VDP: Paella

Our most recent Virtual Dinner Party was an incredible success.  Not only was it one of the most well-attended, but we also were cooking with authentic Spanish and Portuguese ingredients.  The end result was Paella, and it was one of the best meals we've made!

We were extremely fortunate that our co-hosts had recently traveled abroad, and they brought back some incredible authentic ingredients, including Spanish saffron and paella seasoning, and Portuguese olive oil and port!

With this recipe as my guide, I added calamari, mussels, prawns, Spanish chorizo, and chicken thighs to pull together this flavorful and spicy dish.  I purchased the fresh seafood from the local store, Mollie Stone's (similar to Whole Foods); Spanish chorizo can be found near the meat counter, but it is not refrigerated (it's similar to dry salami).  

The three-city dinner party was a success, and this meal made us feel as if we had all traveled to Spain with our co-hosts.
This meal will definitely grace our dinner table again in the future!

Olallieberry Picking and Highway One Brewing

It's berry season in California, and those of us who grew up in central California are lucky to know about--and LOVE--the rare olallieberry.  A cross between a raspberry, blackberry and dewberry, this varietal is grown almost exclusively on the central California coast.  Certain individuals unfortunate enough to have grown up in southern California (ha--and elsewhere!) had no clue what they were missing until tasting this awesome berry.  

Not only did we taste, we picked them too.  My sister met us one Saturday at Swanton Berry Farm, where we filled up a few flats, sampling as we went, for quality control purposes.

It didn't take us long to fill the flats, so we finished the afternoon relaxing and catching up at Highway One Brewing Company, which we highly recommend.  (We liked all the beers we tasted...the French American War is especially interesting!)

I spent a decent part of Sunday turning the olallieberries into treats that would last us beyond berry season.  We made individual olallieberry pies using a muffin tin, and we froze the extras...

And I made olallieberry jam!

This was my first attempt at jam, and I lucked out.  It was fairly easy, it took me only an hour to make, and it's delicious.



I followed this recipe for the most part, decreasing the sugar a bit and replacing the lemon with lime, which should surprise no one.  (Actually I was out of lemons!)

The pies and jam are both delicious--a nice way to stretch the berry season.  Come visit!

VDP: Chicken Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

I have an awesome summer recipe for you: chicken tacos with pineapple salsa.

Last month Meredith said summer temperatures were heating up her home town, so we decided to take that theme and run with it by serving a cool and summery recipe at our a virtual dinner party.  

Using this recipe for inspiration, we built our tacos around a refreshing pineapple-avocado salsa with red peppers, red onions, cilantro, lime juice and zest, jalapeno, salt and pepper.  

After putting together the salsa, we let the flavors mix together, while I cooked a marinated chicken breast on the grill pan with some taco seasoning spices, and she cooked a filet of fish.

Some sauteed red onions and red peppers lined the corn tortillas, and then we layered the chicken/fish and pineapple salsa.  This meal was so fresh and delicious!

Drake's dry-hopped 1500 is one of our current favorites (local too!), and it paired perfectly.  Enjoy!

VDP: Blackened Fish Tacos

I have a few remaining photos to share from the end of our trip, but in the mean time, I wanted to share the photos from the awesome Virtual Dinner Party we had with 6 guests a few weeks ago.  

A few days before our party, we gathered ingredients for blackened fish tacos.  The 6 guests came from 3 houses, so everyone had slightly different twists to their tacos.  I used a frozen white fish from Trader Joe's, defrosted and rubbed with a combo of blackening spices. 

Using this recipe as inspiration, we blackened then pan-seared the fish, caramelized red onions, mixed up a cilantro-lime crema to go on top, and put together some amazing tacos!  These are easy and will be making frequent appearances on our weekly menus in the future.

Blackening seasoning: cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper
Cilantro-lime crema: plain Greek yogurt, cilantro, salt, lime zest, squeeze of lime
Tortillas: corn tortillas are traditional, but I picked up some "truly handmade flour tortillas" from Trader Joe's, and they were delicious!  And one day, I will make tortillas from scratch.
Additional toppings: avocado, cheese, cilantro, salsa, corn salsa, beans, jalapenos, and a squeeze of lime.

