Dinner club for May--Our house, our menu

We meet with two other friend couples every other month for Dinner Club. Whoever hosts chooses the menu and assigns dishes for others to bring. Usually the hosts make the main dish and the dessert. This time around we chose tofu something, tart thing, salad and dessert.


The evening started out unfortunately, when I accidentally dropped a glass of water and it shattered/splashed all over Jay. Thankfully he wasn't impaled or hurt, but I felt embarrased for the rest of the night.

The tofu starter had mixed reviews. Jeremy loved it, while I thought it was weird. We both liked the salad (very refreshing) and veggie tart, although the cheese didn't melt on the top--it just formed this line of cheese-ness. (Not a problem for anyone except Julie...I have cheese texture issues.)

No photos of dessert--lemon poof cake, which was gooey and sad. The crust was an inch thick and chewy and not pleasant. (Julie's memory here is vastly exagerating the unfortunatenes of the lemon tart. The crust, while thicker and denser than it should have been, was a scant quarter inch, and while the filling was overly meranguey the flavor was good. -- Jeremy)

Thankfully, the drinks won the spotlight. Boulevard Wheat beer--great for summer---light, flavorful and perfect with a lemon wedge. Framboise Lambic raspberry beer--almost wine-like in its crisp fruity-ness. Fabulous!

Both the Bogle Chardonnay and the Penfolds Cabernet tasted great.
Both Bogle and Penfolds are wonderful wines for the price---under $9 a bottle, so dependable and full-flavored. I've never had a Bogle wine that I didn't like. Our friend, Monique, brought over Penfolds a few years ago and ever since then its one of the wines I choose to bring to other people's houses, just because I know it's going to be good.

Mushroom pasta and Rex Goliath Chardonnay

We eat a lot of pasta in this house. It's fast and easy, and usually serves a good way to use up vegetables on the brink of going bendy or brown. In this version, we used whole wheat linguini with sauteed onion (1 chopped), garlic (4-6 cloves, chopped), mushrooms (about 1-2 cups chopped), asparagus (one bunch broken into one inch pieces) and grated cheese.
Salad is greens with pinenuts and our homemade dressing. (Mix 1-3 T mustard, 1 minced clove of garlic, a 3 to 1 ratio of any type of vinegar or acidic fruit juice to olive oil. Shake well and store in the frig.)

Rex Goliath is another solid wine. It's cheap (usually less than $7 a bottle), decent in either the reds or the whites and doesn't seem to go bad if you keep it for a while. (I had a white for at least three years and it still tasted fine.) Again, it's not a show stopper, but it's a great bargain. Plus there's a rooster on the label! I love chickens! (By the way, I'm one of those hopeless schmucks who base 45% of my wine decision making on the label design. Fifty percent is the price and the other 5% is any suggestions by the store or magazines. I love graphics and a good label can make me buy even the crappiest wine. At least once. And then I learn.....until the next time.)

Organic Rice Divine Chocolate PB Fudge ice cream

I'm lactose intolerant, but addicted to ice cream. I like to fool myself into thinking that I can eat as much ice cream as I want and not feel like shit 10 minutes later. The Wedge was having a sale on Good Karma rice ice cream so I decided to try it. Chocolate is especially difficult in fake ice creams. Without the milkfat and with the common use of carob instead of chocolate, the texture is usually dry and weird. In this version, the peanut butter taste was nice, but again the texture was sort of dry and grainy. Just not real ice cream. My vote: Spend the extra buck and get the real stuff...just take a Lactaid first.

Orzo with ragout and Fat Bastard Shiraz

Wow, we are sooooooo behind on posts. Past suppers have become hazy. But I'm diligent, and I want to be up to date.



We made this for supper a few weeks back:





















In case you've never had orzo, it's like a combination of pasta and rice--very firm and dense. We made a stew of onion, garlic, tomatoes, eggplant and feta cheese. The salad is mixed greens, fresh grapefruit, slivered almonds and olives.

Yum!


I really like Fat Bastard. I've never been disappointed by either the reds or whites. I like dependable wines, good choices for dinner parties and eating at home. The shiraz is full and nice. Not exceptional, but solid and a good value for the price.

