Birthday Party

Yesterday was Jacquilyn's birthday, so we had a little birthday party! We had dinner reservations at Quartino for a group of 6, but the gang came over to our apartment for snacks before dinner and for dessert afterwards.



I didn't want to put out too much food, and I wanted to avoid meats and cheese because Quartino has a great antipasto selection. I just served pita chips with chipotle veggie hummus, and some French bread with a dish of olive oil with sea salt and fresh rosemary.

For dessert, I made a lemon olive oil cake. I first fell in love with olive oil cake a couple years ago at Bar Stuzzichini in New York. They have an orange olive oil cake, and I think they served it with a scoop of ice cream...maybe almond ice cream. Can't remember. I had it again at Scarpetta, one of my absolute favorite restaurants ever. Their spaghetti with tomato and basil is to die for. Ok, I'm getting off subject. They have an olive oil cake with mascarpone cream, citrus salad, and tangerine sorbet. Olive oil cake is fluffy but still nice and moist, and the citrus flavor is really delicate. I like to serve it with whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream. I think a flavored ice cream would probably overpower the citrus.



I know making a cake with olive oil sounds weird, but I promise - it doesn't taste like olive oil. I used 2% Greek yogurt for my cake, I like the thick texture of it. I think this recipe is off the NPR website but I can't be sure, I copied it into my cookbook a long time ago.

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup plain whole milk yogurt
finely grated zest of 3 lemons
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees with rack in center. Lightly oil a 9-inch springform pan. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. With an electric mixer beat eggs and sugar on high for 5 minutes, or until pale and thick. Add yogurt and zest, beat to combine. With mixer on medium add oil in a quick, steady stream. Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour mix. Whisk batter by hand to make sure all ingredients are mixed. Bake 40-45 minutes, rotating pan halfway through. Bake until edges pull away from pan.



And the finishing touch on dessert, a nice little bowl of Cadbury Mini Eggs :)

Oscar Party

I'm back! And I brought my big girl camera (rather than just my iPhone) to take lots of pictures of last weekend's eating adventures.

Part of the reason for the trip home was for the Murnanes' 3rd annual Oscar Party. This is a very serious Hollywood event complete with a red carpet, swag bags, and prizes for whoever does the best on their Oscar ballot. I won last year, but this year had a very poor showing. The highlight of the evening is the carefully planned dinner theme to go along with the year's best movies. Here's the spread:



Blue Sky Martinis
Na'viled Eggs
Crazy Hearts of Palm salad I (the early years)
Crazy Hearts of Palm salad II (the comeback)
UP in the Skyline Chili Dogs
Blind Side Tacos
Chocolate Almond UPside down cake




The party was so much fun. It's such a wonderful oasis in the cold winter months, even though the Oscars were a little later this year than they usually are.

Obviously the Avatar theme was big this year...which is how I came up with one of the desserts that we brought. I had a vision awhile ago of doing a red velvet cake but making it blue instead. Actually, two shades of blue. But my mom added onto that idea with the suggestion that we should create a Pandora-like jungle on top of the cake, as well as an extra little dessert - jewel cookies with blueberry jam. I'll start with the cookies.



This is a recipe from an old Martha Stewart Christmas book. My mom said she used to make them a long time ago, but I'm sure I was A. grossed out by the nuts and jam on them, and B. disappointed by the lack of icing. Now I love them. We even happened to have a botanical-looking pedastal tray to serve them.

We used blueberry jam, but the recipe calls for raspberry. You can use whatever kind you want. We also used dark brown sugar, for no reason, and it made them a little darker in color. Also...confession, I rolled the doughballs a little too big so they flattened out a little more than they should have while baking, so we ended up with about 2 and a half dozen instead of 5 dozen. And we had to bake them a little longer than the recipe says. But they were so soft and delicious.

Jewel Cookies
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, separated
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoons salt
2 2/3 sifted all-purpose flour
2 cups finely chopped pecans
1 cup raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg yolks, vanilla, salt, then add the flour. Shape dough into 1-inch balls.



Brush each doughball with beaten egg white then roll in the chopped pecans and place 2 to 3 inches apart on baking sheets. Press the center of each ball with your thumb and fill with 1/2 teaspoon of jam.




Bake 8-10 minutes or until golden brown along the edges. Cool on rack.



And now, the piece de resistance...the Avatar cake!



I know, it looks like a high school science project. Just wait until you see the inside. I used Paula Deen's red velvet cake recipe, and her recipe for cream cheese icing (she has a couple, I went for the one without marshmallows). I'll copy it exactly the way she has it, but for my cake I waited until the end to add the food coloring so I could separate the batter in half and create two shades of blue.

