dinner parties for winter survival

When I moved up north seven years ago, I didn't know a thing about winter. I was fresh off the boat from Florida with only a bright blue ski jacket my dad bought me at Sports Authority. I did not own a pair of boots. I refused to wear a hat. Or socks. I scraped the snow off my car with a spatula. One winter, my car was buried under several feet of iced-over snow and somehow I thought I could dig it out by myself with a shovel borrowed from a nearby gas station. (Wrong.)

I've been here long enough to finally feel like I know how to get through this difficult season. Don't get me wrong--it's still hard, but now I don't cry every time I look out my window and see white. You need certain essentials: a down coat with a hood, Chapstick, slush-proof boots with good tread, thick gloves, hot showers, warming cups of milky tea, and fleece-lined slippers for around the house. Also, dinner parties. (You knew I was going to get to that at some point.) 

Animals and people hibernate during these dark, cold months for a reason. Most weekends, I'm totally happy to wrap myself in a blanket and watch Friday Night Lights on DVD for hours and hours, only leaving the couch to pee or refill my wine glass. I mean, what else is there to do? 

But in spite of my own laziness, I've learned that the best way to power through the winter is to email a bunch of friends, cook something warm and delicious, and socalize with those friends in the coziness of your own home. Sure, you could meet at a restaurant, but there's the whole business of being rushed through dinner, being able to talk to everyone around the table, and the inevitable annoyance of splitting a check six different ways. Even if you have a tiny apartment that's not made for entertaining (like I do), it's always going to be nicer at your house. 

Last weekend, I invited over two friends from high school with whom I've recently reconnected. Both are named Adrienne, coincidentally. (Saying I'm hanging out with "the Adriennes" makes me feel like I'm in an all-girl band.) One Adrienne is one of my oldest friends, dating back to Kindergarten, I think. I randomly sat next to her on the subway one night and it was as if no time had passed at all. 

The other Adrienne was more of an acquaintance. We sat in many of the same classes but hung out in different circles. Much like re-meeting my husband Dan, who I also went to high school with, we totally connected as adults. If you're lucky, distance and time can smooth out all of the weirdness of high school.

In my wildest dreams I would have never thought I'd be sharing a meal (in New York, no less) with these particular people: a long-time friend I had lost touch with, someone I knew only peripherally, and a guy I barely hardly knew at all, yet ended up marrying. And yet there we all were, eating shrimp linguine in my very own living room, beating winter at its own game.

Saturday night with the Adriennes
Olive focaccia (a twist on my favorite tomato-stopped focaccia)
Mixed greens with fennel, blood oranges, and pecorino
Linguine with shrimp and creamy roasted tomatoes
Bittersweet chocolate-orange mousse

Linguine with shrimp and creamy roasted tomatoes
From Food + Wine. The shrimp somehow took on the flavor of lobster in this pasta. Maybe it's the cream sauce?
(Serves 4 people) 

1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes
1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. thyme leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 box dried linguine
1 cup heavy cream  
1 lb. large shrimp peeled, deveined and halved lengthwise
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 Tbsp. coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley  

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In a large ovenproof skillet (I used a cast iron pan), toss the tomatoes with the olive oil, thyme, and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Roast the tomatoes for about 25 minutes, until they start to brown and their skins split.

Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the linguine until al dente; drain. 

Remove the pan of roasted tomatoes from the oven and place it on the stovetop over medium heat. Add the cream to the tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Cook over moderate heat, gently crushing the tomatoes, until the cream thickens slightly, about 3 minutes. Add the shrimp and simmer over moderate heat until cooked through, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the linguine to the skillet along with the lemon juice and toss over low heat until the pasta is coated, about 1 minute. Add the lemon zest and parsley and toss. Transfer the pasta to warm bowls and serve at once.

crepes are for (dessert) lovers

I'm not big on Valentine's Day, but if you're looking for a special dessert to make for your special someone, I suggest a batch of crepes. You could even make a batch of crepes and call it dinner, depending on the fillings.

A few weekends ago, we had dinner at the home of our friends Colin and Anne. Colin does most of the cooking in their household and made us all a really lovely meal (more on that later). Anne, to her credit, does the dishes and keeps Colin in line. She has always said that she's not much for cooking, but at the end of the evening, she produced a tall stack of golden brown crepes with all sorts of delicious fillings: berry compote, Nutella, powdered sugar, whipped cream. "Did you make these?" I asked, incredulous. And she had, following an old Martha Stewart recipe. With a nonstick skillet it wasn't hard at all, she said.

