… and how to organize a successful holiday buffet party for 15 people in 1 day and half and not die. No recipes in this post, my purpose is only to give you some ideas for a holiday buffet menu where all preparations are intended to be easy to pick and eat in plastic dishes, standing, talking, mingling.

Even though I don’t have any picture of the event, not even of the food because I was so busy and concentrated before, during and after that I really had no chance of taking pictures, even though I was saying, I want to tell you about this my experience.  It was the first time that I organized a whole lunch buffet for 15 people cooking completely by myself (muuuum where are youuuu!?) and because it turned to be an appreciated and successful event I am sure that some of you can find useful some of the strategies, methods, and tips that I learned myself. It was a holiday small event that we organized at our house for Michael’s parents and a group of family friends. Date and time: Saturday, December 12, 2009 h. 12:00pm. The cooking marathon started on thursday at 5:40pm and ended … well practically at 12:00pm when the guests started to arrive. I can confidently say that the organization and schedule was quite efficient. So here it is my chronicle…

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Aim: Lunch buffet for 15 people

Scheduled: Saturday, December 12, 2009 h. 12:00pm

I decided the menu the weekend before the event and made sure to buy and have in the house everything I needed within thursday night. Planning is critical not to go crazy at the last minute because you don’t have this or that, and you must fit another food shopping experience into the already tight cooking schedule… First and foremost:

- plan your menu and stick it somewhere where it is very visible
- based on the menu prepare your list for grocery, and list of possible tools that you may need. Keep the list somewhere handy and visible and keep filling it as things that you may need come on your mind
- do your food shopping in advance and make sure that you have all you need within two days from the event.

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Menu

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Appetizers

Pizza with escarole
Potato gateau
Salame and coleslaw rolls

Salads

Entrées

Fresh fruit plate
Chocolate and orange cake

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Schedule and preparation

Food shopping done between wednesday and thursday.

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Thursday night

Friday afternoon

3:00pm: coffee break

Saturday morning

7:30am: wake up, coffee and breakfast by Michael

9:30am: prepare tomato sauce for meatballs and pull out meatballs from fridge . I used a package of Teriyaki and Pineapple meatballs bought at Costco, they are fully cooked you only need to heat them before serving. They are good and tasty. It is one of the very few prepared food that I can buy, and it is a good help when you have to do a lot of cooking in a short time.

The bar

Tips and suggestions

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P.S.: If the party happens in your house plan for cleaning and make your place nice and comfortable for your guests, as you see above this time is not considered in this account

If the knife is a Shun Classic 7″ Santoku you can say a lot! It happened yesterday, I met “him” during a glorious expedition at Williams-Sonoma thanks to a generous gift card from Michael’s colleagues of IST-Berkeley for our wedding. We went to choose our gifts and we got some gorgeous things that we already adore. Among them there is this true masterpiece of a knife. In order of importance here is what we got:

1) A Shun Classic 7″ Hollow-Ground Santoku Knife
(it cuts in japanese “Ta-ka-ta-ha-ka-ta-ta-ka-ha…” and the zucchini is reduced to a series of perfectly even and ordered little rounded pieces ready for the casserole… how gorgeouuuussssss). Seriously, let me spend a word here. This stunningly beautiful classic knife, an all purpose for slicing and chopping, features the look and benefits of Damascus steel, yet without its rusting problems. The Damascus-look blade profile reduces sticking and results in less damage to the food being cut and faster prep times. In addition, the black Pakkawood handles provide the beauty of genuine wood, but since the wood is impregnated with a waterproof resin- they are very  durable and hygienic. It is not all… VG-10 Stainless steel is clad with 16 layers of SUS410 high-carbon stainless steel on each side, producing a 33-layer rust-free Damascus look with a Rockwell rating of 61. VG-10 “Super steel” is composed of Carbon, Chromium, Cobalt, Manganese, Molybdenum, Silicon and Vanadium. Shun Classic features Ebony-black Pakkawood handles and end caps. Dishwasher safe, Made in Japan, Lifetime Warranty… I was playing the expert of metals here, of course I copied the description from the package

2) A Wusthof Classic 4.5″ Utility Knife
I own a 3.5″ of the same kind that is my best friend in the kitchen, especially handy for peeling and slicing vegetables and fruits. This is also a glorious all purpose knife, a classic for chopping. All knives of this line are forged from a single blank of high carbon no-stain steel, ergonomic and perfectly comfortable.

