A Perfect Day Out!

Teen 2 and I had a fabulous day out today. First we visited the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, then we stopped to watch lawn bowling as we strolled to tea at The Secret Garden, then we drove to Old Town Antiques in Pleasanton where we barely had enough time (2 hours), to see it all. We need to do this again!

Tea Time Amongst The Oaks

Teen2 left a bit of lemon curd and some fruit in the frige from a tea party last week, so guess who took advantage of it? LOM and I of course.

Mixed Citrus Salad with Escarole

We've been having this salad a lot lately and I thought you might enjoy it too. I wish I could upload a pdf file to Blogger, but I can't so here's the recipe in a jpg. Not nearly as nice, but if you add your email address in your comment, I'll send you the pdf version which will print out all pretty.
Basically it's an escarole salad with any kind of citrus segments, red onion, blue cheese and a vinaigrette dressing. The bitterness of the escarole is perfectly balanced by the sweetness of the fruit and the savoriness of the blue cheese. I usually peel the membranes off the grapefruit and oranges because they look so much prettier, but you probably don't really have to do that. Either way, it's delicious.
Enjoy!

Lemoncello Cookies

I made some really yummy cookies the other day. Here they are cooling on the meat block. I guess I need to tell you about the meat block, don't I? We've had it for almost 40 years and it's really old. It was in our first two kitchens, but it didn't fit into our last two kitchens, so it's just been in storage. Well, when the kids moved out I wanted to use it again so we made the kitchen table smaller and put it against the wall under the window. That made room for the meat block in the center of the room where the table used to be.

Here it is in all it's battered glory. And we are quite pleased with it here. When we had our gourmand dinner the other night, everyone gathered around it for appetizers, but (here's the best part) they couldn't sit down so I could still make my way through the kitchen to work. Used to be, folks would sit around the kitchen table blocking my access to the frige and the dining room with their chairs.

So now, not only do we enjoy looking out the window while we eat, we have a better arrangement for entertaining. It's a win-win situation. Speaking of win-win, those cookies were delicious. Lemon zest in the batter, lemoncello in the frosting. Can't you almost taste them?

Pork Tenderloin with Orange Sauce

Here's the recipe for that pork dish from my last post:

Citrus Season Gourmand Party

We've joined another Gourmand Dinner group and it was our turn to host last weekend. Since it is citrus season I decided to make it a citrus theme and every dish contained citrus of some sort.

To decorate the table I made a yellow tablecloth using 108" wide fabric from the quilting section of the fabric store. Folks us it for quilt backs and it is just a thin cotton, but with a nice hem and a plain white undercloth, it looked pretty good. There was enough fabric left over to make napkins too so I made eight of them. Then I found these nice red, white, and yellow striped place mats to pull it all together.

Instead of flowers I decorated the center of the table with citrus fruits. Most of the guests brought citrus from their trees to help. I had to buy the ruby grapefruit and the blood oranges, but I found plenty of lemons and leaves, and even a few flowers. I was quite pleased with the table when we were all done.

Blood oranges are not very pretty in the stores, but they are so beautiful inside. And they make a gorgeous addition to a winter salad.

Here's the ruby grapefruit. I like them in salads too and sometimes in the winter we make a grapefruit and avocado salad with a lemony dressing that is just delightful.

Here is the main course that we made; pork tenderloins with orange sauce, mashed red potatoes, and green beans. That's candied orange zest on top and it was pure heaven. We paired it with a tempranillo wine from Spain. I'd never had tempranillo before and it was quite nice! In fact, each couple did a great job of pairing a wine with their course. Speaking of wine.....

this was the scene on my counter the next morning. It's almost embarrassing, but there were eight of us!

Sunset at Rocky Point

We had dinner at the Rocky Point Restaurant recently and timed it to coincide with the sunset. We were not disappointed. As we ate our salads the sun started coloring the clouds and by the time our entrees were served the sky was ablaze. The photos below were taken only about 3 minutes apart and then it was all over, but what a finish!

