use real butter

We had our good neighbors over for dinner tonight – finally! These two are great fun. They ate a lot of the food and wine, which makes me happy. I told Jeremy the worst feeling for a hostess is when her guests don’t eat because she miscalculated the menu. I really plan a menu according to who is coming and how all of the dishes, the wine, and the dessert combine to make a complete fête. Which is why if you are picky, a vegetarian, are a complete food unsophisticate, or have various food restrictions – I have to like you an awful lot to invite you to dinner at my house. Forget about vegans, they will be really unhappy in my kitchen.

ceviche salad ingredients (yes, those are heirloom tomatoe$)

adding the dressing

**Jump for more butter**

Ah, we finally got around to inviting Tom and Kellie over for dinner this coming week. Even though they live next door, we rarely bump into one another because 1) we all work real jobs 2) they go fishing in their spare time while we go hiking and 3) when they’re indoors they are recording music while we’re inside dorking out on computers.

So Tom will eat anything, and Kellie is flexitarian (eats fish and chicken). I’m brainstorming menu ideas…

appetizer: grilled coconut lime shrimp
main: grilled wild salmon with fresh dill and lemon
side: deadly mashers
side: edamame
side: wild greens salad with carrot-ginger dressing
dessert: chocolate-espresso crème brûlée

I made lasagne today with some of that awesome organic beef from Paidom Ranch. I like my lasagne loaded with vegetables too – so I mixed spinach with the ricotta, and added onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes to the beef and sauce, then layered sliced zucchini and mushrooms in between.

crunchy baked top

loaded lasagne

While Jeremy snoozed away this morning, I rolled up my sleeves and tackled Boca Negra once again. This time, I was armed with some high altitude adjustment tips. One more egg, 2 tbsp less butter, 1 tbsp more flour and double the water bath time. At least it came out of the cake pan as a solid and not a liquid!

this time i used valrhona dark 70% that i found in atlanta

Beth, Nicole, and Andrew came up for dinner this evening. It was great fun chilling out with them. They are probably some of my closest pals in Boulder. We really enjoy the conversation and their company. So this was my excuse for making the Boca Negra which turned out great, except I’m still looking for a different texture. More dense, more rich, more chocolate… I don’t even want to eat it, I just want to experiment and get the right texture. But, just in case the cake failed miserably, I had a backup plan (always have a plan B). I made crème brûlée. But this time I made it with my new TORCH! Those kitchen butane torches are complete crap (I like Ro’s term – craptacular). It was a gift from my MIL, but they are weak and refill unreliably. So I picked up a real torch from the hardware store and I loooooooove it. I should start metal working to boot.

raspberries and high quality chocolate are a nice marriage

Laura will be thrilled to know that I made a batch of the infamous artichoke dip. The trick is – lots of garlic! For dinner we had grilled marinated flank steak, potatoes au gratin (made with gruyère, not that cheap cheese junk), wild greens salad with jicama, oranges, and toasted almonds, and grilled portabella mushrooms. Every now and again I need to cook a nice meal and entertain or else I start to feel aimless.