Left over rib steak, scrambled eggs and whole grain toast.

Some things I have thought about:

1. A dinner party is significantly different than a cocktail party.  We would not have been able to do a dinner party for over 30 people.  Our party was an “Open House” meaning that people came and went through out the late afternoon/evening, we served a variety of drinks and finger type foods.  Our living dinning room was set up  like a lounge with a buffet and people kind of mingled around as they visited.

2. The hosts of a dinner party have to carefully balance their time with the guests and time in the kitchen.  There is no point in having people over and then leaving them alone while you slave away in the kitchen, you aren’t supposed to be kitchen and serving staff in a restaurant.  :)  This always costs couples big points on Dinner Party Wars.

3. Preparation is the key to all parties!

4. Party hosting is a team event and working together is the only way to succeed.

So with these things in mind I have been working out in my head how things will work this Saturday.  One other thing I have to work around is that I have plans to meet up with some friends on Friday night after work, meaning I have lost the night before prep time.  But I am also keeping things fairly simple so I think we will be ok on Saturday.

First I am going to rely on my wife (see, team work!) to hopefully do some of the hunting/gathering on Friday because often her daily schedule allows for this.  If I make a list she is usually able to get most if not all the items before the day of our event.  This gives us lots of time to make sure we have everything we need and if necessary to work out any substitutions.  Saturday morning I will make the soup and it will end up in my slow cooker until it is time to serve.  The veggies will all be prepped including blanching if that is required.  The beef wellington will be cooked to the point of being ready for final baking prior to serving.  Hopefully all this means that once our guests arrive we can spend a lot of time entertaining and enjoying the party.

Oh drinks.  Luckily we have a fairly extensive supply of liquor on hand at any given time.  This makes us sound like raging alcoholics I guess, but the truth is we don’t drink much outside of parties, but we like to try new things.  So we have a lot of open bottles that we have tried, but never finish.  :)  I will need to pick up more wine though, and I am planning on using Magnotta again.  We served Magnotta wine at our Christmas party and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Dessert is one area I do need to work on.  I am just not a pastry chef kinda guy.  This one thing that when someone asks me “what can we bring?” that I almost always ask for.  Or I buy something at a bakery.  I find baking much more restrictive in that you almost always have to closely follow a recipe.  I have no problem following a recipe, I just prefer to be more casual in my cooking endeavors.  And then the touches that you add at the end, like say icing/decorating the cake are things that I just don’t seem to be good at.  I can’t wrap presents either, and usually opt for the gift bag route.

I am confident that Saturday night will be a great evening for all, and I am looking forward to preparing an excellent dinner party!

Christmas is going to be at our house this year as well.  My brother and his family and our mother will be coming over on Christmas Eve and spending a couple of days with us.  The last few years we have been going to my brother’s house for the Christmas holidays, so this year it’s our turn to host.  I will have lots to do.  I’d like to have a somewhat non-traditional Christmas dinner, I think most of our family is ok with not having turkey for Christmas dinner.  In fact my sister in law calls turkey insipid!  A comment we never let her forget.  Last year my brother made an excellent prime rib roast for Christmas dinner, so I am considering having that again.  But I am also on the look out for other fancy dinners.

The kitchen renovation is kind of a big deal.  I have never had any input to the kitchen design or layout and now I have had a lot of input into what we will be living with.  In fact my wife and her parents (they live with us) have largely backed off and let me have my way in most of the decisions.  I have made an effort to take their wants/needs into consideration, but I did get my way with the type of cabinets, counter top and cabinet hardware.  It helps I guess that we all do have similar tastes in that regard.  I will try and get some pictures up of the process.

December promises to be a very busy month, and with all the food related activities I should have lots of material to bring to TGK.

Before loading up the oven I made a dry rub and liberally applied it to the ribs. Then into a roasting pan and into the low oven for approx 5-6 hours. When we got home the smell was heavenly! I made a quick coffee bar-b-q sauce and put the ribs out on the grill with the sauce and let them caramelize before serving.

