My tart tins from the trash heap one more time – it took soaking overnight, and scrubbing with a toothbrush to clean off the results of the quiches that leaked. Last night I made a buffet light dinner/heavy apps for a group that I’ve cooked for before. They’re all Hospice Care workers, and they’re a lively bunch with a good sense of humor – and completely unflappable no matter what happens.
Scrubbed tarts tins resting on the kitchen counter
I didn’t take any pictures, but here’s the menu:
Appetizers:
- Caramelized onion dip (kinda like Heidi’s; I’ll post my adaptations presently) with vegetables (crinkle-cut carrots, beauty heart radishes, blanched broccoli, a few Romanesco broccoli florets, and one red pepper in strips) & crackers (wheat thins & Potters)
- Nuts & olives – Crisp spiced nuts, from Gourmet, Dec. 1994, and a few cheese-stuffed green olives from the co-op, and some pitted Niçoise from Costco)
Platters of vegetables & salads:
- Pear Fennel Salad on bed of greens – this was Mark Bittman’s pear salad, on a bed of greens – including lots of arugula – dressed with Terese’s raspberry jam vinaigrette
- Harvest roasted vegetables – white, purple, and sweet potatoes, parsnips, carrots, with garlic and herbs (Rosemary from the pots in Mark’s sun room upstairs) coulda been more of these!
- Roasted Cauliflower, walnut and and parsley salad – this was kind of my invention, based on a salad I am sure I saw in Martha’s Everyday Food, but can’t find now. Because I was searching so much for the recipe, I saw a mention of roasted cauliflower with curry spices at Ottolenghi, so I roasted my cauliflower with garam masala and olive oil, then added toasted walnuts and flat leaf parsley, and a few tablespoons of white wine vinegar. It was so good, I finished it off for a snack the next day.
mains:
- Leek tart
- Quiche Loraine – with bacon
One of the bacon and one of the leek tarts are what leaked so I had to scrub.
dessert:
- Pumpkin sticky pudding – I made two 13 x 9 x 2 pans, and dropped one in the driveway, while I was loading the car – totally shattered. I dumped most of it the garbage – didn’t have time to clean up properly, and Mark got home just in time to do it for me.
- Whipped cream and ice cream to make up for the loss
Actually all day while I’d been cooking I’d been thinking some disaster was going to strike. It was almost a relief after I dropped the sticky pudding – it meant I finally knew what was going to go wrong, and it had, and I could get over it. My neck started to un-knot. It’s high school football tournaments in Madison this weekend (we are the state capital after all) , and one of the games had just let out, so the traffic was bad on my way to school woods, and I had to stop at Jenny Market for the ice cream. Still, I arrived at the same time as Mia, the party planner, and I knew from that moment that it was going to be a good night. People were fed, they drank wine and talked, people were happy. Didn’t I say they were unflappable? And there was even pudding for Mark and I to eat at 10:00 when I got home.
