The Big Four-Oh!

He doesn't look a day over 25, but Craig turned 40 on Monday. I threw him a party to celebrate, inviting way more people that would possibly fit in our house and keeping my fingers crossed for good weather. The day was beautiful, absolutely perfect, and I borrowed an extra grill and cooked my fool head off. Everyone seemed to have a really good time, Craig especially. My one regret is not asking anyone to photograph the food for this blog, so I'll try to describe.

This is the one quality picture I took, before the grills got going. Clockwise from the lower left: toasted pita triangles, homemade lemon hummus, foccacia made on the grill (word to the wise, less than half the time it would take in the oven!), rosemary white bean dip, the usual crackers, corn chips, and salsa, and cheese! Smoked Jarlsberg, dill Havarti (everyone likes dill Havarti!), Danish Blue, Great Hill Blue, extra-sharp Cabot cheddar, and Canadian provolone.

Then I lit the grills and things got going. I had marinated almost 7# of flank steak in a mixture of garlic, olive oil, oregano, and orange zest (sort of Cook's, sort of NYTimes) overnight, and also marinated chunks of chicken thigh in olive oil, garlic, and chives, which I skewered with bites of pear, apple, zucchini, onion, mushroom, and bell pepper (Cook's). I forgot how much I hate to skewer chicken--a LOT--but it turned out to be worth the effort, the fruit was particularly good and surprised many guests. We also had some hamburgers and hot dogs.

To accompany the meats I prepared several side dishes earlier in the day. I made German potato salad, corn and bean salad, pasta with pesto, coleslaw, and quinoa with grilled zucchini. The German potato salad, from Cook's, was a big hit and involved special touches like lots of whole grain mustard and bits of crispy bacon. Corn and bean is my favorite for a potluck, easy, healthy, and a crowd-pleaser. The pasta with pesto was also from Cook's and was perfect. The secret ingredient is mayonnaise, which helps the pesto stick to the pasta when served cold or room temp. The coleslaw, Bobby Flay's with lime and cumin vinaigrette, was only OK, because I was super rushing when I made it and didn't even taste it before I put it out, but the quinoa, Epicurious, was great. You marinate chick peas in lemon juice and olive oil, and cook the quinoa in cumin, smoked paprika, and turmeric, adding the chick peas and chopped grilled zucchini and parsley at the end. I used red and white quinoa to make it pretty and will absolutely make it again. To drink there was a whole lot of beer, wine, and I also mixed up sangria (Cook's), which was delicious and dangerous.

For dessert, I made a peach crisp and also one of my best decisions EVER, and asked Mary Kate and Cora to bake Craig's traditional birthday cake, a buche de Noel. Don't ask me. They made the most out of control buche I have ever met! I believe it was called something like a Tahitian Beach Buche, and these pictures do not do it justice, but you get the idea:

You can see that Pete is in no mood to wait for his cake!

Everyone did their best, but we did end up with a few leftovers--Good thing I decided at the last minute not to also make fruit salad and Asian avocado slaw, although I still want to try that one sometime.

Last night we took on some of the leftover potato salad, alongside Amy's California Burgers with leftover cheddar and sauteed leftover zucchini with leeks and carrots and a pepper our CSA farmer swore wasn't hot. Mark Bittman in the NYTimes had made a zucchini pasta with lavender, so I threw some in, but honestly didn't really taste it, must be a fine line between not tasting it and tasting like a soothing bath oil. We also had arugula salad with cucumber and a honey/lavender vinaigrette. The party was fun, but this was so relaxing.

Fluke Meuniere

Dad was out for a visit last weekend and Ellie and Dave drove down as well. We had a really good time, and the men caught lots of fish. The picture is bad (my fault, I was rushing the photographer), but you can see the fluke meuniere with lemon caper brown butter (Cook's), accompanied by a tomato/cucumber salad with Great Hill Blue and toasted pine nuts. We also enjoyed wonderful grill-roasted fingerling potatoes.

Below is a better picture, of all the plates ready to go. Not pictured are our cocktail hour treats, chips with guacamole and salsa and grilled figs with prosciutto and blue cheese, and watermelon margaritas. Also left to your imagination is dessert--grilled peaches with honey and mascarpone, accompanied by a wonderful ice wine from Dave and Ellie.

Slow Cooked Beans

The NY Times had a recipe for slow-cooked beans, just in time for all the beans we haven't managed to pick.  The recipe suggested grilled sausage to accompany, so I picked up mango chorizo at WF.  The sausage was good, but I'm a little insecure with the non pre-cooked kind, so I over-grilled a little.  I also sauteed some summer squash with onions and hot peppers, all from the CSA, and grilled some olive oil-garlic bread.  The beans were only OK, and I followed the recipe and everything.  All in all though, it was a good pretty quick meal, and I used up some of our million beans and summer squash.

Tequila-Lime Chicken

Last night I made up for my lack of inspiration on Saturday and cooked a really tasty meal. I marinated bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs in lime juice and tequila for several hours, then grilled them. So good--you could really taste the marinade. I also grilled new red potatoes from the farmers' market (olive oil, s&p, rosemary, garlic), which came out just perfect, crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. The veg is CSA zucchini and cippolini onion, garlic, fresh corn (farmers' market), and more of our crazy beans. I crisped up some chopped bacon in the pan before cooking the veggies, then removed it so it would stay crisp and threw it back in at the end. After pouring out a good deal of the bacon fat, there was still enough to add a little special flavor to those veggies. Yum.

CSA Treats

We went on a pretty long bike ride yesterday, so I was uninspired and mixed some red quinoa with a bunch of stuff from the garden and the CSA.  I marinated turnips, beans, carrots, scallions, beets, and a whole lot of basil in lemon juice and olive oil.  Very fresh and healthy and delicious.  Later, however, we had to top it off with Triscuits and Whole Foods 2-year cheddar--very delicious and not too expensive!