Roast Beef Dinner, the First.

So, all of a sudden, we weren't cooking for merely 8 or 10 or 20, but for ~40.  And all of a sudden, we weren't cooking various dishes from our past experience, but an entirely new menu.  A traditional Saturday night roast beef dinner.  With all the dishes set and mandated by tradition, although we were allowed to garnish the field green salad with whatever additions we saw fit.  (We picked maple vinaigrette, homemade croutons, crumbled feta, cucumber, and dried cranberries.)  Oh, and there were 5 different "dishes" served at dessert (lemon cake, fresh berries, ice cream, hot maple syrup, hot chocolate sauce).

It was a long and fairly arduous day.  But it more or less came together.

Tonight we had:

It was a little chaotic and a little stressful at times, but Dave made the roast beef and it turned out amazing.  The level of done-ness (medium rarish, 120F in the middle) and the carving job (thin slices) were complimented many times.

Then we had a few whiskeys and went to the stoop for guitar sing-along.  Now it is time to sleep!

First night cooking for guests!

Today we were excited to finally cook for our first guests of the summer.  We got an early start again, and had a pretty easy time getting everything ready the way we wanted it (and on time, too!).  After a few cancellations, our dinner count was ~13 guests + 8 staff.

 Cucumber and Avocado Gazpacho
This was actually meant for a few nights ago, but since it was so ridiculously cold out we decided to save it for a day like today which was hot and humid.  This was a really simple recipe that was fun to prepare.  It seemed to work out pretty well, as we had to bring out a second portion for everyone.  We made 8x that recipe, and the quantity worked well.  We forgot to document its glorious appearance before sending it to the table.

 Lemon Pepper Chicken
We prepared 24 breasts, using the marinade from this recipe, letting it rest in marinade for ~60min (would do overnight next time) and then baking in a 350F oven for about 30 minutes until the inside of the fatter breasts was reading ~150F.  It was delicious, and we had only 3 breasts leftover.

Oven-Roasted Asparagus
We had 4 bunches of beautiful fresh asparagus, which we prepared according to this recipe.  Good!

White Rice
We meant to do brown, but forgot about it until it was too late for brown, but thankfully still in time for white.  Whew!

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Penuche Icing
We made 2 cakes following this recipe, and had a tiny bit of the first cake and the whole second one leftover.  Since we didn't have "bittersweet chocolate", we used half unsweetened baking chocolate, and half semisweet chocolate chips, by weight.  The penuche icing was from a Stetson family recipe, similar to this one, and was a big hit.  We studded the cakes with chocolate chips to make them look more awesome, and that went pretty well, too.

Hiking and not cooking day

Today the whole staff hiked up Wright Peak.  The weather was beautiful -- our first warm and clear day all week.  We loved the views at the top, the hearty walk, and the chance to relax and trade stories with the rest of the staff.  In a little while we'll all go out to dinner together, so the cooks are getting a day off.  We're looking forward to cooking for our first guests tomorrow!

Simple Italian

Just like yesterday, we got an extra early start today, and had a relaxing and easy time of getting dinner out promptly.  We put together our grocery order for the first week of dinners, and took lots of breaks, since we had more time than we needed to get dinner out.

Italian Appetizer Bites
We had one tray of prosciutto and melon (balled cantaloupe with small pieces of prosciutto, on a toothpick), and one tray of caprese (small pieces of fresh mozzarella with a small piece of basil and a cherry tomato, on a toothpick).  These were well-received and well-portioned.  We used one cantaloupe and 8 thin slices Parma ham for the first, and a small carton of cherry tomatoes and about a standard big ball of mozzarella, divided, for the second.

 Homemade Focaccia with Herbed Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar for dipping
I did a quick version of the focaccia recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  I didn't realize that Reinhart would want an overnight slow rise, so I just started the dough this afternoon, and let it rise in a cool kitchen, and then near the stove for a bit at the end.  I also used dry yeast instead of the instant yeast he wanted.  It came out very nice, anyway.

Farfalle with Pesto, Goat Cheese, and Diced Tomatoes
Pretty much what it says on the tin.  2 boxes farfalle, 2 big tomatoes diced small, and 1 small (4oz?) tub of crumbled goat cheese.  Quantity and taste were good.  We passed nice grated parmesan for sprinkling over the pasta at the table.

