Sat., 1/12/13 - What's for Dinner?

[cjs]

What's on the menu for everyone today?

Long travel day ~325 miles, so have no idea.

[luvnit]

Dinner last night was AMAZING, holy cow! Hard to top that.

Our hostess made a fennel and caraway crusted beef tenderloin, twice-baked horseradish potatoes, roasted asparagus with a really great dressing and topped with breadcrumbs and parmesan, and halibut...



The appetizers were great, wish I would have gotten a picture. She had a really great salsa with corn, avacado, and black beans, pistachio crusted goat cheese balls wrapped in a basil leaf. And of course we had the bacon jam bruschetta. Which everyone raved about. I was prepared with laminated recipe cards complete with photo.

The night was great, we got home at 2:30 a.m.

Oh and a great wine that is a favorite of one of the guests. It was a red wine. Ladera. I think it was a cab.

[Trixxee]

Nice dinner!

Tonight it's a cobb salad - butter lettuce, raddichio, cucumbers, tomatoes, egg slices, chicken, bleu cheese crumbles, and instead of bacon, crispy proscuitto.

No bread.

[BarbaraS]

Laura,

That looks awesome!! I think I'm going to have to make that bacon jam. It sounds really tasty.

Tonight I'm flying by the seat of my pants here. Not following any recipe I have, I'm going to butterfly a pork tenderloin and layer it with spinach, shredded Gruyere, and toasted pine nuts. Then roll it up and wrap it in puff pastry. Then I'm making the port wine sauce from Cuisine For Two, but subbing dried cherries for the cranberries. And Three Cheese Scalloped Potatoes on the side, plus salads.

Wow, that's a lot of cheese tonight.

If anyone has made that Port Wine Sauce from Cuisine For Two, do you think I should sub chicken stock for the beef stock?

Barbara

[losblanos1]

What a great dinner Laura.
Barbara, I use the beef stock for that port wine sauce when I'm cooking beef, but since you're serving pork, chicken stock may be more suitable.

Tonight my wife is making Pad Thai w/ shrimp from issue #91. This is the same recipe that Jean reviewed a while back and wasn't too happy with because of the amount of tamarind (or something like that).

[DFen911]

Got a new cookbook Irish Pub, so tonight it's Beef and Stout pies. Basically pot pies made with good stout beer.

[cjs]

Oh Laura, what a fun dinner party you were a part of.

Everyone loved the bacon jam at the BBQ we went to also -but I really can't say which folks were more impressed with the jam, the 18 hour bread or the combination with goat cheese.

[Gourmet_Mom]

Everyone's dinners sound so good!

Laura, your dinner looks Yummy! That's a really late dinner party!

I'm going with an old favorite. It's really warm. I picked up goat cheese and pine nuts at Sam's back before Christmas and have been dying to make my favorite Chicken Linguine with Candied Cherry Tomatoes and Pine Nuts. Today is the perfect kind of day for this! It hit 75 today!

[cjs]

75??? Crap! It's so cold here in Las Cruces, N. Mex. BUT, the sun is shining!!!

[Trixxee]

I think it's 55 here in So.Cal.! But the sun is shining. I actually have the heat on in the middle of the day. Unheard of!