We gorged ourselves on those crepes. I think I may have had four. It was the simplest thing, a thin pancake with sweet berries oozing out of each end, but it was exactly the perfect thing. It's the kind of dessert that lends itself to sitting on the floor crosslegged. You'll find yourself reaching over people to grab the powdered sugar, licking a stray schmear of Nutella off the back of your hand. It's messy, but in the best possible sense. With friends, or your family, or with your beloved, be sure to eat some crepes.

super fast, super delicious brunch

Sometimes I struggle to come up with menus, and sometimes the best ideas fall right into my lap. In the case of last weekend's brunch I got really lucky.

Recently I happened upon a link at The Kitchn for eggy, crispy, polenta with tomatoes and mushrooms, and couldn't bookmark it fast enough. The photo was fantastic, but doesn't that description sound so delicious? And then, as if on cue, Dan and I made brunch plans with some friends we don't see nearly enough. Instead of going out for overpriced eggs, they could come to our house and I'd make that very dish.

The whole trick of this recipe is that it calls for a tube of pre-cooked polenta. In the not-so-distant past, maybe I might have turned my nose up at those yellow tubes in the produce aisle at my grocery store. Polenta is so cheap and easy to whip up that buying it ready-made seemed sort of silly. 

But when it's Sunday morning and you're still in your pajamas even though brunch guests are on their way, pre-cooked polenta seems like the most brilliant invention ever. All you have to do is slice the log into rounds, dust with flour, and sear them off in a pan. Then you dress the crispy polenta up with whatever brunchy toppings your heart desires. It looks fancy but couldn't be easier to assemble. So points to The Kitchn for helping me get over another one of my snobby assumptions.

Topped with mushrooms, cheese, and poached eggs, this polenta dish was pretty much my ideal brunch. It's hearty enough to tide you over until dinner, but not so bloat-inducing that you have to sleep it off. A side of homemade sausage, and a little banana bread, and maybe a mimosa or two might be entirely unnecessary, but certainly didn't hurt.

Crispy polenta with mushrooms and poached eggs

Adapted from The Kitchn. This recipe was originally billed as being gluten-free, which it is, if you dust the polenta rounds with cornstarch instead of flour. If you are afraid of poaching eggs--I was too, before I discovered the method below--you can easily top your polenta with sunny side up eggs. The flexibility of this dish is really wonderful.

(Serves 4) 

For the polenta: 

1 18 oz. tube of cooked polenta 

2 Tbsp. flour, for dusting 

2 Tbsp. canola oil 

For the mushrooms:  

2 Tbsp. butter

1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced thinly (I used baby portabellos)

3 long stalks fresh thyme, leaves only 
2 Tbsp. white wine, vermouth, or water

Salt and pepper

For the poached eggs (see method below):
4 eggs
White vinegar (1/2 Tbsp. per quart of water)
Salt (1 Tbsp. per quart of water)

Garnishes:

Grated cheese (I used Gruyere, but any hard cheese will work)

Thyme springs

To cook the mushrooms, heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter has melted, add the thyme leaves and mushrooms and saute until the mushrooms are slightly brown. Add the wine (or whatever liquid you're using) to the pan and stir. Cook a few minutes, more until the mushrooms are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside. Clean the skillet so you can make the polenta.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Slice the tube of polenta into about 10 1/2-inch thick slices. Using a paper towel, pat each slice dry as thoroughly as you can. Lightly dust both sides of each slice with a sprinkle of flour. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. When it is quite hot but not smoking, carefully lay the polenta slices in the pan. Don't overfill the pan, you can do this in batches, if you need to. Cook the polenta for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, or until crispy. Remove the cooked slices onto a cookie sheet and keep them warm in the oven while you finish.

I recently discovered Harold McGee's method for poaching multiple eggs and it works. Fill a large stockpot with water. For each quart of water, add 1 tablespoon of salt and 1/2 tablespoon of white wine vinegar (I've used apple cider vinegar in a pinch as well). Bring the water to a gentle boil. Small bubbles should reach the surface. Crack each egg, one at a time, into a small bowl or teacup and slowly lower it into the water. The eggs will all sink to the bottom of the pot. Skim off any surface egg white debris. When the eggs are cooked, they will rise to the surface of the water. Mine took about five minutes. Use a slotted spoon to carefully lift them out.