Pesto
5 cu basil leaves
1/4 cu pine nuts
1/4 cu walnuts
1 1/4 cu olive oil
5 cloves raw garlic
1 cu stupid sawdust parmesan from a can
salt and pepper
^ blend all that up.

Green Beans with Walnuts and Lemon

~4 cu cleaned and rough-chopped fresh green beans
1.5 handfuls walnuts, finely chopped
olive oil
couple squirts of lemon juice
salt and pepper
^ Heat ~1/8cu olive oil in a big pan.  Add nuts and green beans, and stir it up until it gets bright green.  If it ever sticks, or if you think it's almost cooked, squirt in some lemon juice and/or add a splash of water.



Tiramisu
We used this recipe.  We couldn't find mascarpone, so tried substituting cream cheese blended with enough milk to make it easily stirrable.  It worked pretty well, but definitely added a little more tartness than is usual in tiramisu.  We also used up all the cream the recipe called for plus about another cup of cream that was already whipped and waiting for a good use.  It was a big hit.  We forgot to take a picture of it, but you can behold tiramisu in many places on the internet, and ours looked pretty much like those ones.

Cena de Martes!

Today we planned the rest of the first week of guest dinners. We are excited to feed them well! We also made our best staff dinner so far -- a Mexican one.  In addition to the Mexican theme, we also had a kitchen-side theme of trying to get things out absolutely on time or early, which we also managed for the first time today (after running ~10 minutes late for the first two meals).  Here is what we had:

Chips with Two Salsas
Store-bought tortilla chips with one bowl of store-bought salsa (since there's a big jar in the fridge anyway), and one bowl of mango-cucumber salsa (to use up a lone mango that was hanging around).

Creamy Corn Soup with Chipotle
We had planned a cucumber-avocado gazpacho, but today was so chilly and drizzly that we couldn't stand serving a cold soup when we could serve a hot one.

We used this recipe, aiming for 2x their sizes, using 1 40-oz bag of thawed frozen corn, and adding 1 canned chipotle pepper.  Spiciness was well-received by staff, but expected to be too much for kids.  We blended the soup before serving, and it turned out rich and thick.  We could've added dairy (milk or heavy cream) but the soup was fantastic without that addition.  Quantity was great for 10 people.

Chicken Enchiladas and Refried Black Bean Enchiladas
These were delicious.  One staff friend even called them "insane", which we took as a high compliment.  We had 16 to feed 10 people, and should've probably had 20.

Enchilada Sauce
2x this recipe from allrecipes.  Substituted 2 huge cloves fresh minced garlic for garlic salt, and skipped onion salt altogether.  Also upped cumin to ~1.5 tbsp.  Taste and texture were great, quantity was about 30% too much.

Shredded Chicken Filling
We used this recipe from food.com.  Substituted 1 tsp herbes de provence for marjoram, and omitted bell pepper.  Result was delicious, but we'd like to get an earlier start next time and leave the chicken in the stewing stage for longer, maybe with a couple cups of diced canned tomatoes, in the hopes of further softening it.

Refried Beans
We cooked up 4 cups of dried black beans, and used about 1.5c worth tonight.  For refried beans, we sauteed half an onion, a big clove of garlic, 2 skinny celery stalks, and half a fat carrot, then added black beans, 1 tsp herbes de provence, and 1 tsp cumin, and mashed it up with some veggie broth.

Enchiladas
We used 8" flour tortillas.  Grease a pyrex dish.  Dip a tortilla in enchilada sauce, put some filling in, then roll it up and jam it into the dish open side down.  Once all the enchiladas are rolled, pour remaining sauce over them, then top with an appropriate amount of grated cheese (we used about a bag of pre-grated Mexican cheese blend).  Bake at 350 for 15 or 20 minutes, until cheese is melted.  Longer and lower-temp if starting with cold ingredients, instead of hot like ours were.

Flan with Strawberries
We tried following this recipe, but had two big problems.  First, the caramel sauce didn't really work out.  It turned out that by using a small pan and stirring too much, I did everything that I was cautioned against in the comment on that page.  Second, I forgot that 2/3 of the sugar was reserved for that caramel sauce, and I added all of the sugar to the custard mix.  Fortunately, I remembered this before pouring the mix over the dodgy caramel sauce, so we just tossed that stuff and skipped sauce entirely.  It wasn't missed, and I would probably repeat the accidental version, maybe reducing sugar by ~25%.  I also added a pinch of cinnamon.

