Project Food Blog Challenge #3: Host a Luxury Dinner Party

So, don't get too excited -- I didn't actually make it to the third round of Project Food Blog. (Let's face it, when this thing started I had five loyal readers; so as far as popularity contests go, I'm not quite there yet.) But, I do want to send a shout-out to all those who voted for me -- thank you! And, on the positive side, I did get a lot of great exposure for the blog, and I also added another eight readers (welcome!) -- so that's definitely a good thing. Anyway, because Foodbuzz wasn't set to announce who advanced to the next round until Friday at 12p Pacific time, the next challenge's post would have to be up by 3p Pacific time on Sunday, and I was heading out of town for a wedding, I decided that I would take on challenge three just in case I made it to the next round. So, on Monday I pulled together a guest list and then worked through some ideas for a menu.

Though my original thought was to celebrate the flavors of Wyoming (e.g., bison or beef), I decided that since (a) I am not the resident grillmaster, nor have either of use ever grilled bison meat, (b) bison meat (especially choice cuts) can be quite expensive, and (c) bison meat is not easily accessible in this town, I opted to feature salmon as the main dish instead. I briefly considered going with my standard mustard-roasted salmon with lingonberries entree, but opted to branch out instead and try a new recipe. (Something that is quite a no-no when hosting a dinner party, I think -- always nice to know that a recipe tastes good and/or works before foisting it upon unsuspecting dinner guests!)

Since the challenge instructed bloggers to introduce their guests to "exotic flavors," I scoured the Internet and came up with this Food & Wine recipe for pomegranate-glazed salmon. I followed this recipe pretty much to the T, though I decreased the salmon portions from eight fillets to six and subbed in extra lemon juice for lime juice in the marinade. Also, since Laramie isn't home to a Middle Eastern grocery store, I had to make my own pomegranate molasses; I used this Alton Brown recipe. It took me about two hours of simmering on low (compared to Alton's suggested 70 minutes) to get the sauce to thicken to the right consistency.

As to the rest of the menu, I opted to start the meal with an appetizer platter with hummus, pita wedges, and fresh veggies. The meal itself included a organic baby spinach and arugula salad with bosc pears and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing (shown above), green beans with pine nuts in a shallot-butter sauce, butternut squash served over pearled couscous, and the aforementioned salmon.

The original plan for dessert was to serve individual molten mocha chocolate cakes, but right before I was about to make the batter I happened to double-check my ramekin situation, and found that I only had three ramekins of the right size, when I needed six. Time for Plan B! Since I had some apples on hand (the salad was originally going to feature both pears and apples), I decided to throw together a quick apple crisp to serve with vanilla bean ice cream. Not exactly the sophisticated dessert I was going for, but it definitely worked in a pinch.

As to the dinner party itself, I think it turned out better than expected. I ended up not figuring out my timing well (again, a result of making all of these recipes for the first time that evening), and we ended up sitting for dinner about 30 minutes later than I had planned. All of my guests were extremely gracious however, and did not seem to mind the wait for food.

Admittedly, I can count on one hand the number of dinner parties I have hosted, and this one brings up the grand total to two. The dining room set you see in the pictures here was my first "Big Girl" purchase that I made when I was living in Chicago. Prior to my move to Wyoming, I invited my best friends over for a little dinner party shindig (which featured the afore-mentioned mustard-roasted salmon with lingonberries recipe!) to make use of the lovely table (bought from Carson Pirie Scott, which no longer exists in downtown Chicago).

I am shy by nature, so hosting a dinner party is a bit nerve-wracking for me, and I was queasy all day long just thinking about all that I needed to accomplish in order to end the evening with happy guests. I made numerous trips to the grocery store during the day, remembering at the last minute one more ingredient that I had neglected to purchase during the previous shopping trip. I spent some time early in the morning prepping a few ingredients, including the pomegranate molasses, the salmon marinade, and the salad dressing. Everything else was started around 4 p.m. I think the major learning lesson from this challenge was twofold: (1) Use tried-and-true recipes (thankfully, all of my dishes turned out well, but I could have greatly diminished my stress level by practicing the recipes beforehand instead of making my guests the guinea pigs) and (2) Stay organized -- having all the ingredients on hand at the beginning would have significantly decreased my needing to return to the grocery store seemingly every other hour.

