Dinner Party For Five.
Most of my weekends as of late have been spent in Toronto. This was the first weekend in a while where The Husband and I were both going to be in Boston. And now that I have an awesome communal table in the Boston apartment, we decided it was time to throw a dinner party.
So grown up!
I spent all day cooking. And even made some last minute changes based on ingredients I found in my fridge... Like these black olives and rosemary.
Asparagus with lemon and rosemary.
I originally was going to roast two chickens, both with just lemon. But the black olives I found made it easy to keep things interesting. Both chickens turned out great. Roasting a chicken is one of the easiest things to do.
I found this recipe on Pinterest. You're supposed to serve it with poached eggs over the top. But because it was dinner, I decided to forgo that. It was my first time ever making polenta... So I wanted to focus on making it without lumps, rather than also worrying about poaching five perfect eggs.
Also gathered from Pinterest for this meal was the dessert recipe. I made Salted Lavender Honey Pie.
It required me to make lavender sugar by grinding sugar with lavender buds. It smelled heavenly. And when I served it, I made fresh whipped cream to top it. (The funniest part of the meal was seeing the surprised look on one of my guests as I dumped heavy cream in a bowl and pulled out a whisk. "You're really going to whip it yourself?" he asked.)
Indeed I did.
It was an easy clean-up. And lots of great conversation was happening throughout the meal. I will absolutely be doing one of these again. And my guests brought some fantastic wines to drink.
In fact, one of them brought a great bottle of prosecco... Which I felt obligated to finish after they all had left. I mean, when you have a sparkling wine, it's difficult to preserve it for a later occasion. Once you open it, you kind of have to finish it.
So needless to say... I went to bed very buzzed. But no worries... It made waking up to this even more necessary...
So grown up!
I spent all day cooking. And even made some last minute changes based on ingredients I found in my fridge... Like these black olives and rosemary.
I ended up grinding these into a pesto and rubbing it on one of the two chickens I roasted. I pulled the skin of the chicken back and rubbed this underneath.
And because I had been going on about it all week, I made my Beach Salad recipe...
A big hit! Everyone loved it.
And because it's still in season, everyone loves it and its easy to make...
Asparagus with lemon and rosemary.
I originally was going to roast two chickens, both with just lemon. But the black olives I found made it easy to keep things interesting. Both chickens turned out great. Roasting a chicken is one of the easiest things to do.
And one of my two favorite parts of the meal... The Polenta with Herbs!
I found this recipe on Pinterest. You're supposed to serve it with poached eggs over the top. But because it was dinner, I decided to forgo that. It was my first time ever making polenta... So I wanted to focus on making it without lumps, rather than also worrying about poaching five perfect eggs.
Also gathered from Pinterest for this meal was the dessert recipe. I made Salted Lavender Honey Pie.
It required me to make lavender sugar by grinding sugar with lavender buds. It smelled heavenly. And when I served it, I made fresh whipped cream to top it. (The funniest part of the meal was seeing the surprised look on one of my guests as I dumped heavy cream in a bowl and pulled out a whisk. "You're really going to whip it yourself?" he asked.)
Indeed I did.
It was an easy clean-up. And lots of great conversation was happening throughout the meal. I will absolutely be doing one of these again. And my guests brought some fantastic wines to drink.
In fact, one of them brought a great bottle of prosecco... Which I felt obligated to finish after they all had left. I mean, when you have a sparkling wine, it's difficult to preserve it for a later occasion. Once you open it, you kind of have to finish it.
So needless to say... I went to bed very buzzed. But no worries... It made waking up to this even more necessary...
Leftover polenta and herbs WITH poached eggs! A kick-ass breakfast!
Here are all of the recipes I used:
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