12 eggs worth of mix made 36 muffin tin flans, with some mix leftover -- way more than we expected to have for "12 servings".  I greased the tins before pouring in the mix, then baked them with the muffin tins inside roasting pans with water.  They mostly released well at serving time, but about 30% had sticking problems (only 1-2 of which were fatal).  To release, I ran a knife around the edge of each flan, then inverted the muffin pan over a baking sheet and knocked the bottom hard.

We served each flan with a few strawberry slices and some chiffonaded mint leaves from the garden.  The visual impact was excellent, and they were also very tasty.

Monday dinner, plus planning and grocery run

Today we planned meals for the rest of staff week.  We weren't sure exactly what would be available grocery-wise, and had a few "this if you can, that if you can't" entries in the grocery list, so were happy to learn that we had the option of doing our own grocery run so that we could see for ourselves what's available in our neighborhood.

Monday dinner was an asian-themed one, starting from the fact that we were ready to cook straight from the pantry again (but were happier to get special ingredients first).

Quantities were good, but we could've handled more lettuce rolls (maybe 2.5 per person? more? with lettuce instead of rice paper, leftovers should keep well).

Lettuce Spring Rolls
inspired by Vietnamese rice-paper-wrapped fresh spring rolls.  We didn't find any rice paper on our trip, so tried wrapping with lettuce instead, which worked well.  We served them with a last-minute sweet-and-spicy sauce (half and half hot water and vinegar, a nub of chopped ginger, a few drops each of chili oil and sesame oil, and a few spoonfuls of sugar), and a diluted version of the peanut sauce from the pad thai.

Quick-Pickled Vegetables for Spring Rolls
1/4 of a huge jicama
2 big carrots
1 big cucumber
^ Julienne these (or at least cut them into chunky sticks) and put them in a big, non-meltable bowl.
1 cup water
1 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp dill (would halve next time)
2 cloves garlic, crushed (hopefully retrieved rather than served)
^ Boil these, stir to dissolve sugar, then pour over veggies.  Refrigerate for anywhere between 3 hours and 2 days.

Spring Rolls
quick-pickled veggies (above)
fresh mint leaves (1-2 per roll)
medium cocktail shrimp from freezer (2 per roll, make some without)
fresh chopped cilantro and basil
anything else fresh and tasty for inside
big lettuce leaves for wrapping (we used a mix of greens someone else bought for sandwiches)
toothpicks for spearing together
^ Lay out the ingredients.  Take a lettuce leaf, snapping off any really strong/non-bendy stalk part.  Lay a small handful of pickled veg down the middle of the leaf, then top with shrimp (if any) and herbs.  Fold in one edge, then roll the whole thing up and use toothpicks to secure.  I needed 2 toothpicks per roll.

Pad Thai
The ingredients were invented, and the peanut sauce was adapated from a few sources.  The final product was tasty, but a little stuck-together in the texture department.  We learned that pasta dishes should be prepared in less-than-massive quantities, maybe 8-10 servings at a time.


1 small yellow onion, diced
2+ cloves garlic diced
^ Saute in a big pan until onion wilts.
3 cups chopped button mushrooms
1 julienned carrot1/4 red cabbage, chopped
1/4 green cabbage, chopped
1/2 bag mung bean sprouts
^ Add to saute in this order, at your discretion for timing.
2 boxes flat rice noodles, boiled and drained per box instructions
Peanut sauce
^ Stir these into the pan, keeping heat on.
1 cup chopped roasted peanuts
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
^ Stir most of these in, reserving a little for garnish.

Edamame
We expected these to be in their shells, but they were naked.  We boiled one big bag (1 lb?) for about 10 minutes, drained, and tossed with salt and a little lemon.

Watermelon Sorbet
from Leite's Culinaria.  We skipped the mint and doubled the recipe.  We froze it uncovered in two big aluminum baking dishes.  I scraped it up once as it was starting to freeze (maybe 1.5 hours?) and again when I was serving dinner.  It was tasty!  We had about 25% more than we needed.

Almond Shortbread Cookies
I was worried this dinner would be too light, so I wanted to serve something rich/buttery at dessert.  These cookies from allrecipes were a big hit.  I made the dough into two logs, refrigerated, and then took inch-thick cuts from the log, and pressed them flat against a cookie sheet using a glass dipped in sugar, then jammed a whole almond on top.  I only had time to press out half of them, so there will be an encore soon.

