Anniversary dinner

My parents recently celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary, so I decided a special dinner was in order.
We started with these radish and chive tea sandwiches with sesame and ginger. They were really easy to make and tasted great.

I found some nice looking wild blue shrimp, and decided on a simple preparation to let their flavor shine through. I sauteed the shrimp in a little olive oil and seasoned generously with salt, pepper and meyer lemon juice. I served an herb salsa verde from Sunday Suppers at Lucques on the side.

For this dish, I sauteed some white and green asparagus with shallots, brown butter, salt and pepper. I garnished with fresh chives.

This potato and leek galette was outstanding. I was a little worried that it wouldn't hold together, but it came out perfectly. The recipe will definitely be repeated.

For dessert I made a rustic cherry and frangipane tart from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. It was a good way to use some of my almonds. I served this with vanilla ice cream.

Overall, I thought it was a great meal. It actually wasn't all that time consuming to make either, which is always a plus.

Orange almond cookies

Last month, I mentioned that someone gave me three pounds of blanched sliced almonds. You may be wondering, what did I end up doing with all those almonds? Well, I haven’t done much with them yet, but I’ve been busy collecting recipes to try.

I have made one recipe so far, and it was for these orange almond cookies from the Martha Stewart Living cookbook. I don’t always have a lot of patience when it comes to baking, which is why you don’t often see complicated baked goods on this site. Well, that’s one reason I don’t bake as much as I’d like, the other reason is the caloric implications. These cookies are so simple to prepare, but they look and taste like you spent a lot of time and effort on them.

I did make some changes to the original recipe – I like my almond cookies to taste like almonds, so I omitted the anise and cut the orange zest down to about 1 ½ tablespoons. I also added a drop of almond extract. These cookies have a great chewy texture. The orange and almond flavors work really well together. If you were to use the amount of orange zest in the original recipe, I think it would be quite overpowering, so I’d stick to 1-2 tablespoons. If you’re an almond fan like I am, try this recipe!

Thanksgiving 2008 - the main event

Our thanksgiving menu doesn't vary much from year to year. That being said, I love to experiment with new recipes, so I try to change up at least one or two of the sides each time. I didn't make all of the food pictured, so I'll fill in details where I can.

My mom's roasted turkey
Flaky dinner rolls - I make these for every holiday

This is a pretty traditional stuffing - cubes of no-knead bread, mushrooms, celery, water chestnuts and fresh herbs.

This dish of sweet potatoes with caramelized apples was one of the new recipes I made. I combined recipes from Ina Garten and Martha Stewart to come up with what I think was an outstanding sweet potato dish. I think this will be on the menu for years to come.

Cranberry sauce with cardamom and vanilla bean - this is another recipe that's become a tradition.

Brussels sprouts with pomegranate and walnuts - I made these a few weeks back, and we liked them so well that they were added to the thanksgiving menu.

Also on the menu but not pictured here - classic gravy, mashed potatoes, peas with pearl onions, berry jello and romaine salad with pears and walnuts.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's dessert recap!

Grilled salad

This recipe for grilled salad is actually really simple, it was the beautiful picture of it in Martha Stewart Living that caught my eye. It's just an assortment of vegetables, brushed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and grilled. Prior to serving, the vegetables are topped with lemon juice and fresh thyme. I chose to use portobello mushrooms, zucchini, pattypan squash, japanese eggplants, radicchio, red onion and tomatoes for this recipe. It made for a delicious and healthy side dish.

Dried fruit focaccia

I saw this recipe on Martha Stewart's talk show. It looked really good, but I didn't like the thought of using a whole cup of oil to make focaccia - too many calories. So I decided to alter my standby focaccia recipe (Peter Reinhart's pain a l'ancienne) to get a similar effect without all the oil. I used the same amount of dried fruit as Martha, and used the fruit soaking liquid instead of water in the dough. I also cut the amount of salt in half and added 2 tablespoons of sugar to the pain a l'ancienne dough. I let the dough retard overnight in the fridge, and proceeded with Peter Reinhart's instructions for shaping focaccia. I ended up with a lot of dough, enough to fill a 12 x 17 pan and an 8 x 8 pan. Before baking, I generously sprinkled the dough with sanding sugar.

This bread was delicious - the dried fruit adds a lot of flavor and the sanding sugar adds sweetness and crunch. I will definitely be making this again soon.

Strawberry almond macaroon galette

This recipe came from the current issue of Martha Stewart Living. I love almond macaroons, so I automatically cut out the recipe without really looking at the details. Turns out, the recipe calls for baking the galette in an 8 and 3/4 inch cake ring and requires you to prop the oven open for part of the baking time by sticking a wooden spoon in the door. This sounded strange to me (and I didn't have the cake ring), but I decided to try the recipe anyways with the provisions I had on hand. I used a 9 inch springform pan which worked perfectly. And sure enough, the wooden spoon propped the oven door open without causing any damage to the spoon. I already had almond meal in the pantry, so I used that instead of grinding the blanched almonds. I didn't have kirsch to macerate the strawberries in, but I did have amaretto, so I used that. I also added a teaspoon of almond extract to the batter. The galette came out great, I would make it again. I was thinking next time I might arrange an assortment of fruit on the top for variety. If you're an almond macaroon lover, try this cake!

The finished products

I am done with my baking, and covered in powdered sugar.

Candied meyer lemon peel

Strawberry marshmallows

Coconut macaroons

My own variation on Martha's Rocky Ledge bars

I used milk chocolate chunks, dark chocolate chunks, butterscotch chips and toffee

Too hot to cut!