In the end, given that my guests said they would gladly welcome another invite, I think the dinner party was a success. (Thanks for coming!)

Project Food Blog Challenge #2: The Classics - Saag Paneer

The second challenge for Project Food Blog is to tackle a classic dish from another culture. I chose to make saag paneer (also called palak paneer), a classic vegetarian dish from northern India. I have to confess that I tried to make Indian cuisine (mutter paneer) from scratch once before. Suffice it to say that it didn't go too well, as I scorched the milk when making the paneer and the gravy was way too watery and hardly the creamy and flavorful sauce I'm used to eating at my favorite Indian restaurant in Fort Collins. Giving Indian cuisine another go is most definitely an attempt at redemption after that abysmal failure.

Upon researching recipes for saag paneer, the unifying theme seemed to be that there isn't one agreed-upon recipe for this dish. In the end, I chose to meld together a recipe from one of the cookbooks I had on hand (1,000 Vegetarian Recipes) and recipes found online to make my final dish. In addition, this YouTube video was indispensable in helping me to visualize what the recipe would look like as I prepared it.

I opted to make the paneer (cottage cheese) from scratch. However, if you are lucky enough to have an Indian or international grocery store in town, you should be able to pick up pre-packaged paneer. If you'd rather make a vegan version of this dish (or, say, your homemade paneer turns into a mushy, oil-spitting disaster at the frying stage), you can substitute extra firm tofu, cut into cubes and dry-fried.

Since one of my favorite sayings is "Go Big, or Go Home," I also decided to make some naan from scratch as well. The results were not quite the same as what you'd find in an Indian restaurant, but also not too shabby for my first attempt, either. In the end, my (second) foray into Indian cuisine was definitely more successful than my first attempt, and I used a number of spices that I hadn't used before -- all in all, I'd call it a success. And hopefully this time I won't let another year pass before I cook Indian cuisine at home again!

Saag Paneer (printer-friendly version)

makes 4-6 servings

2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon garam masala

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

4 tablespoons ghee, divided (see instructions below)

1 can organic diced tomatoes, pureed

20 oz fresh organic spinach, stems removed and chopped

1 1/2 cups freshly-made paneer (see recipe below)

1. Mince the ginger and garlic cloves. Place both in a small bowl and use the back of a spoon to create a paste. Set aside.

2. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Blanch the de-stemmed spinach leaves in the boiling water (I did about three batches) for about 30 seconds. After removing the spinach from the boiling water, place in a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Use a potato masher to squeeze out most of the liquid from the spinach leaves. Place the drained spinach leaves on a cutting board and roughly chop. Set aside.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons ghee over medium-high heat in a medium-sized skillet. Fry the paneer until golden brown (about 5 minutes). Remove from the heat, and place the paneer cubes on a paper towel to drain off any excess oil.

4. Add 2 tablespoons ghee to a medium-sized saucepan and heat over medium-high heat.

5. Add in the ground coriander, whole cumin seeds, garam masala, paprika, and ground turmeric. Cook until fragrant, stirring frequently. Stir in the tomato puree and ginger-garlic puree. Next, stir in the spinach and paneer. Cook for another 5 minutes, or until heated through.

6. Serve with basmati rice.

For the ghee:

makes ~8 tablespoons

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter

1. Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-low heat.

2. Once the butter has melted, turn up the heat slightly and bring the butter to a boil. Continue cooking until the butter stops sizzling and brown solids have formed.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and let butter sit for at least 10 minutes.

