Another Saturday Night Dinner Party Menu

Am I a sucker for punishment or not? Nope. Like to cook and like to repay social occasions and nice things others have done for us. For the first time since late October, some fairly serious snow lies on the ground. What could beat a hearty meal?

Mushroom Crostini  Epicurious Recipe
Endive with red pepper salsa Yet another Epicurious recipe

Boeuf Bourgignon Similiar to my recipe, but not identical
Buttered Noodles
Green Beans with walnuts

Mocha Rum Cake  Epicurious yet again
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream Food Network's Alton Brown

I used to take the mushroom crostini to summer parties in Easthampton. We had such fun doing communal cooking at our friends' summer place. Times sadly long past.

The endive is a new recipe, with its many veggies a substitution for salad. I am making the beef burgundy today, because it will be better warmed up. The cake contains no milk or cream but copious quantities of chocolate and butter. Needs to "age" a couple days.

When you select recipes for a party, by all means pick entrees, desserts and appetizers that can (and should) be made ahead of time. All I have to do tomorrow is cook the beans and noodles and assemble the appetizers. More time for table setting and last minute cleaning.

The home office is starting to look almost orderly. Well, it should with hundreds of pounds of paper sent off to the dump.

Back to the kitchen for a spell with the Boeuf Bourgignon. Maybe a few swigs of the burgundy while I cook? Nope, too early. Besides I have to make the ice cream and cook the mushroom part of the mushroom crostini. The ice cream came from the food channel web site a couple days ago. It helps to read the thoughtful recipe comments. And look at the stars. 
Happy cooking to me.

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Googling Around

So I've wasted about 4 hours today with Google, doing research for the California book, and trying to find out where the Harvey Houses across New Mexico were located and figuring out where my heroine would be for breakfast and what they might serve.

Menus are scarcer than hen's teeth, but I saw some fantastic southerwestern architecture and I suppose I am getting a feel for train travel across the U.S. in the 1920's and the allure of the Harvey Houses.

In the meantime I found a really cool blog, "if the creek don't rise" and had some other ideas, so maybe nothing is lost except the words I might have written and still could write.

S.O. is dozing on the couch down here in the home office. We have a comfy old down sofa and a Danish rocker that's been rebuilt and reupholstered a gazillion times. Sofa was an old down-filled Dunbar so old it had a curved back. Also rebuilt and recovered multiple times. The old area rug from the late lamented Marshall Field is fraying mightily, but everywhere I look I see something interesting or beautiful or old or sentimental, so the room is really cool with his and hers areas and lots of book cases and music and what else could you want? We keep a bottle of Amontillado (not a cask) down here with the funky little glasses.

When S.O. finishes his nap, we're off to feed the cows. Yesterday the poor things had nothing to eat and the snow is really too deep to forage in. I don't know what happened to the hay, but we have some plastic bags of cow food, mostly bread and fruit and veggy scraps. I think we waste almost no food around here.

Tonight we're going bar hopping around Foxborough Stadium to check out the scene before tomorrow's big game. The movie Volver came from Netflix, and there's more Broccoli/ham casserold to nosh on, and a huge mass of challah bread pudding (see previous post).

Now if I could just get down to writing.


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