3) A gorgeous ebelskivers pan
Ebelskivers are traditional Danish light, puffy pancakes that can be filled with fruit, chocolate, jam or cheese and served for breakfast or as an hors d’oeuvre. The pan is made of cast aluminum, premium nonstick coating to ensure clean release of the ball-shapes pancakes, and it has a riveted cast-stainless-steel handle that stays cool. It makes seven 2 1/4″ diam. pancakes. And because we were not very familiar with ebelskivers we also bought a beautiful illustrated book with all sorts of crazy recipes. We love it!

4) Last but not least a nice pizza cutter, a very simple type in plastic safe for non stick pans.

This was the beautiful gift for us from Julie, Patrick, Patrick, Emily, Christopher, Merrill, Amy, Steve, Glen, Susan, Rick, David, Noah, and Brett. I feel much more of a cook today… a big THANK YOU again!

Two easy recipes that I prepared some days ago picking from my sunday basket (this sunday basket): two beautiful bunches of spinach and duck eggs. When I chose and cleaned the spinach I separated the bigger outer leaves from the inner smaller ones. I boiled the larger leaves to prepare the dish of the first picture and I used the inner raw leaves in the salad that you see in the second picture.

Very quickly for the first dish. Break the eggs into two individual ramekins that you have previously buttered and put them in 380° preheated oven. Leave them cook for 6-8 minutes, give or take according to your tastes. Bring to a boil one cup salted water (two pinches salt) in a medium sized high pan, put the spinach in the pan when the water is boiling and cover so that the steam will rapidly cook the leaves. After a couple minutes, remember that leaves are delicate and need a very short cooking time, gently stir to bring at the top the leaves that were at the bottom of the pan and vice-versa to assure an even cooking. Literally after three-four minutes remove the spinach from the pan with a strainer and let them aside to drain. Slightly butter a larger pan, place the spinach into it and, if you want to have the effect that I had, create two holes and place in the eggs, spread few flakes of butter, sprinkle with black pepper and parmigiano. Put the pan in the over for few minutes and serve hot with bread or crostini. You can leave the eggs in their individual ramekins instead and serve the spinach aside.

For the salad, two people. Skin one pear, I used a Bartlett, remove the seeds and slice it in thick slices. Soak the sliced pear into a small bowl with water where you have spread half lemon (this prevents the fruit to turn  into a dark color). Put the spinach in a large bowl, add a handful walnuts and the pear. Dress with one tablespoon olive oil, one tablespoon lemon juice, salt and pepper and gently mix. At this point add two tablespoons flakes of parmigiano or grana padano cheese and again stir very gently.

This underestimated greens are in fact a fantastic source of vitamins and have a very interesting bittersweet flavour. In the Italian cooking tradition there is a long list of recipes for preparing escarole. Very much so in my region, Campania, where escarole are commonly used in the winter in soups (minestrone), in casseroles with pork and other meat (the famous minestra maritata), and also to prepare a very traditional two layer escarole pizza (pizza con la scarola). Soon I will prepare the pizza, but this time I needed something faster and more simple for dinner. So, sauteed escarole with steamed potatoes and a surprising sauce… For the two of us I used a whole big bunch of escarole (it reduces a lot during cooking) and three big size potatoes.

First thing, peel and chop in small cubes the potatoes. Put them in a bag for microwave steam cooking and let them cook for 6-7 minutes (according to instructions on the bag). Alternatively of course boil potatoes in salty water and drain them. Pour oil into a large saute pan with garlic and cook for about 5-6 minutes over medium-low heat stirring often until garlic is blonde. Add the escarole in pan and reduce heat to low. Season with salt and add three tablespoons of water. Cover the pan and let it cook for a couple minutes, stir a couple times until escarole is wilted, about four minutes overall. At this point remove potatoes from the bag and sautee in a large pan with a sprinkle of olive oil for a couple minutes.

Prepare the sauce by blending in a small bowl or in the food processing cup of your mixer the following: one tablespoon capers, one tablespoon cured pitted black olives, four cured anchovies in oil, one tablespoon pine seeds, pepper, two tablespoons olive oil. Blend until ingredients are well mixed. You see in the picture that I had a creamy consistency, it is much better if you reduce blending time and leave the sauce coarser with larger pieces, the colour and the consistency will be much nicer. After blending add, if you have it but is optional, a tablespoon of mustard grains. Serve hot with the sauce on the side.

