw out. So, I mixed in the confit, some parmesan, an egg, some flower, salt & pepper and parsley. Fried in olive oil and here they are: carrot-onionconfit cakes! And they were wonderful!

yes, the blue yonder.. I don't bake very often so I don't like to make the same things twice, I always want to try new things. There are a couple of cakes that I have done often, but all of my guests have had them many times so it's time for something new! Today I did get ahead on some more things. I did a test batch of the Yorkshirepuddings. They tasted great, but ofcourse the real test is how they will taste tomorrow! Then I made a big pot of carrot tomato soup, for Sunday lunch, and a batch of tomato/red onion/chili chutney, to serve at the buffet with the muffins and cheeses. Simmering away.. .. and ready. Both will go in the freezer.

Hey, and I thought I was busy cooking for 20 this weekend. Puts things in perspective.. I'm very much looking forward to this! Good luck and don't forget to breathe between cookin' and bloogin'!

yes there is, Delia Smith's savoury muffins

ah, beef tenderloin. I remember that from your Christmas party (that sounds as if I was there ). Now, if I wasn't on a budget... I was actually thinking of doing a kind of weird buffet dish from one of Delia Smiths books. It's cold Yorkshirepuddings with roastbeef and horseradish sauce (to economize, I would buy the beef ready sliced at the deli). Now I can't imagine that Yorkshires can be prepared ahead and will taste good the next day. I think I have to try that out tomorrow...

well, the theme is, prepare ahead.. For the hot dish, I'm thinking of a baked risotto with bacon, courgette and brie. I made this once before and it's lovely, rich and filling yet summery. I'm also determined to roast a lot of cauliflower and serve that as part of a salad. I was thinking watercress would go nicely with it. I feel like I owe it to EGullet to expose my guests to roast cauliflower I have decided on the cakes though, after a lot of very careful consideration.. for the brunch on Sunday (with parents and inlaws and stepdaughter) I'm doing an oldfashioned spongecake, sandwiched together with a mascarpone cream and raspberries. To take to work, chocolate cinnamon almond squares. For the buffet, white chocolate-cheesecake (not baked, the refrigerator kind) with strawberry sauce, and a pistachio cardamomcake with lemon syrup.

it's the 26th, and I'll be 36.. can I also sigh, even if I'm not turning 40?

My favorite way to let fennel be the star of a dish is a fennel gratin. Boil slices of fennel until barely tender, then layer in a dish with butter (lots of butter) and parmesan. Sprinkle the top with parmesan and breadcrumbs and dot with even more butter.. bake until golden and bubbling. Lovely side dish with a simple roast chicken, or pork. edited to add that if you have such beautiful fennel fronds, I would add them to the dish as well.

So, my birthday is coming up. Birthdays mean 2 things to me: getting presents and the opportunity to cook for friends and family. Here's what I have planned for next week: sunday: brunch for 6 tuesday: bring cake for 16 to work tuesday: birthday buffet for 20 Not very complicated but there are a couple of obstacles on the way.. - I only will have time to shop early Saturday morning (the rest of the Saturday my husband is taking me out for the day as a birthday present) and on Monday, - I have to work on Tuesday so all the shopping and preparations for the buffet have to be done on Monday. On my birthday, I will come home from work about half an hour before the guests arrive. - and I'm on a budget! So, I have been very busy thinking about cakes and a buffet menu that can be completely prepared ahead. I have a lot of ideas right now, but have not decided on all items yet. I hope this thread will help to keep me motivated to make this a memorable birthday-weekend. Today I got ahead by buying lots of non-perishables in advance: flour, sugar, butter, rice, pasta etc. And I made 2 dozen of these to go in the freezer and to be reheated on the day of the party. They are savoury muffins, half is flavored with rosemary and goatscheese, the other half with sage, spring onions and parmesan. The smell when they came out of the oven was heavenly.

This inspired me to make this, which is basically Susans dish inside out: beetroot ravioli with a gorgonzola sauce, sprinkled with walnuts and chives It was sublime. My husband said: "I hope this isn't one of your one time things, you have to make this again!"

I also had meatsauce (and cheesesauce) left, and made a pastagratin with that the next day. I had a bunch of basil in the fridge, chopped that up and mixed it in. Very easy, fast and delicious supper!

Congratulations M. Lucia on your first digital picture! I only started taking pics of my food a couple of months ago, and I had never even used Photoshop before that. I am learning a lot from looking at other peoples pics, and from trial and error ofcourse. This thread has taught me a lot.. One of my problems has been with lighting. In the winter, I found there was no place in the house that would give me decent lighting. Pictures I took on the counter turned out greenish. The lighting over the dining room table is not sufficient, so everything looks brown. I then started to take my dishes into the bedroom.. the only place with an adjustable lamp. Two of those: Even here, the lighting is not what I would like it to be. A bit too dull and brown. (and I should get my bottles of lotion out of the way before taking pictures ) I'm very glad spring is here and I can take pictures with natural light. I like this one because the food becomes almost abstract: With the natural light, it's sometimes difficult to manage the harshness of the light. It can become too saturated, if that's the word, forgive me I am juggling a foreign language here as well as being an absolute camera dummie!

