Chufi

My husband always celebrates his birthday with a dinner for his friends. There are usually about 14-16 of us at the table and I do all the cooking. It is a sit-down dinner, but not a very formal one (there have been years where I had to throw away the tablecloth afterwards, because there was no way it would ever wash clean again). I have cooked about 13 of these dinners now and as the years passed on, my cooking got better, and I feel a sort of pressure to produce a better dinner every year. February 19th is the next dinner and I could really use some ideas for this one! some clues: - we spend all evening at the table, so 4 courses is the minimum. - not too much last minute preparation - the week before the dinner, I have time to prepare in advance - I like the dessert to be a real wow factor - we try not to spend too much money. any advice welcome!

well, I tried to make the piononos tonight ( I confess, partly because that is one of the strangest sounding names for a dish I've ever heard). After I fried the slices, I tried to roll them up into a ring like the recipe said, but they fell apart. Maybe my plantains were to ripe for this? Anyway, I layered the slices and stuffing in an ovendish, poured some eggs over it and baked. Turned out very tasty. Served them with spicy black beans. I will definitely buy plantains again and try some more recipes. And, completely off topic: I have new baby rats arriving in a couple of days, and am still looking for names for my new pets. I have now decided that Fu-Fu will make a very cute name for one of them.

The hot walnut toast dripping with butter, peanutbutter and honey I had as an afternoon snack. And another one.. and another one.

Along the cassoulet theme: I just remembered a fabulous dish of meat & beans. Every year for my husbands birthday, I cook a 4 course dinner for about 15 people and try to do it as cheap yet as glamorous as possible. One year I made this stew and everybody raved about it. It is very simple but delicious. I think it is the allspice that gives it an unusual depth of flavour. The recipe is adapted from Jane Grigsons wonderful book Good Things (these quantities are for 6): 200 gr. haricot or other white beans 450 gr. cheap stewing meat, (lamb or beef), cubed 1 large onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, chopped 50 gr. butter 1 large tomato, skinned and chopped 2 tablespoons tomatopuree 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice (or more to taste) salt & pepper Boil the beans for 30 minutes (don't soak). Drain. Preheat the oven to 160 C Now take a large pot that can go in the oven later. Fry the onion and garlic gently in the butter for about 10 minutes, turn up the heat and add the meat and brown it. Add tomato, tomatopuree and beans, and enough water to cover. When it is bubbling add salt, pepper and allspice. Cover and cook in the oven until meat and beans are cooked (probably 1 1/2 hours) Add more seasoning of salt, pepper and allspice if necessary.

I think rubbed sage just means that it is sort of ground into finer crumbs (after the leaves are dried). So I think the different types you buy in the shops, are all the same sage (Salvia officinalis), but just dried and/or ground in different ways. I googled a bit and it seems that Dalmatian sage is just another name for the most commonly used type of sage, Salvia officinalis. (apparently there are more then 500 kinds of sage, among them white sage, spanish sage, clary sage ??). Couldn't find the origin of the word 'dalmatian' though. Now that will keep haunting me.. Rosemary Hemphill, in her little book Herbs for all seasons, says it has a reason that the botanical name for sage is Salvia which means health.. some of the beneficial effects she mentions: restoring energy, aiding the digestion, bringing color back to greying hair, whitening your teeth, strengthening your gums. Also anything that has to do with throat and mouth. Ofcourse, fresh sage is the best. Dried sage has a tendency to taste like dust. My favorite thing to do with good, vibrant fresh sage: Melt a big lump of butter. Fry a couple of sage leaves in this until the leaves are just (but not quite) getting crispy. Toss with tagliatelle and serve with lots of freshly ground pepper and grated Parmesan.

The creamy scrambled eggs with bacon, onion confit and gorgonzola that I just had for lunch. On toasted walnut bread. It was only lunch, but it can't get any better than that, today.

maduras, jiparitos, amarillos!! remember people, I'm from Amsterdam - Mexican cuisine is as almost as foreign to us as Dutch cuisine is to you!

Oh yes! Now it never gets very cold here in The Netherlands, but cold enough for my balcony to be an excellent extra fridge. I always put stocks and stews out there. And that's why I love to give winter parties.. all the wine and beer is on the balcony.. all the food can be prepared in advance and is waiting on the balcony.. you never run out of fridge space! (Be careful though with leaving food over night... I know people who left a whole baked ham wrapped in plastic on their back porch, to discover the next day that all the neighborhood cats had had a hamfeast).

Braised chicken with sweet potatoes, fried plantains. Salad of romaine lettuce with Granny Smith apples, pecans and a blue cheese dressing: dessert: little lemon surprise puddings (with a custardy layer on the bottom and a cakey layer on top)

thanks all for the suggestions. Tonight I sliced some of them and fried in olive oil, sprinkled with salt and served with braised chicken. Very tasty! I did find you need to keep a close eye on the pan, they burn easily. So.. I sliced up and fried ripe plantains. Now did I make maduros or amarillos?? I think I will make fufu tomorrow with the rest of them. And maybe I will try some of the more elaborate dishes in the future! I added another ingredient to my repertoire.

Oh how I LOVE pictures of shops that sell food. Those shops are to me what museums or cathedrals are to others.. can't get enough of them! looking forward to the rest of your blog!

great thread binkyboots, I look forward to reading it. Allthough I am not on a very tight budget foodwise, I do try to shop cheap. I firmly believe that you can eat very well without spending a fortune. In my case, this comes down to eating less meat - so that when I do buy meat, I can buy organic (meat tastes better to me when I know the animal has had a good life). One thing that is very helpful for cooking on a budget, is time. Time to go around to many different shops to buy things that are good but cheap. Time to take advantage of those vegetables that are on sale, by spending the afternoon preparing them for the freezer.

