Sunday Salons are all about throwing fun, elegant dinner parties on a budget.  When we started our weekly (!!) dinner parties last summer, Elena and I decided that we had to lay down some ground rules before we got carried away. 

The Rules

-   $100 limit, that means everything, including cocktails

-    if guests bring wine, they have a $13 limit and a story for why they chose that wine

-    everything (mostly) needs to be homemade (that includes pasta, baby!)

-    the fruits and vegetables need to be in season (and preferably from Kellie’s garden)

-    Elena invites 2 people, Kellie invites 2 people and they cannot know each other

So, those are the rules, and here is last Sunday’s menu:

Cocktail

Cherub’s Cup (recipe in a previous blog)

Apps

Cheese Straws with truffle cheese and chives

French Breakfast radishes with bread, homemade butter, and sea salt

Main

Grilled Hearts of Romaine Salad

Roasted Broccoli with orange and rosemary

Caramelized Onion Bread Pudding

Herb Roasted Pork Loin

Dessert

Beet Ice Cream with chocolate sauce and icebox butter cookies

The strawberries for the Cherub’s Cup cocktail, the French Breakfast Radishes, the beets for the ice cream and all of the herbs used in each dish came from my garden, as did the roses for the table.  In fact, because they were gorgeous and shouldn’t be wasted, I put the beet tops in a crystal pitcher and placed it in the dining room.  Our only big expense was (and usually is) the protein at $19.37.  We also splurged on the truffle cheese, which was $4.68.

We literally spent $99, and I have the receipts to prove it!  

After a long hiatus, the Sunday Salon is back in action.  Elena and I cooked up a lovely feast to celebrate her graduation from law school.  I was so excited to be back to Sunday Salon, that I thought I would whip up a little of Thomas Keller’s beet ice cream. No big deal, right?  Uh, wrong.

Maybe I’m a bit rusty because this beet ice cream… beat me.  

It took me about 2 ½ hours to struggle through the recipe’s components.  And the straining… oy, was there straining!  But once all was said and done, I had this gorgeous, delicious ice cream.  Seriously, the color is out of this world, perhaps even prettier than beets themselves.  And, as an added bonus, I used beets grown in my garden.  I think Chef Keller would be proud.

Red Beet Ice Cream

2 lbs (910 g) Red Beets, peeled & quartered

2 c (475 ml) Heavy Cream

2 c (475 ml) Milk

3/4 c (150 g) Sugar

8 Lrg. Egg Yolks

Put the beets through a vegetable juicer, reserving the pulp; yields about 2 c of juice. Put the juice in a saucepan and reduce over low heat, skimming as necessary, to about 1/4 cup. Strain the liquid, cover, and place in the fridge.

In a saucepan, combine the reserved beet pulp with the cream and milk. Bring to a simmer, cover, and remove from the heat for 30 min.

Strain the milk, cream and pulp mixture and measure out 3 cups (discard any extra.) Return mixture to the saucepan, add half the sugar and bring to a simmer, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until they have thickened slightly and lightened in color. Gradually whisk about 1/3 of the hot liquid into the yolks to temper them. Return the mixture to the saucepan and heat, stirring until the custard has thickened and coats the back of a spoon. Pour the custard into a bowl set in an ice bath and cool.

Strain the cooled custard into a container, cover, and refrigerate for a few hours, until cold, or overnight.

Stir the reduced beet juice into the custard and freeze in an ice cream machine for about 30 minutes. Remove the ice cream to a covered container and store in the freezer for at least 2 hours.

This is the amazing dessert we made for our last Sunday Salon. It’s a mixed berry pavlova, and we found the recipe in Ina Garten’s “Barefoot Contessa At Home.”

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of using a food mill (one of Ina Garten’s fave kitchen gadgets), this video will…er, sort of, demonstrate.

We were woefully unprepared for this week’s Sunday Salon.  Generally we plan our menu a week in advance and do much of our prep work at least a day ahead.  This time everything was planned the morning of the dinner.  So, in order not to disappoint our hungry guests, we turned to Ina Garten, otherwise known as the Barefoot Contessa, for advice.  No, we don’t actually know Ina, we just turned to her cookbooks, which kinda feels like she’s here with us, guiding our every slice and dice.  

Menu
Pan Fried Onion Dip with Carrots and Cucumbers
Fresh Figs with Asiago Cheese

Fresh Tomato Soup with Parmesan Toasts
Roasted Vegetables with Orzo
Sauteed Swiss Chard *

Mixed Berry Pavlova

We chose to make Ina’s tomato soup because there is a bit of a tomato epidemic at Kellie’s house.  The recipe calls for 4 pounds of tomatoes, which only made the tiniest dent in Sunday’s tomato harvest.  We made minor alterations to Ina’s fantastic recipe. 

