Dîner chez Gina
Hello my darling flistees. Hope the long weekend has treated you well? Or, if no bank holiday, your Monday?
Dîner chez Gina was a roaring success. And when I say roaring, I mean good company, who seemed to appreciate my food, interesting conversation and good spirits of both the emotional and alcoholic varieties. And as AJ and ME are not particularly fond of pop culture music, we were accompanied by some Jazz and classical. I mention this because my Booshy friends will chuckle to know there actually was some Charlie Mingus at one point.
As for the cooking, I enjoyed the dual challenges of meeting the needs of both my kosher and gluten free friends. It forced me to be creative, and I do so love a cooking challenge.
Here for you is a picspam of food and friends (alas, I am in none of the photos because I took them all!). But I hope this will prove a feast for the eyes.
Firs up, roasted eggplant with tomatoes and garlicky topping.
For those who are interested, I wrapped the eggplant slices in aluminium foil before baking in the non-kosherized toaster oven. This worked well, as they came out quite a bit softer!
I opted for a raw carrot salad instead of roasted carrots. This really is just carrots with a vinaigrette of sherry vinegar, olive oil, garlic, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and a bit of water. The variety in coloring is probably due to them being organic carrots from my CSA.
Alas, I neglected to take a photo of the onion soup. But know that it was delish, and yes elrina753 there is some in my freezer marked JUST FOR YOU. Instead of toasting bread with cheese, I melted the cheese in a pan only used for eggs, and made an herb bread with sage and parsley from my CSA. SO YUM I had to force myself not to eat the rest of the loaf today in one sitting.
The risotto was rich and creamy, and AJ was kind enough to remark on my knife skills as he noticed how finely I sliced the onions and leeks. The richness is probably due in part to having used both white truffle oil and a tiny amount of truffle butter. I know this might sound like bragging, but look at how it glistens! And for those who are interested, the parsley added a lovely fresh note in contrast to the density of the risotto. So if you opt to make the recipe I previously posted, don't skip that part!
Attendees appeared to all be having a good time.
ME
AJ and KS
DR
AJ makes a toast
ME brought a scrumptious chocolate mousse for dessert, and I made some homemade whipped cream. The pic is a bit grainy, but trust me when I say it was like a magic cloud on my spoon. ME and I plan to have her mousse and my whipped cream get together again, possibly with a graham cracker crust and some berries
My only regret of the evening was not enlisting a sous chef. So many onions I chopped, I may never want to look at one again. :D
I wish I could do this all the time, but such a meal was extremely labor intensive. Now if only I had someone to do all the cleanup! :D Only I've never been very good at those householdy charms . . .
Dîner chez Gina was a roaring success. And when I say roaring, I mean good company, who seemed to appreciate my food, interesting conversation and good spirits of both the emotional and alcoholic varieties. And as AJ and ME are not particularly fond of pop culture music, we were accompanied by some Jazz and classical. I mention this because my Booshy friends will chuckle to know there actually was some Charlie Mingus at one point.
As for the cooking, I enjoyed the dual challenges of meeting the needs of both my kosher and gluten free friends. It forced me to be creative, and I do so love a cooking challenge.
Here for you is a picspam of food and friends (alas, I am in none of the photos because I took them all!). But I hope this will prove a feast for the eyes.
Firs up, roasted eggplant with tomatoes and garlicky topping.
For those who are interested, I wrapped the eggplant slices in aluminium foil before baking in the non-kosherized toaster oven. This worked well, as they came out quite a bit softer!
I opted for a raw carrot salad instead of roasted carrots. This really is just carrots with a vinaigrette of sherry vinegar, olive oil, garlic, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and a bit of water. The variety in coloring is probably due to them being organic carrots from my CSA.
Alas, I neglected to take a photo of the onion soup. But know that it was delish, and yes elrina753 there is some in my freezer marked JUST FOR YOU. Instead of toasting bread with cheese, I melted the cheese in a pan only used for eggs, and made an herb bread with sage and parsley from my CSA. SO YUM I had to force myself not to eat the rest of the loaf today in one sitting.
The risotto was rich and creamy, and AJ was kind enough to remark on my knife skills as he noticed how finely I sliced the onions and leeks. The richness is probably due in part to having used both white truffle oil and a tiny amount of truffle butter. I know this might sound like bragging, but look at how it glistens! And for those who are interested, the parsley added a lovely fresh note in contrast to the density of the risotto. So if you opt to make the recipe I previously posted, don't skip that part!
Attendees appeared to all be having a good time.
ME
AJ and KS
DR
AJ makes a toast
ME brought a scrumptious chocolate mousse for dessert, and I made some homemade whipped cream. The pic is a bit grainy, but trust me when I say it was like a magic cloud on my spoon. ME and I plan to have her mousse and my whipped cream get together again, possibly with a graham cracker crust and some berries
My only regret of the evening was not enlisting a sous chef. So many onions I chopped, I may never want to look at one again. :D
I wish I could do this all the time, but such a meal was extremely labor intensive. Now if only I had someone to do all the cleanup! :D Only I've never been very good at those householdy charms . . .