2 cups sugar
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
2 eggs
2 Tbl unsweetened cocoa powder
2 ounces red food coloring
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbl white vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter, beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well after each addition. Mix cocoa and food coloring together and then add to sugar mixture; mix well. Sift together flour and salt. Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Blend in vanilla. In a small bowl combine baking soda and vinegar and add to mixture. Pour batter into 3 (8-inch) round greased and floured pans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from heat and cool completely before frosting.

I tried to make the cake a mixture of two shades of blue, like the Avatars. Here's before and after baking photos.




Cream cheese icing:

1 pound cream cheese, at room temperature
2 sticks butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.

I put a little blue food coloring in the icing, too.



Then we decorated the top of the cake. If you haven't seen the movie, it won't make any sense. For the Home Tree, we went to Michael's Crafts. It's just made up of some greenery from the fake flowers department. We also got those dragon-like birds at Michael's. The smaller trees and the military vehicles came from a cake decorating store called the Happy Hostess. This store is crazy, in a good way and bad way. If you ever need anything like edible pink glitter, mini snail-shaped cookie cutters, or a huge variety of plastic figurines to put on top of a cake...this is your place. We also got the "rocks" on the cake from this place - they're actually jellybeans.



And just like in the movie, Home Tree fell. RIP Home Tree. It was just too heavy for the soft cake to hold up. Anyway, we finally got to eat the Avatar cake! Slicing into it revealed a cross-section of the two shades of blue, and the light blue icing. We served it with wildberry lavender ice cream from Jeni's (which I will write about later this week), the closest ice cream we could find to blue that would actually taste good. Ta da!!!

Dinner party!

So our little dinner party of 3 last night turned into 6! I don't think I've ever cooked for that many people, but it was a success. The menu: cheese & salami plate, asparagus & truffle oil bruschetta, scallops, peperonata rustica, roasted cauliflower, and spinach/goat cheese/cranberry/pecan salad.

The asparagus bruschetta comes from one of my favorite restaurants in New York, ino. Actually Peter gets credit for this, he's the one who first tried to replicate it at home. It's very easy to make. This picture is kind of lame because I just served it as a do-it-yourself last night rather than make all the individual toasts.

You'll need:

1 bunch of asparagus (very skinny asparagus makes for better bruschetta than big fat asparagus)

truffle oil

salt & pepper

parmigiano reggiano cheese

1 baguette or loaf of italian bread, cut into small slices and toasted

Cut the asparagus (raw, not cooked) into small pieces, about 1 cm. I used the whole bunch for 6 people. Toss with enough truffle oil to coat. Just keep adding a little and a little more until it tastes right, you don't want to add too much right away because it has a strong taste. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, and finish with freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese. If you're putting the bruschetta on toasts, instead of do-it-yourself like I did, I prefer to wait to add the cheese until I've already made all the toasts.

I'll just post the recipe for the peppers right now. I make scallops and cauliflower a lot so I'll write about those another time. This was the first time I made these peppers. The recipe is from Thomas Keller's newest book ad hoc at home. It's my dream to go to his restaurant French Laundry some day. Anyway...

Peperonata Rustica

6 yellow bell peppers

6 red bell peppers

canola oil

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces piquillo peppers, drained, peeled, and seeded

about 1/2 cup of Soffritto

1 1/3 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock

3/4 teaspoon piment d'Espelette

1 tablespoon minced chives

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cut the bell peppers lengthwise in half and remove the stems and seeds. Toss the peppers with oil to coat and salt and pepper to taste. Arrange the peppers cut side down on the baking sheets, red peppers on one, the yellow peppers on the other.

Roast the peppers until the skin is blistering. About 30 to 35 minutes for the red and 35 to 40 minutes for the yellow; do not allow the edges to blacken. Transfer the peppers to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, or put in an airtight container with a lid.

When the peppers are cool enough to handle, peel them. Tear them lengthwise into strips about 3/4 inchwide. Tear the piquillos into strips the same way.

Combine all of the peppers, soffritto, stock, and Espelette in a medium saucepan over medium heat, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a simmer. Cook for 30 minutes, to soften peppers completely and meld the flavors.

Transfer to a bowl or platter, sprinkle with chives, and serve.

A couple notes - I had a little trouble finding piquillos, but did end up finding them at Trader Joe's. I could not find the Espelette (I didn't think I would be able to), so I used paprika instead. Upon writing this, I realized I used olive oil instead of canola. Oops. It was fine though. And I could not find sofrito anywhere, it was in every grocery in New York and in none here. So I made it - blend in a food processor until smooth: 1 green bell pepper, 1 sweet red pepper (or bell pepper), 1 white onion, 1 large tomato, 5 or 6 cloves garlic, handful parsley leaves, handful cilantro leaves, salt and pepper. Lastly, as Thomas Keller mentions in the book, the leftovers are great with scrambled eggs and Peter is eating them for breakfast as I write this.