It’s been busy since Brian & Joy arrived at the beginning of last week, but in a very good way. With someone to help out with Jonathan and Kayleigh, I have actually been enjoying cooking things for the first time in a long time. Last week I made a tasty Pasta Rustica recipe that I had clipped out of a Williams-Sonoma catalog; last night I made margarita salmon, and tonight I hosted bookgroup so had to prepare food for that. It was fun! We had read a book set in China, so I thought it would be fun to serve some “Chinese” food (quotes there because I wasn’t going for a lot of authenticity)—we had chicken potstickers from Whole Foods with my homemade dipping sauce (Benihana’s recipe for soy ginger sauce) along with my special chicken and shrimp fried rice. I added some things (shrimp, bean sprouts) to my normal recipe and was most gratified by the results. For dessert we had coffee along with chocolate and cappucino truffles and homemade mini-Bundt hazelnut poppy seed cakes similar to this recipe, although with fewer poppy seeds and the addition of some Frangelico (I made them specially to go along with the truffles). All the plates came back clean, and nearly everyone went back for seconds on the fried rice, which is the best approval a cook could hope for. And lucky me, when I went into the kitchen after everyone had gone home, Brian had finished all the washing up! It’s so nice not to have to deal with the consequences of a party. Now all I have to do is put away the clean dishes.
Last Wednesday was a fun day—Jessica came over with Eamon & Jackson (her nephew whom she looks after four days a week), and Jennifer also came over with Magda. A house full of babies and toddlers! I’m not sure we’ve ever had so many under our roof. Everyone seemed to have a good time. It was fun to see Jessica in the back garden covered with leaves, Jfer nursing Magda on the loveseat, and Joy & Brian playing with Kayleigh on the deck. (I was cooking—one of the things I made was homemade applesauce for Kayleigh, but I used Granny Smith apples and they were too tart. My daughter pulled quite a face! Just to check, I tried a couple of more times, but sure enough each time produced the same expression. This week I’m trying again with different apples. Kayleigh has also had some broccoli and salmon, both of which she seemed to like.)
Posted by elizabeth at November 17, 2004 11:59 PMI can be a witness to the wonderful fare presented to us for book group. I did not read the book that was being discussed, but I did check it out of the library. However, I really enjoyed the conversation about it...mostly, I enjoyed the delicious rice and pot stickers. Thanks for including me in your evening.
Posted by: Auntie Rita on November 18, 2004 12:29 AM