I sent my husband to the market for bananas and he came back with plantains. ("Honey, they looked like nice fat bananas to ME!") I have no idea how to use them. All the recipes I can find in my cookbooks are for green plantains (fried, chips etc), but these are quite ripe (yellow with lots of black spots). What can I do with them?

I just made a chocolate risotto a couple of nights ago! Delia Smith's recipe. It was lovely, very, very rich and indulgent. Where's your recipe from?

Best topping I ever made myself was accidentally (with leftovers): chunks of roast butternut squash slices of portobello mushroom big chunks of soft goats cheese sprinkled with rucola when it came out of the oven. The best one from one of my favorite Amsterdam restaurants: a mascarpone truffle sauce, lightly smoked ham, parmesan, rucola. Ohh that is soooo good.

As a side dish, I like to make potato gratins that consist of a top and bottom layer of potato, and something else in the middle. The something else could be squash, fennel, sauteed leeks, sauteed mushrooms, sweet potato, parsnip, sauteed chicory, carrots, zucchini.. anything. My alltime favorite gratin is potatoes layered with dried (and soaked) porcini mushrooms, minced shallots, garlic, parsley and parmesan. I add the soaking liquid from the porcini to the cream. Another winter favorite is swede gratin with bits of bacon.

a big bowl of thick, creamy joghurt with chunks of fresh pineapple and mango. I have a bad cold and this is the only thing that tastes good (I have been eating this for 3 days now)

slices of ciabatta with bleu d'auvergne and onion confit: salmon in a saffron couscous crust, roast tomatoes, sauteed spinach and for dessert.. chocolate risotto with almonds and cream. Sounds weird but tasted fantastic: both the salmon and the risotto are Delia Smith recipes, from her website.

I love polow! I use Margaret Shaida's recipes from her fantastic book The legendary cuisines of Persia. Some of her tips that I have used: after parboiling the rice, heat some oil and water in the saucepan (she says 90 ml oil, 4 parts oil to one part water). Add 1 egg, beaten with a tablespoon of yoghurt, to this and when sizzling, start sprinkling in the rice. The egg and joghurt give an extra thick and crusty tahdeeg. when the rice is cooked, stand the saucepan in the sink that has some cold water in it. This will make it easier to remove the tahdeeg from the pan later. M. Lucia, your version looks a lot like the one I often make! Another one I love is Sabzi Polow, with herbs. It's the same recipe only instead of the fruits and nuts you add fresh herbs (350 grams of herbs for 500 grams of rice, use equal portions of dill, parsley, coriander and chives). It is incredibly fragrant and a perfect dish for spring. In Iran it is a traditional dish for New Years, with all the green herbs symbolizing the new year.

isn't that wonderful? Baking bread is one of the things that always makes me feel very proud of myself. Nice feeling to have from time to time!

some of mine: chocolate and prunes raspberries and cream peas and mint zucchini and mint mushrooms and onions pumpkin and mushrooms and goats cheese (on a pizza) pears and almonds (in cakes) lobster and drawn butter chicken and lemon rhubarb and orange grilled cheese sandwich and ketchup avocado and bacon aubergine and tomato salmon and fennel spicy chorizo and chickpea stew with a fried egg on top with the soft yolk running into the stew. I just cannot imagine the stew (good as it is on its own) without the egg.

tonight was choucroute/sauerkraut (is there an english word for this?) with mash, onion gravy and one of the last smoked pork sausages from the butcher shop where my father worked before his retirement. These sausages are SO great. I always had a steady supply of sausages coming to my house (when my mother came over, she would bring a sausage instead of flowers) but now, sadly, the butcher has ended his business. I have only one sausage left in the freezer..

ofcourse, victory leads to new questions. What's the best thing to do with left over, cold roast lamb?

Well, there is petits pois a la francaise but the recipes I have seen, have more peas than lettuce where as I like it with more lettuce than peas. I was reminded of it because someone in the Fresh Pasta thread mentioned peas and lettuce as a stuffing for ravioli. Ideally, I think, it should be buttery Cobb lettuce and fresh peas... but my little gems and frozen peas were great all the same.

I have always been afraid of large pieces of meat (by large, I mean a size bigger than one portion). I do not know if this is because or despite the fact that I am a butcher's daughter - but that's how it is. I have roasted countless chickens, but the thought of a rib roast or a leg of lamb would just be too scary. Anyway - one of my resolutions for 2005, is to overcome as many culinary fears as possible. So yesterday I bought a piece of lamb, weight 750 grams, and a meat thermometer. Today I took a deep breath and went to work. I consulted various roasting charts and settled on Nigella Lawson's. She says to start at oven temp 240 C, after 15 minutes turn doen to 200 C, and cook the meat for 16 minutes per 500 grams if you want it medium. So that's what I did. When the roasting time was up, the thermometer said 70 C. The meat was absolutely beautiful: very moist, slightly pink (which is how I like it) and very very tasty. Woohoo! I see many more roasts on the horizon! I know this was not a VERY large roast but now I would feel comfortable tackling a larger one. this was the meat before it went into the oven. It was oddly shaped so I took advantage of that: I spread it with slivers of garlic and chopped thyme and marjoram, before tying it into a more practical shape. and on the plate, with roasted jerusalem artichokes, and little gem lettuces braised in butter with peas and mint.