You will be very surprised of what a boost of flavor this simple gourmet sauce will give to your dish and how the anchovies offer an interesting contrast with the otherwise mellow flavour of this dish  without adding any fishy undertone. If you are vegetarian simply replace the anchovies with a tablespoon of mustard. Enjoy!

I really wanted to share with my friends some photos of our happy and epic Thanksgiving at the Blind’s for our fun and pleasure, and for the honor of documentation and future memory , but also share with the readers the menu that resulted from this our pot-luck, where we tried to bring in both traditional dishes and new tastes.

The menu was the following. Michael prepared two different kind of ebelskivers as appetizers (from the Danish cooking tradition), pear/blue cheese/walnuts and salmon/cream cheese/chive (soon description and recipe). Cinzia prepared a Tiramisu cake (fully Italian cake, post in preparation with photos and recipe). Katie and Liz contributed with a fantastic bean casserole, an American Midwestern classic, and ginger bread “whoopie-pie” cookie sandwiches with spiced buttercream frosting/filling. Kat brought in a rich cornbread, chestnut, sausage dressing (a Williams-Sonoma recipe) and an onion cranberry compote. Ruth and Peg prepared Ruth’s famous brussels sprout casserole with almonds, pine nuts and parmesan, and a casserole of sweet potatoes and apples roasted with maple syrup. Finally, Eric and Heather, the hosts, provided the majestic turducken with cornbread stuffing that you can see in the photos, roast potatoes and Heather’s magic carrot souffle, plus cheese and crackers as appetizers.

The turducken is a dish consisting of a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The word turducken is a portmanteau of turkey, duck, and chicken. The thoracic cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are stuffed, sometimes with a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture or sausage meat. I very recently learned that the turducken is not a Californian dish, but a tradition of Louisiana and the Southern states. So, for my Californian friends I found this website where all the phases of the preparation of a turducken are described and photographed in detail (I joke saying that the Blind is still not ready to share his precious family recipe, but as you can see from the list the stuffing was of cornbread).

I apologize for the bad light of the photos, we were too hungry and excited to work on lights and white balance Photographers of the event were Cinzia, Ruth and Michael. Thank you again to Eric and Heather for organizing and so graciously hosting this event.

Thanksgiving is approaching quickly. As an Italian I would feel quite uncomfortable to give you the recipe for a traditional turkey, duck, or the various turducken combinations with casseroles that ensure American families a sensational Thanksgiving meal. So I will give my little contribution for tasty and light dishes for the days in between the festivities nosh-ups. A choice of two interesting and unusual salads that in a larger portion can be a main course. I read the recipes in my precious collection of Sale & Pepe magazines and I find the combinations delicious: fennel and orange, and radicchio and persimmons.

Fennel & orange: very autumnal with an exotic touch

Use one orange and one fennel for two people, if you want a main course use one orange and one fennel each. Clean the fennel from the external leaves, cut it in quarters and then slice the quarters in thin slices, soak them in a small bowl with cold water where you have squeezed half a lemon for at least half a hour. Pare the orange to the pulp, cut it vertically and then slice the two halves in thick slices. Gently mix orange and fennel and add a teaspoon of fresh ginger root sliver, leave it for half a hour. Dress the salad with salt, black pepper, lemon, and extra virgin olive oil. At the end add a tablespoon of Grana Padano cheese flakes and stir gently.

Radicchio & persimmons: bittersweet color therapy

Ingredients for four people are: four good handful of spring mix, one bunch red radicchio, one small belgian endive, two persimmons, one tbsp of thin sliced onion, half pound soft goat cheese, one tbsp honey (preferably rhododendron or chestnut), two tbsp balsamic vinegar, 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. Chop the radicchio and the endive and mix all greens with the onion in a large tray or individual plates. Finely slice persimmons vertically (don’t peel them!) and mix with the salad. In a little pan melt the honey with the balsamic vinegar on low heat (or microwave), add oil, salt and pepper and stir until the dressing is well mixed. Dress the salad mixing very gently, and add the cheese at the end as a top layer.

I suggest to prepare and serve both these salads in trays or large plates rather than bowls (as I wrongly did), and instead of mixing well as we usually do with salads, place ingredients in layers and just very gently “move” them gently. This for two reasons: 1) the juicy and delicate fruit pulp may easily loose its consistency, and 2) the cheese melts and gives a bad appearance to the final result. Enjoy with a light red wine or a robust white.