The rub was:

Kosher Salt
Brown Sugar
Cinnamon
Garlic Powder
Cayenne Powder
Cumin Powder
Dry Mustard Powder
Ground Black Pepper

Sorry I don’t have amounts, I was hurrying so we could get to the park and didn’t have time to measure. I also usually include Allspice in my rubs but my brother didn’t have any at their place.

The sauce was:

Finely chopped onion
Unsalted Butter
Olive oil
The rest of the rib rub
Ketchup
Plain old yellow mustard
Cold Coffee from breakfast
Chipotle tabasco sauce

Started sweating the onions in the butter and olive oil. Added the spices and wet ingrediants and simmered for 20-30 minutes. Then I basted the ribs with it on the grill. I only had them on the grill for a few minutes per side, just to get some colour on the sauce.
The only thing missing from the ribs was smoke flavour. If I had been able to use the grill I would have added smoke packs and most likely a few of them as they burned up. The ribs were tender and juicy, with a pretty decent “bark” on them, the meat came away from the bone easily and cleanly though the ribs held their shape. Even my 9 year old nephew who won’t try anything new like them!

Chicken wings split into flappys and drummys

Flour I generally use a cup for every 2 lbs of wings

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper

1 teaspoon ground thyme

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon chili powder

*Optional spices*

Curry powder

Allspice

Dry mustard

Different chili powders, chipotle, ancho etc

Hot Sauce

2 tablespoons of butter

2 tablespoons hot sauce (I usually use Frank’s Red Hot, but any “Louisana style” hot sauce will work)

splash of soy sauce

splash of sesame oil

I mix all the seasonings and spices with the flour and put it all in a large zip top bag.  I dredge the wings in this mixture.  Then I deep fry the wings for approx 8-10 minutes to make sure they are cooked all the way through, this time will vary depending on your fryer and the size of the wings.  Once I have removed the wings from the fryer and drained them of any excess oil I toss them in a large metal mixing bowl with a couple of spoons of the sauce.  The wings should be covered, but not totally saturated with the sauce.  You should need a napkin when eating them but not a complete set of coveralls. 

I usually fry in canola oil, but this will work with any high smoke point oil.  The sauce is also something that you can play around with and I have played with lots of different flavours.  The equal parts butter and hot sauce is the traditional “Buffalo Wing” sauce once you have that you can let your imagination run wild!

Ok so here is the basic risotto that I use:

1 cup of Arborio rice

3 cups of liquid, any combination of wine, water, stock

finely diced shallots or onion

1-3 flavouring agents such as mushrooms, sausage, bacon, peppers sweet or hot, seafood scallops shrimp etc, chicken, sun dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts.

freshly grated parmesean or grana padano cheese, please do not use the dried stuff that comes in the little plastic container.

a couple of tablespoons of butter and canola or olive oil.

Kosher salt and Fresh ground black pepper

Here is how it all comes together.  Melt the butter with the oil of your choice in a large saute pan.  Add the finely minced shallots and or onions.  Time to start the seasoning as well, a pinch of Kosher salt and few grinds of pepper, I often will add some ground thyme though you can certainly use fresh here as well.  Stir these around until the bits soften and start to turn translucent.

Next add your flavouring agents.  If you are using something like sausage or bacon you will want to have the pieces be uniform size and fairly small, you want them cooked before moving on.  if you are using scallops. shrimp or other delicate seafood you might consider cooking them till they are almost done and then removing from the pan until later in the risotto process.  Keep layering in the seasoning as well, you should add another pinch of salt and pepper.

Once the flavours have all had a chance to meld together you add your rice.  This step is instrumental in the risotto building procedure.  You want to get all the rice grains coated in the flavours that are in your pan.  You want to heat the rice and keep stirring until the edges of the grains actually start to turn translucent just like the onions before.

