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.
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