4. Pour the liquid butter through a sieve to remove the milk solids.

For the paneer:

makes about 1 cup of cheese

8 cups organic whole milk (be sure that it is not ultra-pasteurized)

100 mL lemon juice (about 2 lemons-worth)

1. Bring the milk to a boil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir while heating to prevent the milk from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

2. Stir in the lemon juice until curds form. Remove from the heat.

3. Line a colander with cheesecloth. Pour the milk mixture through the cheesecloth to capture the curds.

4. Gather up the ends of the cheesecloth to form a ball. Squeeze out any excess moisture.

5. Tie the corners of the cheesecloth around the sink faucet or onto a wooden spoon placed over a bowl to drain off the excess liquid. (I did not use a long enough piece of cheesecloth, so I used a rubberband to tie up the ends of the cheesecloth and another rubberband to attach the cheesecloth pouch of cheese to the sink faucet.)

6. Let the paneer drain for at least an hour.

7. Compress the cheese by placing it underneath a heavy item (such as a cookbook) for 15 minutes or more. Cut into cubes for immediate use, or store in water in a lidded container in the refrigerator for up to week.

For the naan:

makes 10 pieces

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 cups plain organic low-fat yogurt

1. Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl.

2. Stir in the yogurt.

3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly-floured surface and knead the dough for about five minutes, or until it softens and becomes smooth and elastic.

4. Form the dough into a ball and place into a lightly-oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp tea-towel and place in an oven set to warm. Let rest for an hour.

5. Divide the dough into 10 different balls. Roll out each ball one at a time into a rounded disk.

6. Place a heavy baking sheet on the top rack of your oven and turn on the broil setting.

7. Carefully place a flattened dough disk onto the heated baking sheet. Watch closely and remove once the dough has begun to bubble and lightly brown in spots, about 1-2 minutes.

8. Remove from the oven, brush with ghee, and serve immediately.

Project Food Blog

Foodbuzz, for whom I am a featured publisher, is sponsoring a contest called Project Food Blog in which nearly 2,000 food bloggers are "competing in a series of culinary blogging challenges for the chance to advance and a shot at the ultimate prize -- $10,000 and a special feature on Foodbuzz.com for one year." Sounds like a pretty tasty reward to me! For the first challenge, bloggers are asked to write a post about "what defines you as a food blogger and why should you be the next food blog star."

My New Year's Resolution for 2010 was to eat fewer processed foods. For January, I made it a goal to not eat any processed foods at all (or in the very least, eat foods that were only minimally-processed) -- as the months have passed I have become a little more lenient in what I eat, but the goal remains the same -- to reduce the amount of processed foods in my diet and increase the number of natural ingredients that I use and eat each day. I decided to start my blog as a way to keep track of what I was eating and hold myself accountable to my resolution.

Here's my first post about my plan here:

Saying Goodbye to Processed Foods

I was a (lacto-ovo) vegetarian for about a decade. In the past few years, I have slowly (and conscientiously) added meat back into my diet. To learn more about my thoughts on eating meat, check out this post here:

Meat Week

Monday through Friday I post an article about a recent meal I've eaten -- either one I've eaten at a restaurant or one I've made from scratch (or nearly from scratch!). Here are a few of my favorite posts:

What's For Breakfast: Eggs Florentine

What's For Lunch: Veggie-Stuffed Pita

What's For Dinner (or Breakfast!): Waffles with Vanilla Sauce

What's For Dinner: Enchiladas

What's For Dinner: Individual Crustless Broccoli Pepperjack Quiche with Mixed Greens

What's Baking: Mom's Banana Nut Bread

What's Baking: Apple-Pear Pie

What's For Dessert: Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Local food, farmers markets, organic, free-range, and sustainable farming practices are just a few of the buzzwords floating around the foodie world these days. As it happens, these are all very important things that I take into consideration when deciding what to buy at the grocery store or what to order at a restaurant. As a food blogger, my hope is that I can make eating fewer processed foods a goal that can be easily attainable by any of my readers by showing what works for me, through the ingredients and tools I use and recipes I make. Thanks for visiting!