Tapas

While Eva and Lawson were visiting us we decided to have a tapas evening, with everyone contributing one or two dishes. There were a few times during the day when it threatened to escalate into an Iron Chef competition, but we got through that.

We started out on the patio with fresh garden crudites (baby carrots, radishes, and snow peas) by Dick, served with aioli. Grandma brought a plate of cold sliced sausages garnished with grapes.

Next was Grandma’s homemade bread spread with aioli (homemade garlic/olive oil mayonnaise) and topped with sauteed mushrooms seasoned with sherry.

I’m beginning to forget the order here—but I think next was my squash-filled empanadas with chimichurri sauce. At the same time Eva presented two brilliantly colored salads: sliced baked beets dressed with orange juice beside marinated cucumbers with sesame oil and lemon.

Just when we were beginning to flag, Lawson served his Vietnamese shrimp cakes, made with shrimp, chickpea flour, and lots of ginger, and served with two sauces: one Thai sweet chili sauce and one yogurt-cilantro. These were beautifully plated with a dusting of herbs and a painting of the chili sauce.

For dessert we had Eva’s vanilla pudding, cardamom-infused and made with heavy cream!

There was constant cooking and dishwashing throughout the evening. We had a great time. I am recording the empanada dough recipe here, because it was spectacularly easy to make and handle. It’s from the February 2007 Cuisine at Home magazine.

Empanada Dough

2 ½ cups flour
½ cup butter, chilled
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar

Pulse together in food processor until crumbly.

1/3 cup cold water
1 egg

Add water and egg and pulse until dough forms ball. (I rested the dough in the refrigerator for an hour, but the recipe doesn’t call for it).

Form into 6 balls. Roll each into a 7-inch circle. Fill, fold in half, and seal with a fork. Brush with a little beaten egg and bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, until golden.

Soft Foods

Lawson had some dental surgery this week, so for the last several days we've been eating soft foods. It's been a fun challenge. The problem with foods for sick people (milk toast, chicken noodle soup, etc.), as I see it, is that they are mostly low in fiber, and who wants to be both sick AND constipated?

So here's what we've been eating:

Sweet potato and red pepper soup: I found a recipe for this in that great soup book you gave both me and Grandma a few years ago, but the recipe was dumb -- throw everything in some vegetable stock and boil it for half an hour? So I roasted the sweet potatoes until they sweetened up properly; softened the onions, garlic, and pepper in oil; simmered the whole thing for a while with leftover duck stock; seasoned it; then pureed it. It was wonderful. I added some Texas Pete to my bowl.




Roasted beets: my new obsession. If you roast them long enough, cut them into 1/2-inch pieces, and toss them with lemon, salt, and olive oil, they are soft and sweet and perfect.

Homemade mushroom soup: Sauteed cremini, dried shitake, stock, sherry, and fresh thyme, mostly. It was creamy without dairy. I was happy.

Puddings: puddings! If they are not already, I predict that puddings will be the next silly comfort food trend. My homemade butterscotch pudding was a bit too firm, but the flavor was excellent. I made rice pudding with cardamom, honey, and lemon zest -- excellent with a glass of tawny port, in case Dad's interested. But the most incredible discovery from this series of dental surgeries has been simple vanilla pudding. Here's the Joy of Cooking's recipe (mostly), which is perfect (and small -- enough for four tiny ramekins):

Mix in a heavy saucepan:

- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 T plus 1 1/2 t cornstarch
- 1/4 t salt

Thoroughly blend in 1/2 cup, then stir in the rest of:

- 2 cups milk or cream or some combination thereof

Stir slowly and constantly over medium heat until it begins to thicken (this is usually rather dramatic). Then stir fast. The pudding will start to simmer; hold it there for a minute, then take it off the heat and stir in:

- 2 t vanilla

Pour the pudding into bowls and put them in the fridge for as long as you can stand it. Once I unmolded the puddings from tiny ramekins onto tiny plates and scattered them with fresh raspberries. That was pretty special.