Saturday, March 15, 2008

Gnocchi

Well tonight I decided to make gnocchi. Don't know what got into me. I even made a loaf of Irish Soda bread and a loaf of the 18 hour bread.

Gnocchi basically translates to dumpling or little pillow. It is made with potato and flour and then boiled for a short time.

You can use an array of sauces to accompany it. I chose to make a brown butter sage sauce.





Below is the beginning of the sauce. You cook the sauce over medium but you have to watch it or it will quickly burn.


Once you boil the gnocchi you remove it from the water and put into the sauce and toss it.


It was a wonderful dish :)

Sunday, March 09, 2008

My new love - 18 hour no knead bread



So I have fallen in love with this new bread...well not new per se but new to me.




It's called 18 Hour No Knead Bread. But don't let the name fool you, it actually takes about 20 hours for the rising and then another 40-50 minutes to bake it. Here's the recipe and a couple of pictures of two loaves I made.





And loaf number two I did in a french loaf pan -



It's a really a fun bread and the variations of it are going thru my mind. I plan to make a couple more loaves next weekend and add some herbs. I'll keep you posted :)

Sunday, March 02, 2008

My Parents 50th Anniversary Party

Well the day started out cold and drizzly and unfortunately that didn't change. But it sure beats what we are having today which is very high winds.

I was literally cooking up to 3:45 and the party started at 4pm. But we planned on serving the food at 4:45 so I was good. Lucky for me I live about 9 houses away from my sisters house.

On Friday I had prepped a lot of food. My poor fridge was stuffed.


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For the meatballs I decied to make a marinara sauce and serve crisyp mini garlic crostini's.



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Then it was time for the meatballs.

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I also did sweet and spicy shrimp and holy cow they went fast.

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I also did several cheese trays, with hard cheese, brie and medium cheese. Also 8 lbs of red and green grapes were trimmed for service.

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I think on that table you can also see the stuffed cherry tomaotes and deviled egges.



We also had meat trays and were just starting to put out the chicken teriyaki skewers and meatballs.



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But at the every end the whole family paused for the cameras.

We had such a wonderful time and so many friends came and said some really special things about my folks. Some flew down from up north other came from Virgina and Texas.



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Left to right - My daughter Laura, myself, hubby Derek behind me, my father and my mother, next to her is my sister Shannon and her husband Chris and in front of them their two boys, Trevor and Jacob.And today...well today is clean up...and I think I'm gonna order out