A Big Dinner

One of the pleasures of enjoying cooking is finding any good excuse to "do it up." Two of our dearest friends have their birthdays in early January, so we invited them (and their spouses) for dinner. Once committed, we had to decide on what to do. Let's see... we've done this or that before, so it is time to try something new. We decided to explore the Barefoot Contessa cookbook given and received this Christmas - Back to Basics, by Ina Garten.

We had tried the butternut squash salad (pg 88 for those of you following along at home) the week after Christmas, and liked it, so that was in.

Next we saw the tomato and goat cheese tart (pg 92) and thought that looked good. Before serving to our guests, we MUST try it first, to make sure we do it right. We did, and we did! This is a wonderful appetizer. If you try it, don't be put off by the large amount of onion. Once sauteed and parsed out into each portion, it is balanced by the tomato and goat cheese.

Now for a main course - boy this seems like a lot of food! - How about fish! Back to Ina (pg 136) for the mustard-roasted fish. We also tried this with some tilapia a few days before the event, and liked it!

At this point, we realized we were up to a significant dinner. So now, do we stop here, or go over the top? My first rule of "reckless abandon" (that I just made up) is "If you have to ask, go over the top."

So we added in salami and cucumber for informal appetizers, chocolate martinis (ala the Dilettante in Seattle), a little gelato in the middle to clean the palate, ginger green beans to go with the fish, a molten chocolate cake for dessert, and of course, plenty of wine. Just to add a little more fun, we wrote it all up for the table: