Even though I forgot to wear any green clothing (shame on me), I still made sure to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in my own way. I cooked up a little green-themed meal, so I'm pretty sure that puts me in the clear for any pinching.
Whenever I have dinner guests arriving at different times, I like to make a few things for my early guests to snack on. This way their stomachs don't eat themselves and it also buys me a little time to finish up on the warm dishes. For last night, I made a Cannellini bean puree with tons of parsley and mint to give it a pretty mint green color. I also mixed soften goat cheese with toasted walnuts, thyme leaves and basil oil. This offered a more subdued pretty speckled green. Even our one anti-goat cheese diner liked this one. I served these with buckwheat lavash crackers that I sprinkled with cracked black pepper, fleur de sel and a fine grating of Parmesan. This is totally my new favorite topping. Next up is truffle salt. Mmm!
Besides a green salad and roasted vegetables, I beefed up the meal with pesto orecchiette. I added sauteed kale to make it extra green. This was my first time making orecchiette pasta and I'm happy to say that it was a success. I'm always shocked when things turn out on first attempt. It's an eggless dough made from an equal mixture of semolina and all-purpose flour. Though a tad time consuming to dimple each piece, the cute little dimples hold onto the sauce. Think flavor transporter.
4 Comments
longest flight
19 Mar 2009 12:03 am
everything looks so delicious!
Angela Williams
19 Mar 2009 09:03 am
The dinner was amazing Jules!!
Purplesque
19 Mar 2009 06:03 pm
[this is good] What a gorgeous green meal. Everything sounds delicious, but I would Love to try the orecchiette.
Yeehaw Murghi
02 Apr 2009 02:04 pm
[this is good] Man… I’m a pretty eloquent dude, but whenever I try to make a comment on this blog, I end up spending a lot of time staring at the screen, trying to find the right words, scrolling back and forth. Everything here looks absolutely immaculate.
I do applaud you for being diplomatic and accommodating to the vegetarians in you party, and dropping the ham hock. But I’m always a bit annoyed when a meal has to be modified for everyone, in order to accommodate the few. Split pea soup with no ham hock? Heresy, I say!
Beautiful. As always.
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