I am still warming up after my long absence. And still trying to catch up with cooking, writing, working, trying to have a little joy with my family and friends. Soon very soon many recipes. For now a basket of fresh seasonal vegetables bought at the Marin Farmers Market on Sunday, November 15, and some ideas on what to do with it.

4.00 $ 2 spinach bunches
2.00 $ 1 large treviso radicchio
2.00 $ 1 pound red beets
2.00 $ 1 pound eggplants
4.50 $ 1 pound portabella mushrooms
1.00 $ 1/2 pound fennel
2.00 $ 1 pound persimmons
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17.50 $ total

I got also a dozen eggs for 5.50 $, the kind rich in DHA Omega-3 from feeding the chickens with seaweeds + two duck eggs as a gift, a quarter loaf whole wheat bread for 5 $, more than one pound but still quite expensive, last a small piece of goat peppercorn dry jack (23.99/lb). Let’s see what I can do this coming week with this stuff:
steamed spinach with poached eggs
spinach salad with goat jack
pasta with radicchio and cheese
salads with fennel and persimmons
beets soup
side dish of eggplants
pasta with portabella mushrooms.

See you this week

Sweet November. The fragile sound of falling leaves, a mild and gentle sun, the impressionistic colors of nature and the sweet melancholy of the long and warm summer days. Going for a walk in the countryside and to farmers markets in this season is simply a pleasure. Thanks to my little friend Nadine for posing in the picture below.

Sunflowers are still beautiful in Californian Fall…

Tasting the fresh flavour of “olio nuovo” at the Marin farmers market last sunday. Below some of the very last eggplants of the season. They don’t look great but I got a few and they were still delicious. Bye bye to the eggplants then, till the next summer!

Posted in Food shopping ]]> http://breadandcherries.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/all-the-colors-of-the-fall/feed/ 0 cinzia uva fall01 pere aromatiche girasoli io eggplants http://breadandcherries.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/how-much-is-it-worth-a-good-meal/ http://breadandcherries.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/how-much-is-it-worth-a-good-meal/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:47:01 +0000 cinzia http://breadandcherries.wordpress.com/?p=1004 ]]>

11.54 $ for two people (and this is fish!)… let me make a little premise.

A long time has passed and many things have happened since the last time I wrote on my blog. I bought a house, I moved in, I traveled, I changed my job, I married. This was a period of intense reflection for me. Reflections about the products that I buy and their importance for my health and for the health of the persons that I love. I started to look more closely at what I put in my plate, where I buy things and where these things come from. Not that I had never heard of or known about chemicals or genetically modified food, but I never realized how much of that stuff comes into my body through the products that I buy at the grocery.

To a more diligent look there is something really scary about the way they grow most of the products we eat. And we don’t even know it.  It is really a jungle out there!! This is just a foodblog and I will certainly not start here to do information or counter-information about farming or economics, but as a user/buyer and as someone that loves to cook at home from scratch I really believe I deserve the right to know, to understand, and to choose. I am just learning that buy local, organics and in-season can guarantee you to have fresh and healthy food on your table at a very reasonable price. I am not talking of a mission or a religion here, just trying to establish for myself and my family a sustainable diet as much as possible.

People that know me know that I am very sceptic of canned and prepared food, better to say that I hate it. It may sound a reasonable choice for busy people like us, but preparing a simple and healthy meal can be easy and fast, and not expensive. And the question rises: how much is a good meal worth? Not in terms of an occasional lunch in some good restaurant, but as a normal diet, as a daily practice at home. A little more time and energy to be prepared? A little more money?  Food is a culture, is a pleasure, and dramatically changes the quality of your life. I say that it is worth a lot.

Many authoritative studies have proven that conventionally-grown products, most of what we buy, are impoverished of their nutritive value because pumped-up with high grade artificial fertilizers, and are covered in toxic chemicals (don’t even try to wipe that off, chemicals are absorbed and engrained beneath the skin, they will not go away washing your fruit carefully). Organic food production has been shown to improve our health and nutrition by reducing the risks and exposure to these toxic chemicals as well as maintaining the nutritional integrity of the food that we eat. Read more on the CCOF Certified Organic Magazine—Winter 2009 and in this report from the Consumers Union based on data provided by the Pesticide Data Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; the Marketplace Surveillance Program of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation; and private tests conducted by Consumers Union.

