Saturday, October 24, 2009

Not from a box

Tonight we hosted dinner at our house for some friends who have never been to our house for dinner so we kind of busted our butts to crank out tasty offerings from the kitchen. Our feast preparations began yesterday when I mixed together the ingredients for Bittman's no-knead bread. (Three ingredients mixed together and a whole lot of waiting and voila! you have bread.) The work continued this morning when, rather fortuitously, our son woke up for a 3:30 a.m. pasta and cereal break and mini dance party. While Huck was busy eating, I was making the world's best pie crust (secret ingredient, vodka) and getting it into the fridge so it'd be ready to roll out once we woke up after going back to sleep. At around 8:00 a.m., we hauled ourselves (well, Henry and I did) out of bed and schlepped back into the kitchen to ... well, you get the idea. It was a super busy day spent in the kitchen for the most part, the small bit of non-most part included me leaving the kitchen to clean and do laundry and Darr leaving the kitchen to tend to the dog and take out the trash. The end result was one delicious meal, if I do say so myself.

L'antipasto
prosciutto-wrapped asparagus
baguette with goat cheese, lemon zest, and parsley

Il primo
homemade bread

Il secondo
garlic-roasted leg of lamb
roasted acorn squash with caramelized brown sugar
homemade bread

Il dolce
roasted apple pie with homemade vanilla ice cream

9 comments:

Amber said...

What about "of course there were pictures?" Because I know there were some!

You really outdid yourself... everything sounds delicious!

Rachele said...

that sounds absolutely incredible

Christie said...

A - Oddly enough there weren't that many pictures. I snapped a few of the boys jumping on our bed after dinner. When we weren't eating, we were busy carrying plates of food from the kitchen to the dining room table and back. This didn't lend itself to capturing great moments on digital media.

Christie said...

R - Thanks! It was pretty yummy. Sadly, Darr hates the lamb recipe so he told me he wouldn't make it again. Ever. <sigh>

Rachele said...

can you send me the lamb recipe? We have a ton of lamb in our freezer right now.

Cathy said...

Man. I wish I lived near you. Of course, if you'd have us over for dinner...

=)

Christie said...

R - Let me see if I can find the scanner. It's a Cooks Illustrated recipe and there are many steps and special meat cutting instructions with illustrations.

C - Of course you'd be invited!

Rachele said...

C - what issue? I get cooks illustrated as well as have a website login for them

Darren said...

R - Roasted Leg of Lam is from Cooks Illustrated #79, March/April 2006, pg 13

What a PITA recipe, but it does make for some tasty vittles.

We look forward to hearing what you think.