First night cooking

Tonight, we cooked for an intimate group of 8 staff people.  We had mostly pantry foods to work with, which helped us choose the chili as our main dish.  We had way too much of everything but salad.

Salad
Baby greens
3 green apples
a handful of dried cranberries
a handful of toasted chopped walnuts
vinaigrette with white wine vinegar, olive oil, honey, mustard, salt, and pepper.

Lentil and Tomato Chili
adapted from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons (p. 464).  We made 1.5x the 8-serving recipe so that we would be certain to have enough.  We ended up with probably twice as much as we needed.

1/2 cup butter + 1/4 cup olive oil
6 cups chopped onions
^ saute these in a stock pot over medium heat; I started it early enough that the onions had a chance to cook for about 20 minutes and get golden in spots.
9 garlic cloves, minced
~2 tbsp ground cumin
~1/4 cup + 3tbsp chili powder
3/4 tsp red pepper flakes
3/4 tsp cinnamon
^ add these, stir well, let cook for a few more minutes
3/4 cup white flour
^ add this, try to cook it roux-style for ~5 min.  I cooked it less because it was so sticky and looked like it would burn.

2 tiny cans of tomato paste
7+ cups water
^ It should've been ~44oz canned tomatoes instead of paste, but I didn't realize we had canned tomatoes until after the cooking was done.  This probably also explains why I ended up adding ~4 cups more water than the recipe called for.  Anyway, I wanted to add acid earlier than the recipe called for, so I added tomato paste and water to thin it at this point.  Add liquid slowly, stirring plenty, to keep the onion-roux-base from clumping up.
3 carrots, in 1/2-inch cubes
2 red + 1 green bell pepper, in 1/2-inch cubes
1 veggie bouillon cube, crushed
1/2 square unsweetened bakers' chocolate, crushed
^ add these, stir well.  Chocolate was my addition, and I have no idea if it was detectable in the finished dish.  Whole square would probably be better, as this was a lot of stew.
1 cup medium salsa
^ Further compensation for lack of canned tomatoes.  Recipe as written doesn't need this.
1 can Fat Tire beer.
^ Recipe called for "light-colored beer" and this was the closest we had on hand.
4.5 cups French lentils
1.5 - 2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
^ Add all these, bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to low/medium and simmer for a long time.  Recipe says 40 minutes, this probably got closer to 80 minutes.
fresh parsley and sour cream to garnish


Cheddar Cheese Cornbread
adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice (Reinhart, p. 151) and the Arrowhead corn meal packaging.  Filled 2 8x8 pans.

2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 cups buttermilk
^ Stir together, cover, and leave to sit while you make stuff.  Reinhart wanted overnight, mine got ~2 hours.
2 small-medium onions, diced
^ Wilt in a frying pan with butter or oil.
2 cups all-purpose flour
2.5 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
^ Sift together in a big mixing bowl.
scant 1/4 cup sugar
scant 1/4 cup brown sugar
^ Scant means ~80% here.  I just didn't want too much sugar in there.  Stir this into the other dry ingredients
4 beaten eggs
4 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp honey
~1.5 cups whole milk (maybe just 1?)
^ Stir these together.  Add it to the cornmeal/milk mixture.  Then add the master wet mix to the dry mix, stirring as you go.  Reinhart said batter "should be the consistency of thick pancake batter", and I thought it took ~1.5 cups of milk to get there, but then it took a really long time to bake.  Maybe 1 cup would work?
5 cups thawed frozen corn kernels
3 cups grated sharpish cheddar
^ Stir the corn and 2/3 of the cheese in to the batter, along with the wilted onions.  Pour into greased 8x8 pans, and top with remaining cheese.  Bake at 375 (I probably did 360, in light of later lessons about the left oven) for about 50 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. (Recipes said 30 minutes max!  Dinner was 15 minutes late as a result.)  Let rest ~15 minutes, then run a knife around the edges and dump out and cut.

Lemon Tart with Pecan Crust
from Diana's Desserts, without much modification at all.  We were a little short on cream cheese and substituted a couple spoonfuls of yogurt.  The crust was a little uneven, with the corner between the bottom and the sides being quite thick, and the top of the sides quite thin; would try to avoid that next time.  We topped it with leftover whipped cream.