Now the liquid, I will add about half a cup or so of the wine I plan on serving with dinner.  This is a Food and Wine pairing trick, it makes for an instant match when the wine you are drinking is in the food you are eating.  Add the wine and stir around you are “deglazing” the pan and picking up all the stick on bits in the bottom of the pan.

Ok so here is the part that makes risotto the labour intensive scary dish.  The liquid needs to be added in small doses over a 20-25 minute period.  I use a ladle to add maybe 1/3 of a cup of stock or water at a time to the rice dish.  As you add each addition of liquid you stir the rice and wait for the liquid to be almost totally absorbed by the rice, then you add some more and repeat the process.

Now depending on your rice, the humidity in your kitchen, the other ingredients you have added you may need more or less liquid than 3 cups.  Once you are about 2 cups into this process try the risotto.  See how it tastes, do you need to add any seasoning.  The will most likely still be crunchy at this point but you want to gage it and see what it is like.  The finished product should be creamy but the rice grains should still have some firmness to them, think el dente pasta.

Once you get to the point that the rice is done and the consistancy is thick and creamy you add the grated cheese.  Add this to taste but remember the cheese will help to bind up the risotto and if you add too much you are going to get a stodgy mess.  If you go a little over board on the cheese just add a little more stock and stir until the risotto thins back out a little bit.  It shouldn’t hold it’s shape when you put it in a dish but you are not making soup either.

Ok so my Mushroom Risotto with Crispy Beef Strips:

2 cups of arborio rice (I was cooking for 5 adults)

6 cups of beef stock

2 cups of sliced cremini mushrooms

half of a med-large white onion finely chopped

1 cup of grated grana pandano

1 cup of red wine

Kosher Salt and black pepper

ground thyme

allspice

1.5 tablespoons of butter

1.5 tablespoons of canola oil

Fairly thinly sliced left over steak from the night before

I followed my method above for the rice.  I pan fried the steak strips making them caramelized and crispy.  When the rice was done I served it in a bowl with a few crispy steak strips on top.  I served it all with a 2006 Cab Sauv, the same wine I added to the rice.

I am still working out a posting/writing schedule that will allow me be prepared in a situation like this.  Anyways I will be posting today, it’s just going to take some time.  Hope your Monday is going smoother than mine!

Last night I opened a bottle of 2004 Hollick Coonawarna Cabernet Sauvignon.  I have had this sitting around in my “cellar” for a while now, I think I picked it up for Christas 2008 and just never got around to drinking it.  Last night I cooked up some striploin steaks with mushrooms and a quick pan sauce and I used the wine in the sauce.  So here is my attempt at a wine tasting:

Opening

First sniff: Berry aromas, and a bit of alcohol.

First taste: Strong spice, mostly pepper, there is a slight metallic flavour, the fruit taste is muted.

Served with: Pan seared striploin steak with sauteed mushrooms and pan sauce.

After eating

Second sniff: The alcohol aroma is gone, can really smell the spices now strong black pepper, not much fruit anymore.

Second taste: much smoother now, there is a ton of spice to this wine now, and the wine has a nice long finish.

Notes: Since this is a 2004 I think the wine benefits from some breathing time, I would even go so far as to say it would be good after decanting.  It’s a classic Cab Sauv, big big flavours, full mouth feel and strong finish.  It’s a great wine to serve with food, Steak, Lamb, Roast Beef.  The spicy-ness of the wine goes well with the steak I made, I like a generous amount of black pepper as well as allspice on my steak and the wine compliments these flavours very well.  The wine has a lot of “umami” which means the steak and mushrooms and are ideal to pair with it.

I really enjoyed this wine.  If I had tried it closer to when I had purchased it I would have gone back for another bottle or two to hold on to.  I am trying to build up an actual wine cellar, and I think this wine would have made a good addition.  It has enough flavour and tannins to handle aging well I think.

I am going to try and stick to this kind of format for each wine I try that way I will a good idea of each wine and I will be able to compare and remember what I like.

I will also try and make a point of posting the foods that I am pairing with the wine.  I will get my steak and mushroom recipe up soon.