To assemble the dish, serve each person 2 to 3 polenta rounds, and top each one with a generous spoonful of mushrooms, one poached egg, a grating of cheese, and a thyme sprig. Serve immediately.

link-o-rama, super bowl edition

Somehow it's February, and the Super Bowl is this weekend. How did that happen? Chances are, this momentous occasion may have slipped by you too and now you're rushing to throw a last-minute party. So if you're having people over to watch the game, or have been appointed to bring a dish to a party, here are some links for inspiration. As for me, I'm not into football and we're skipping the parties this year, but it's still a good excuse to make a big batch of chipotle peanuts.  

A wide array of Super Bowl snacks (dips, snack mixes, sandwiches, etc.) [via Bon Appetit]   

An all-in-one Super Bowl party planner [via Epicurious]  

Six takes on the chicken wing (and two dips) [via Saveur]  

Make-ahead snacks (black pepper jerky, caramelized onion dip) [via Food & Wine]

Homemade Cheez-Its and if you're a Steelers fan, some Pittsburgh-centric menu ideas [via Good. Food. Stories]  

And from the Dinner Party archives:  
Snacks:
Ham and pickle pinwheels
Salami-wrapped Mean Beans
Sausage rolls
Pimento cheese
Chile-lime peanuts

Main dishes:
E Tyler Lindvall's chili for the people
Butter burgers
BLT pasta

Desserts:
Chocolate peanut butter squares
Peanut butter brownies
Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
Mini frozen Key lime pies

what's for dinner, bitchin' kitchen?

Sometime last fall, I was clicking through the TV channels when I came upon something very, very strange on the Cooking Channel: a tough blonde chick with black nails, tons of jewelry and a Canadian-Italian accent whipping up fried peppers with onion dip. The set was garish, her hair was perfect, and there was a segment by a shirtless bodybuilder named Hans. Bitchin' Kitchen was like no other cooking show I had ever seen, a cross between Guy's Big Bite, Jersey Shore, and Pee Wee's Playhouse. Mystified, I tweeted, "Is this show for real?" and was hit with a barrage of comments from Bitchin' Kitchen loyalists, including the host, Nadia G. (or one of her social media minions), who told me it is about "having a good time and celebrating life with food." Huh. So I kept watching, trying to figure it out. Was it all a big joke? And slowly, like all guilty pleasure TV shows, I fell in love. (And so did my husband, needless to say.) Bitchin' Kitchen is adorable in its own weird way. Nadia runs around her set in towering heels, "schaffing" things into pans while she dishes about in-laws and breakups in a constant array of surprising outfits. There is the occasional music segment, a bit of stand up comedy, and oh, yes, recipes. Things like sex-life saving Shepherd's pie and one-night-stand breakfast. It's silly, it's irreverent, and it's something completely different in the often formulaic world of food television.

Lucky for us, Nadia G. is here today to share her thoughts on dinner parties (and other favorite things like soy pudding and Motorhead). Enjoy!

1. Name, occupation, and city
Nadia G, writer, creator, and hostess of Bitchin' Kitchen, Montreal QC.

2. When was the last time you threw a dinner party, and who was invited?
Over the holidays I threw a big Christmas dinner party for my crew. Our social media ninjas
were there, the TV crew, Panos and Hans, some close friends. I work with people I love, so it didn't have a nerdy "office party" feel. Plus, I whipped up smoked turkey, my pancetta-chestnut stuffing, and lots of mulled wine...tsaketa. You can't go wrong with that.

3. What is the best menu you've ever made for company?
One of my favorites: organic baby arugula and blueberry salad, tossed with a maple-balsamic dressing. A main of gnocchi poutine: crisped homemade potato gnocchi, topped with melted fresh cheese curds, smothered in rich beef gravy. For dessert: milk chocolate and nougat fondue served with candied Seville orange rinds and homemade biscotti bites. (With espresso, of course.)

4. What's your preference: wine, beer, cocktails?
I'm more into wine and cocktails. I'll drink beer occasionally, but much prefer a full-bodied white/amber wine or vodka-rocks.