An IPA or pale ale is a great match.

Thanks to my cohosts for a great dinner!

Asparagus Risotto

Spring is here!

In all honestly, this is about as warm as SF gets.
So count this as Spring, Summer, and Fall warm weather...

In honor of the delicious Spring produce and warmer weather, M and I hosted a Virtual Dinner Party last month, and we cooked Asparagus Risotto.

Simply Recipes' description of asparagus risotto sounded like a perfect way to welcome the new seasonal produce and try our hand at a more difficult dish, all while catching up over Facetime and planning our next in-person visits.

The result was incredibly creamy, and the asparagus provided the perfect bite to counteract the soft risotto.  We will both be making this again!  Check out the recipe and give it a try.

Another highlight of my night is that M added a cork to her collection.  She has started a cork collection, like ours, with memorable events written onto each experience's wine cork.  I'm honored to have made her collection!

Virtual Dinner Party

I'm a little behind in the documentation of my virtual dinner parties.  It's aways more fun to host than to post about them...

A month ago we had a Chicago - San Francisco dinner party over facetime, complete with a custom cocktail and a satisfying dinner that happened to be on the lighter side.

This cool and fresh-looking drink below is a cucumber-rosemary gin and tonic!  

Our co-host walked us through the muddling of the cucumber and rosemary in a squeeze of lime, we shook that with the gin and built the rest of the G&T on top.  I prefer cocktails on the less-sweet side, and this delivered.  A perfectly fresh take on an old favorite.

While the G&T was coming together, we were prepping the veggies and dressing for Tuscan Bread Salad.  This recipe popped up on my radar a month or so ago, and ever since making it together at this dinner party, it has found its way into our regular rotation.  We even served it alongside Easter dinner last weekend!

This salad is a standout.  The roasted bread drizzled with olive oil and cut into croutons, the salty olives, and creamy goat cheese (which we used in place of mozzarella) added a unique flavor to an otherwise standard salad base.  The homemade dressing called for basil and thyme from my herb garden and a shallot, that ingredient that always brings such great flavor to savory dishes.  We made a double-batch of the salad dressing, storing the remainder in a jar in the fridge, and we used the dressing on salad greens the rest of the week!

Click here for the full recipe.

This was a great one.
Cheers to more VDPs!

Cohosts

Focaccia Bread

After gaining some confidence with other bread recipes, I was ready to try something a bit more challenging, and focaccia bread seemed like a fun experiment last month.  Following this recipe, I completed the rising steps throughout the afternoon, and by the time dinner was ready, we had perfect focaccia bread.

The fresh bread was perfect next to pasta with tomato cream sauce.

I probably could have cut the recipe in half, considering it was just the two of us, buy the leftovers were just as good.  The next night, we used up some leftover flank steak and made steak and arugula sandwiches on focaccia bread.

If you've ever been inclined to try to make bread at home, I highly recommend you give focaccia bread a try!

Homemade Bread and Other Doughs

In the past few years, I have had fun experimenting with bread-making.  Like many other homemade foods (salsa, pasta, granola), making bread from scratch is a lot easier than you'd think.

For one reason, bread can be made with just four ingredients:

• Water
• Flour
• Yeast
• Salt

Sometimes the flavor is enhanced with the addition of another one or two ingredients--olive oil and sugar--but these are also pantry staples, so it doesn't complicate the recipe much.

Second of all, though a Kitchenaid with a dough hook removes much of the time and hands-on work, old-fashioned mixing and kneading is not challenging and produces the same result.

And finally, bread dough--at least the way I make it--is very forgiving.  Years ago I came across the recipe I still use today, and which I have posted about before, here.

The reason I gave it a try was the relaxed nature to the instructions: "Let is rise for an hour or up to four hours...store the dough in the fridge for up to two weeks, and just pull off portions of the dough to bake as you please."