Wheaty streusel muffins

I've since lost the recipe for this one, mostly because the muffins were dry, and the streusel was hard and unpleasant, and we basically never wanted to eat them ever again. But here's a photo.

Country Rhubarb Cobbler

This was the first time we've ever made a cobbler, or, I think, even had one fresh out of the oven. Great use for the first rhubarb of the season.

From The Appleton Post Crescent:

Country Rhubarb Cobbler

1 pound fresh rhubarb, trimmed, cut into 1/2 inch pieces to yield 3 cups

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2 cups cake flour or 2 cups all purpose (non-bleached, please) flour minus 1/4 c sifted flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup plus 2 T sugar (divided)

1 stick (1/2 c) cold butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1/3 cup whole milk (we used soy milk)

2 large eggs (1 separated)

ice cream

In a large bowl, combine rhubarb with brown sugar. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and 1/2 c sugar. Cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture forms coarse crumbs. In a small bowl or glass measure, whisk together milk, whole egg and separated egg yolk. Form a well in the dry ingrediants and pour in milk mixture. Stir together until it forms a soft, sticky dough.

Butter a 10 inch glass or ceramic pie plate or 2 1/2 quart baking dish. Transfer half of dough onto bottom and spread with rubber spatula halfway up sides of prepared pan. Spoon rhubarb mixture over dough, drop remaining half of dough with tablespoon or small scoop evenly over rhubarb.

Lightly beat egg white. Brush top of dough with egg white and sprinkle with remaining 2 T sugar. Bake in 400 degree oven for 35 minutes, or until top is golden and rhubarb is tender. Cool for 30 minutes (while you run to the gas station to buy some vanilla ice cream...wait, is that just us?)

Scoop into giant bowls, top with ice cream, making moaning and ectastic noises as you eat rhubarb cobbler in front of the television and praise the universe for such wondeful creations as rhubarb, butter, ice cream and sugar. The recipe says it makes 6-8 servings, or 4-6 in this house.

Asparagus Pesto Lasagna and Hogue Cab Merlot

God, I love salad. And more than salad, I love this fabulous garlic artisan bread from the Wedge Co-op. Isn't that so lovely? Can you see that ENTIRE CLOVE OF ROASTED GARLIC? God, I'm just peeing my pants right now. And it was so tasty, lightly toasted with butter.
Augh! Yes!!







And then came the wines.




First, I must begin with a disclaimer.
Columbia Crest is a really decent wine for the money. I have never had a bad bottle, even that $3.99 sale Riesling in Atlanta once. (You'd think, it's only four dollars, it's got to be crap, but no, it's good.) This particular bottle, from 2002, had lived in my friends, Kim and Paul's, basement for the year we lived in Ghana, and then lived in our wine rack in Atlanta for the next year or so, and lived up here in Minneapolis for another few years. Is it any wonder that the cork was funky and the whole bottle tasted like my parent's old basement?
No. I do not blame you, dear Columbia Crest. We are still good friends. You can come over for dinner anytime. I hold no grudge.



We dumped the whole thing down the sink, (Goodbye, old friend!) and tried again with this dependable sweetheart, Hogue Cabernet Merlot. I used to drink a lot of merlot (you know, before the whole Sideways shaming), but then it started to give me headaches from the tannins. But this guy, he was friendly. Full, fruity body with lots of spice. Dry on the tongue but not like a desert.






Perfect with this extravaganza, Asparagus Pesto Lasagna.

Is it a holiday? What? No? It's a Monday? And we're cooking this like we're having some secret dinner party and it's just us? Life is so fucking good sometimes. Fresh spring asparagus rocks my world, and this lasagna tastes richer than it normally is. It feels like we were dripping in butter or fat, but it's not actually that bad. Perfect as gravy for the previously mentioned garlic bread. (I know it's good when Jeremy's eyes roll back into his head after a bite, and when we are so full that we want to weep, but keep eating more because it's so tasty.)

My only problem is that whenever I eat lasagna (or pizza) without tomato sauce, it feels like something big is missing. I like pesto as much as the next gal, but I like my tomato sauce too. I would tweak the recipe...by adding at least 4 or 5 cups of wilted fresh spinach, 1-2 cups mushrooms and possibly some freshly diced tomatoes, and maybe a pinch of oregano.