When we (from Europe) went to the States, I was actually a bit nervous about the whole tipping business. Wanting to do it right but still not wanting to spend too much. It also took us some time to calculate both tax and tip in, when you look at a menu to check the price range of a restaurant. We ate out every single night for 3 weeks, in places of very different standing (a Maine lobster shack on one end of the scale, Babbo on the other). I think we ended up tipping 15-20% at most places. That may seem pretty cheap to some of you but for us it was a lot. I wonder.. when a New Yorker comes to Amsterdam, does he "understand the concept of tipping" that's common practice over here, and act like the locals, or will he use his own concept, and tip big?

wow, those minis! For some reason the rows and rows of minis are even more impressive to me than the large cakes.. maybe because I am imagining you carefully positioning pistachios on little cake after little cake after little cake... I think I need to get me some of that flavored water you're drinking, maybe it'll give me some of your energy!

Susan, those ravioli look very fairytale-like They also gave me a great idea. I made some beetroot ravioli recently but they tasted very sweet and a bit bland. Now after seeing your post I'm thinking they would taste great with a gorgonzola cheese sauce.. it would be the same dish you cooked, only inside out! I still have some of the ravioli in the freezer so I might try that this week. Is that fried chicken for 7? You are brave! I've not had a very succesfull cooking week. Tough ostrich steak on friday night, and some dull dinners composed of leftovers from the freezer. But yesterday I had a lot of fun making papoutsakia, as part of the Moussaka cook-off

Ah, the joys of EGullet. When I woke up this morning the first thing I thought was "How did Bilrus's dinner turn out??" everything looks fantastic. Very inspirational to see someone who is not a professional cook, taking the time and making the effort to do something like this. When I cook from cookbooks, I always make a lot of shortcuts and compromises. It's a good lesson for me to see what one can turn out if one doesn't!

which is why I'm so glad that you are doing this instead of me! It's all very impressive and I can't wait for your next post! I just hope that after all your work, you'll be able to enjoy your dinner..

Thyme on the roof of the oven. That is just poetry! What beautiful pictures, they really give me spring fever.. I'm in the Netherlands. I've had some lovely bright pink rhubarb last week.. and turnip tops. Asparagus (white) is coming. I'm very much looking forward to the first asparagus dinner of spring.. juicy stalks with boiled eggs, new potatoes, ham and melted butter..

I had some time on my hands so I made papoutsakia for two. I used Rosemary Barron's recipe. It lists no less than 4 cheeses: cottage cheese, feta and gruyere (substitute for greek graviera) for the bechamel, and Parmesan (substitute for greek kephalotyri) to sprinkle on top. Her meatsauce is flavored with allspice, rigani (greek oregano), cinnamon, and honey, and cooked down with red wine, fesh tomatoes and stock. The bechamel is lightened with beaten eggs and flavored with nutmeg. Here are some of the ingredients. I ended up using only feta and parmesan because that's all I had . I used lamb for the sauce, and both fresh and dried regular oregano to substitute the rigani: Here's the sauce bubbling away. A lot of liquid, I cooked it for about 30 minutes without a lid and it ended up nice and thick. To make the papoutsakia, I halved the aubergines and fried them in a little bit of oil, cut side down. Then I baked them in the oven for about 15 minutes until they were soft. Then you have to scoop out the flesh. Because the flesh isn't used in this recipe, you have to leave quite a thick wall on the shell, otherwise you have almost no aubergine in the finished dish! One scooped, one waiting: Here they are before going into the oven, one is covered with bechamelsauce that has feta, parmesan and nutmeg to flavor, and a very well beaten egg. They are then sprinkled with breadcrumbs and some more parmesan: after 30 minutes in the oven: Yum! Notes: with this dish you don't get the amalgamation of layers and flavors that you get with classic moussaka. And if you don't like aubergine skin, this is not the dish for you. I think I would like to try it again with all the cheeses Barron suggests. I think the cottagecheese will make the cheesesauce lighter. Adding the egg to the sauce is a very good idea. The sauce sets to a sort of fluffy custard which is very nice.

or make pastry by hand instead of in the machine. I love the feel of the butter and flour that turns into dough.. I also like to whip cream and eggwhites by hand. I hate the noise of the machine and there is something very soothing in the repetitive motion. Also, the magic of liquid turning into something of a whole different nature, is much more visible when you do it by hand. I love that magic, it gives me joy

Oh, wonderful. I love moussaka! The best one I ever made is from Rosemary Barron's book Flavors of Greece. The meat sauce is heavenly spiced with cinnamon, allspice, honey and oregano, and the bechamel has 3 different cheeses stirred into it. Lovely.. I also remember making papoutsakia once for a dinner party, which is basically the same recipe but instead of in a baking dish, it's baked in halved aubergine shells. (Papoutsakia means little shoe or little slipper, something like that.) Looks very pretty (I find that large baked dishes of the shepherd's pie/moussaka kind, can look a bit dull even if they taste fantastic).