That's what pushed me to try homemade bread the first time, and since my (delicious) first French Boule, I've followed suggestions to adapt the dough to make:

• Whole wheat bread
• Garlic breadsticks
• Cinnamon-sugar knots
• Herb bread
• Pizza dough
• Focaccia bread
• Pretzel bites
• Homemade pasta (no yeast required, egg instead)

Check back tomorrow for the focaccia bread that was a hit in our house recently!

Lemon Blueberry Scones

I offered to bring breakfast to an early work meeting last month, and as soon as I offered, I started worrying about what to bring.  Since it was the end of December, I thought it was maybe a little past season for pumpkin scones, but something along those lines (especially since they're so easy!) sounded good.

I cracked my America's Test Kitchen cookbook and found a basic scone recipe.  America's Test Kitchen is behind the famous Cook's Illustrated magazines, and I find their thorough testing does result in some excellent recipes I can always count on!

To make the scones more exciting, I planned to use some lemon zest and frozen blueberries to make Lemon Blueberry Scones.

None of the scones lasted past the work breakfast meeting, and I will be making these again!  (I realize I have mentioned this about a few other breakfast items lately.  Clearly I need to host a brunch!)

Lemon Blueberry Scones

Makes 8 scones

Adapted from America's Test Kitchen

2 cups flour

4 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

5 tbsp cold butter, cut into cubes

zest of 1 lemon

1 cup frozen blueberries

1 cup cream

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Rinse the blueberries until the water runs clear.

In a food processor, briefly blend the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Add the cubes of butter and pulse about 10 times until the butter pieces have broken down and are about the size of peas.

Remove the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the lemon zest.  

Carefully mix in the blueberries, then add the cream and incorporate gently until the mixture comes together and is sticky.

Dump the dough out onto a floured cutting board and carefully shape into a flat round disc, about 9 inches in diameter.  (The dough will be pretty dry, so just keep pressing it until the shape holds)

With a knife, cut the disc into 8 pieces.  

Transfer the pieces onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack and serve warm or cold.

from Instagram

Winter Minestrone Soup

Winter has hit, and we have been freezing in our wintry San Francisco mid-50s :)
I've been hungry for comfort foods, but I was also looking for some lighter recipe inspiration.

This is an adaptation of Ina Garten's Winter Minestrone Soup from her cookbook Foolproof.  It's easy to adapt this recipe to make this soup vegetarian--just omit the pancetta and replace the chicken/beef stock with vegetable stock.

We baked up a fresh loaf of French bread, which was so tasty dunked into the broth.  I've posted about the simple homemade bread method I use here.

Winter Minestrone Soup

Olive oil
4 ounces pancetta, diced
1½ cups chopped yellow onions
3 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, diced
1 russet potato, diced
5 cloves minced garlic
5 sprigs chopped fresh thyme leaves
5-6 cups chicken stock (I combined chicken and beef stock)
1 parmesan cheese rind (if you have one)
1 14.5oz cad of fire roasted diced tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1 can cannellini beans, drained
1.5 cups small pasta
1 cup frozen spinach
½ cup white wine
2 tablespoons pesto
salt and pepper
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

Brown the pancetta in a bit of olive oil in a big Dutch Oven or soup pot.
Next add the onions, carrots, celery, potato, garlic, and thyme and cook until softened, about 10 minutes.
Add 5 cups of stock, the can of tomatoes, the bay leaves, and the parmesan cheese rind (if you have one).  Salt and pepper the soup.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Cook 30 minutes, with the lid cracked.
Stir in the cannellini beans (also called great northern white beans), uncooked pasta, and frozen spinach.  Allow the pasta to soften (about 8 minutes).  You can add additional stock if the soup is looking too thick.
Stir in the white wine and pesto.
Remove the bay leaves and rind, season with salt and pepper again to taste.


Serve with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese and a few pieces of crusty bread.

Overnight Caramel Rolls

A new year, a new sticky bun recipe!