5. What's your favorite dinner party soundtrack?
Although I love dirty rock 'n' roll, Motorhead can be a bit, umm, aggressive for a dinner party, hehe. I usually opt for La Roux, Santigold, Richard Cheese... Fun stuff that keeps the energy up, and the convo going (aka: audible.)

6. Some friends are coming over for a last-minute dinner. What do you make?
I'd whip up a simple spaghetti aglio-olio, and add whatever is handy: fresh cherry tomatoes, spinach, throw in some feta, a coupla minced olives...

7. Do you usually cook everything yourself, or do you have help?
I pretty much do all the cooking. But I LOVE eating out as well, it's inspiring to see what other chefs are cooking up, it expands the palate (although ditto for the waistline).

8. Do you ever buy store-bought food, or is everything on your table made from scratch?
Most of what I make is from scratch, but there are a few items I buy pre-made: organic stocks, canned beans, jams... and soy chocolate pudding. Not a huge fan of soy milk, but for some reason they sucked me in with the pudding.

9. What do you like to serve for dessert?
My Key lime habanero cheesecake is always a winner. It's light yet creamy, spicy, sweet and tangy...what more could a girl ask for? OK, maybe some Swarovski-encrusted
Louboutins, but I digress..

10. If you could invite anyone over for dinner (living or dead), who would it be?
Chris Farley, Chelsea Handler, and Batali (if he promises to make his calamari with spicy tomato sauce and dried currants). Oh, and Will Ferrell. Definitely Will Ferrell.
[Photo: Courtesy of Bitchin' Kitchen]


For the entire What's For Dinner archives, click here.

link-o-rama

Brrr! It is so cold here in Brooklyn. 

One of the (very few) upsides of winter is that it's perfect for hosting dinner parties. What could be better than spending a long, leisurely evening in someone's warm, candle-lit home, sharing a cozy meal? Sure, you've still got to put on boots and a coat to get there but I think the trade off is usually worth it. Or, if you'd rather pad around in your bare feet, you could play host yourself and invite your friends over to your place. Either way, it's a win-win. Here are a few filling menu ideas perfect for winter entertaining.

18 winter salads (roasted beets with citrus and feta, eggs Benedict salad) [via Bon Appetit]

Creamy baked potato soup [via Smitten Kitchen]

Butternut squash and sweet potato soup [via Bella Eats]

A smart method for slow roast duck [via Food 52]

If you've got some time on your hands, here's a seven-hour leg of lamb [via Saveur]

Hearty vegetarian entrees (carrot mac and cheese, veggie potpies) [via F&W]

Risotto for beginners [via Good. Food. Stories]

Zuni Cafe's chard and onion panade (and some thoughts on dinner party-throwing) [via Wednesday Chef]

pomegranate margaritas

There's nothing like a margarita to make you feel like it's not the dead of winter. There might be piles of dirty snow on the sidewalk and you might be wearing three layers of clothing, but close your eyes, sip your drink, and you could very well be on a beach somewhere. Consume a few margaritas and you'll find yourself shedding those layers.

And when you add a splash of pomegranate juice, it's practically a health drink! Or at the very least, a rosy shade of pink that will, by osmosis, make you feel slightly less pallid.

About that girly hue, I admit I felt a tiny bit embarrassed offering these cocktails to my male guests, who arrived bearing beer. I was all, "Can I interest you fellows in a pomegranate margarita?" And you know what, gender norms be damned! One dude liked them, even asked for seconds. Pomegranate margaritas--the great equalizer. Who knew?

Pomegranate margarita
Adapted from Rosa Mexicano. Pretty please use fresh lime and pomegranate juice, it makes a difference! If you like a more traditionally tart margarita, omit the simple syrup, but I like that tiny bit of sweetness.
(Makes 6 drinks)

12 oz. white tequila
3 oz. Triple Sec
6 oz. lime juice
6 Tbsp. pomegranate juice (I used Pom because the company sent me some samples)
1/2 cup simple syrup
1 lime, thinly sliced, optional
Ice

Chill all of the ingredients before making this drink. In a pitcher, combine the tequila, Triple Sec and juices. Stir until blended. Float the lime slices on top, if desired. Pour into ice-filled glasses and serve.