It is extremely difficult to find available clear data and reports on the impact and hazard of pesticides and other chemicals for human health… Aaahhh the power of industry. Just a look at this graph will tell us more than any words. It represents data on the enormously increasing presence of pesticides in food EXCEEDING the tolerance levels (that by the way are not proved to be totally safe on the overall quantity of food that we consume). It is published by the US Environmental Protection Agency at this page. Weirdly enough EPA doesn’t comment these data at all. You judge:

EPA just says: “Exhibit 4-22 illustrates the percentage of samples in which at least one pesticide residue was detected at a concentration exceeding the tolerance established by EPA for a given pesticide-commodity pair. The percentage of samples exceeding EPA tolerance values increased from 0.05 percent in 1994 to 0.42 percent in 2007.”

Let’s also remember that eating organic is not only beneficial to our health, but it is beneficial to the environment as well. Let’s think for a moment to all the packages that we bring at home from the grocery. At TJ’s for instance is impossible to buy loose vegetables, every little thing is packed in layers of plastic and foam. Just to mention one …

Certainly like most of us I don’t have the time and the patience to jump through crowded aisles and make obstacle races to find some good and healthy food, and I just can’t read all facts and info on every pack of food that I buy (supposing that they say the whole truth). That is not my job! So I made my choice, I try to buy only where others do this job for me. Where I am guaranteed that what I buy is healthy and certified: little groceries and bakeries, Whole Foods markets and Farmers markets. I try to buy local and in-season food every time that is possible.

For many I am probably “re-discovering hot water” as we say in Italy, meaning I am not saying anything new, but what is new for me is the understanding that bringing fantastic healthy meals on our table every day is much easier than we expect. This blog reflects my life and my thoughts, so this is my new intent and commitment for myself, my family, and for those who read B&C. I will love to share from now on not only my recipes, but also tips for a better organization in the kitchen together with shopping info and attention to our pocket.

So going back to the question of the title, here the details. Everything at Whole Foods: less than a pound cod fillet 7.60$, 1/2 pound quinoa 1.34$, a handful cured black olives 1.50$, three  handful frozen french beans let’s say 0.60$, a handful fresh little tomatoes and condiments 0.50$ approximating by excess = Tot.:  11.54. Half hour time for preparation.

In a couple days the complete recipe, stay tuned, there are many surprises out there!

My mum uses to tell me “cooking for few people is very different than cooking for many”, I know she is very right. I learned with the experience that cooking big pieces of meat and get them soft, tasty, and with a rich sauce, requires a lot of time and attention. But, with a limited quantity, you can use less time and a little less attention and you can still put together a recipe that looks like “oooohhhh you must have spent a lot of time in the kitchen!”.

Believe it or not, I made this preparation in less than 20 minutes, preparation time plus of course the time for cooking. But really you can leave the pan on the low heat and just come back to check a couple times. The Crock Pot would be perfect, it wouldn’t even require checking, but I still don’t have it, so I used a normal cooking large pan.

1 pork tenderloin, about 1 and 1/2 pound
2 large Granny Smith apples, skinned and chopped
1/2 white onion, slice thinly or chopped
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup marsala, or porto wine
1 cup water with two teaspoons of bouillon
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 bay-leaves

Preparation in few easy steps:
- Slice the loin in 1 1/2 inch pieces/slices
- place oil, water and bouillon, and bay leaves in a pot over heat, (per i miei amici italiani le bay leaves sarebbero l’alloro… com’è che gli americani le chiamano così ancora non l’ho capito), meanwhile skin and chop the apples. When the bouillon is completely melted add all the other ingredients.
- stir gently to mix well and after about ten minutes, turn the pork slices
- cover with lid and cook on low heat for about 2 hours. Check sometimes during the cooking and make sure that the preparation doesn’t dry. It shouldn’t happen, but if it does, have prepared and add some hot vegetable broth. Don’t add cold water, the cooking of your meat would be interrupted and the meat would harden.
- Pretty much it. Serve the meat with its cooking juice, that will be similar in consistency to an apple chutney. A dry white or a rosé wine match nicely with this delicate preparation.

Oh by the way, you might have noticed that I have loved the combination of marsala with apples that I tested for the Mother’s Day apple tart