My sweet mama made these overnight caramel rolls after dinner on December 30th, so we woke up to these sticky, caramel buns on New Year's Eve morning:

This recipe will be my go-to trick for breakfast when we host overnight guests this year!

Overnight Caramel Rolls

Ingredients 1 package of 24 Parkerhouse frozen dinner rolls or equivalent
3.5 oz. pkg Jell-O Cook & Serve Butterscotch pudding mix (not instant)
1/2 - 1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

The night before serving:
Spray a 9x13 baking dish with non-stick spray
Set the rolls in rows in pan
Sprinkle over rolls: sugar/cinnamon mixture, then nuts, then dry pudding mix
Melt butter and brown sugar in separate pan, then pour over all ingredients
Spray a piece of foil with non-stick spray and place it over the dish, covering the buns.  Leave out over night

In the morning:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Bake (covered with foil) for 30-35 minutes
Wait 5 -10 minutes, then turn over onto a tray
Serve warm



These made for a perfect, indulgent breakfast for the last morning of the year.  
Enjoy!

Pull-Apart Monkey Bread

Happy Monday!  I'm getting into the Christmas spirit this week, with only one more work week before some much-anticipated time off.  While baking Christmas cookies this past weekend, we were thinking of our other favorite holiday sweets, and monkey bread, which we made on Christmas morning last year, popped into our heads.



Gooey and hot biscuity bites with a cinnamon-sugar glaze, this breakfast treat make Christmas morning THAT much better.

The best part is that it only takes about five minutes to assemble, and not long later, a sweet smell fills the kitchen.

Before baking

Pull-Apart Monkey Bread

Out of the oven

2 cans refrigerated low-fat biscuit dough
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
8 tbsp (1 stick) butter
chopped pecans



Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine sugar and cinnamon into a shallow bowl.

Melt the butter and combine with the brown sugar.

With kitchen scissors, cut each biscuit into one-inch cubes.  Roll each piece in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Sprinkle the pecan pieces in a well-greased pie dish (or on half the dish--not all my guests requested nuts), then layer the biscuit pieces on top.  Pour the butter and brown sugar mixture evenly over the top.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until the outside is crusty.  Remove from the oven and let it cool slightly.
Place a plate upside down onto the pie dish, then invert both so that the Monkey Bread falls out onto the plate.

Serve (preferably on a Christmas platter like the gem we found in our rented Christmas cabin last year) and enjoy!

I highly recommend this awesome recipe for Christmas morning (or Christmas Eve morning or the morning before that...)

VDP: Pumpkin Penne Pasta

I know it is past Thanksgiving, but since it is still Fall until December 21st, I think it's fair game to post this pumpkin recipe from a Virtual Dinner Party several weeks back.

I found this recipe for Pumpkin Penne Pasta a couple of years ago on the great blog The Culinary Couple, and it has become my favorite Fall recipe to make!  Not only that, this recipe is so good that it changed Juanita's mind about pumpkin flavors, too.

Another reason this was a momentous occasion is because it was the largest Virtual Dinner Party we've hosted yet: seven hosts/guests across three kitchens!  That's three pounds of pasta, and I can report that the few leftovers didn't last long.

The creamy pumpkin sauce is made with pumpkin puree, typical fall spices, sage, and spicy sausage, which give it a satisfyingly savory flavor compared to the sweetness you often associate with pumpkin (dessert) recipes.  The substitutions I usually make to the recipe are to use spicy Italian sausage instead of sweet, and to use just a bit of half-and-half instead of the recommended heavy cream.  It seems to be plenty creamy this way, and it's a bit healthier.  I'm sure you could even use Greek yogurt, which I often do in pasta to give it a creamy texture.

I think our dinner party lasted at least three hours (which is a long time to Google-hangout!), but all guests had a great time, and the meal turned out great in all locations.

Check out the full recipe here, and add it to your list for next fall (or make it this week--you still have eight days!)

And let me know if you'd like to be a guest at a future Virtual Dinner Party!