Although the sunset was breathtaking, the food, well...not so much. It was like stepping back in time to a menu and cooking style from the 80s. Not that it was bad, just dated, but I guess with this view it doesn't really matter, does it?

Greek Party

I've made this post into a Tablescape Thursday over at Between Naps on the Porch.

Greetings from Greece! Okay, maybe not Greece, but our own back yard where we recently had a Greek dinner party for our Gormande Club.

We took our dining room table out to the patio, rigged a white awning above it, and set the table with white, blue and gold.

The runner is simply a piece of sheer fabric that reminded me of the Mediterranean. We used old blue glasses that we inherited from LOM's grandparents which matched the runner perfectly. I made those collars with the Greek key design to go around candle holders and a vase that I already had.

As the sun was lowering into the West we poured the Ouzo and started with mezede (snacks);

kalamata olives,

dolmades,

and saganaki (fried kefalotyri cheese). We also had pita bread and a sort of rolled version of spanakopita.

Then we progressed to horiatiki,

avgolemono, and the main course souvlaki and potatoes. which I failed to photograph. because it was getting dark. yeah, that's it, it was too dark. couldn't be the ouzo, could it?

And for dessert we had home-made baklava by Teen1. Oh, my, it was good.

Eventually it got dark enough to light the candles and we ate our dessert in their soft glow. In proper Greek style, we made dinner last for several hours and enjoyed our Escape To Greece immensely.

If you want to taste REAL Greek food, Stockton is having a Greek Festival on September 10-12 at the Greek Orthodox Church. Check it our here. I wonder if they will serve Ouzo?

Culinary Institute of America

We had a little celebration of sorts last night. It was Teen1's celebration of "back to normal" after her surgery. And where would we go to celebrate? Greystones, of course!

Their seasonal menu was full of fresh summery items last night.

Here are the first courses.

Here are the main courses.

And here's the lovely little lady.

And her old old parents.

Back to the lovely food. We always start with the "Temptations" which are served on tiny plates stacked on a wrought iron rack in the middle of the table. Here is the watermelon soup topped with radish threads. It was cool, sweet, and delicate; very nice.

Here we have mozzarella, tiny tomatoes, basil broth and pine nuts.

This is deep fried Halibut squares with tomato salsa. LOM really raved over this.

Pate on crostini. For a pate lover like me this was heavenly.

And finally Gorgonzola stuffed salami.

And now I must apologize for losing the salad photos. I remember taking them, but they are gone from the camera. Sorry.

Here is the Pan Seared Halibut with tomatillo salsa and squash and potatoes. I had a bite and it was delicious.

And this is the spice rubbed young chicken with basil broth, squash, and cherry tomatoes.

And I had Monterey Bay sardines with mixed greens, Yukon gold potatoes, and salsa verde. But the best part was the glass of Benessere Rosato that was served with it. The wine's fruitiness perfectly complimented the saltiness of the fish. What a great match.

And for dessert we shared the lava cake. Always perfect. A perfect way to cap off a perfect dinner.

Mardi Gras in May?

Happy Mardi Gras everyone! What, you say it's not Mardi Gras? You'll have to tell our Gourmand Club, because last night we definitely thought it was.

We had crayfish, red beans and rice, collard greens, and King Cake for dessert. I've never had King Cake, heck, until last week, I'd never even heard of King Cake, but I made one anyway. It's not really a cake at all. It's sweet yeast bread that's slathered in cinnamon and braided. Kind of like stollen or cinnamon rolls, but iced and sprinkled with colored sugars.

And what a mess I made. I actually laughed out loud at this stage, but when I put it on the fancy platter it looked pretty good. And folks who'd had it before said it tasted good too, but what a lot of trouble just to hide a little plastic baby. Unless I go to another Mardi Gras party I don't think I'll be making this again. If I'm going to go to the trouble to make a sweet yeast bread, I think I'll just finish it off as cinnamon rolls.

But that's what I like about our Gourmand Club; it forces one to try new things, experiment with new recipes, and experience different cultures. Laissez les bon temps roulez!