Fresh Tomato Soup

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ cups chopped onions
3 medium sized carrots, unpeeled and chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
4 lbs fresh tomatoes, mixed variety, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon agave 
1 tablespoon tomato paste
¼ cup packed chopped fresh basil leaves
1 ½ cups chicken stock
1 ½ cups vegetable stock
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper
¾ cup heavy cream

- heat olive oil in a pot over medium-low heat; add onions and carrots and sauté until tender (about 10 minutes); mix in the garlic and cook for about 1 minute

- stir in the tomatoes, agave, tomato paste, basil, stocks, salt and pepper; bring to a boil then lower heat and simmer for about 35 minutes, until the tomatoes are tender

- add the cream to the soup then process through a food mill, discarding the leftover dry pulp

- reheat over slowly over low heat, serve hot 

* In the interest of full disclosure, Alice Waters did chime in with the recipe for Swiss chard, which we will share on a later post.

© Kellie Martin, 2010

Kellie and I went to the Grease Singalong at the Hollywood Bowl with a bunch of girlfriends and took a bunch of prepared salads from a local restaurant with us.  One of them was beluga lentils, beets, and goat cheese, and we decided to attempt to recreate it.

We didn’t have beluga lentils on hand, but had some lentils du Puy (the hard dark green French kind), so substituted those.  We made it vegetarian for our dinner guests, but a little bacon thrown in for good measure certainly wouldn’t hurt.  (Don’t tell Kellie I said that!)

First, roast the beets (use 4 small/medium, or 3 large beets for this recipe).  I put the beets in a Pyrex baking dish with about 1/4-inch of water in the bottom, covered it with foil, and put them in a 350-degree oven for about 40 minutes (until a sharp knife easily pierces through the beet).  Then I let them cool, removed the skins, and chopped them in a 1/2-inch dice.  (However, if you have another favorite way to roast beets, feel free to do that!)

Meanwhile, you can cook the lentils. 

Lentils:

1 fresh or dried bay leaf

4 sprigs fresh thyme

4 cups vegetable stock

1 1/2 cups dried French green lentils

Salt and freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced

Sherry Vinaigrette, recipe follows

3 oz. goat cheese, put in the freezer for 30 minutes

Tie the bay leaf and thyme sprigs in some cheesecloth.  Put them in a pot with the vegetable stock and bring it to a rolling boil.  Add the lentils and season with pepper. (You probably don’t need salt unless you’re using low-sodium vegetable stock.) Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the lentils are tender (approximately 20 minutes).  Drain well (do not rinse), and discard the cheesecloth bundle.  If for some reason your lentils absorb all the liquid before they are tender enough, add a cup of boiling water to the pot. 

Meanwhile, heat 2 TB oil over medium heat and cook the carrots until very soft, stirring occasionally (5-10 minutes, depending on how small you cut the pieces).  Lower the heat if they start to brown. 

Cut the goat cheese into 1/2-inch cubes while the carrots cook.  Add the goat cheese and cooked carrots to the lentil mixture, along with the chopped beets and stir gently to mix them.

Make the vinaigrette by mixing together the following ingredients with a whisk: 1/4 cup sherry vinegar, 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard, 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper.  Then whisk in 1/2 cup olive oil until emulsified. 

Dress the lentil mixture with the vinaigrette.  Taste for seasoning and add additional salt, pepper, olive oil, or sherry vinegar, to taste.  Serve warm or at room temperature. (We served ours at room temperature and it was such a hit that Keith polished off the remainder out of the serving bowl in the kitchen before we served dessert!!)

© Kellie Martin, 2010

If you are a regular reader of the Sunday Salon, you might recall that Kellie had found herself in Corn Hell.  Not a fun place to be.  Well, after consulting with her cohort, Elena, they rightly decided to toss the nasty soup and try again before guests arrived for the dinner party.  Turns out, good move.

Who happened to come to the rescue?  Alice Waters, herself.  Well, not really herself… not really Alice Waters… Actually, her fantastically simple recipe for corn soup.  

It’s from The Art of Simple Food, and it makes 4 servings.

Sweet Corn Soup

4 tablespoons butter
1 onion, diced
salt
5 ears corn, shucked and cut from cobs
1 quart water 

-  melt butter in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat
-  stir in onion and cook until translucent, about 15 minutes
-  add salt to taste
-  then add corn and cook for 2-3 minutes
-  sir in water, cover and bring to a boil; lower heat and simmer until corn is tender (about 5 minutes)
-  puree in small batches in a blender or in the pot with an immersion blender
-  strain through a strainer to remove tough skins
-  adjust seasoning

We topped with a dollop of sour cream mixed with a squeeze of lemon juice and fresh chopped chives.  Thank you for rescuing us from Corn Hell, Alice.

© Kellie Martin, 2010

I’m in corn hell.  More later.

This may not be the best endorsement for the delicious sangria we made last night, or on the other hand, it may be a ringing endorsement:  Kellie is hungover.  Yes, it’s true. Last night’s Sunday Salon was a wingdinger.

It all started with the inspired idea to make paella, and thus our Spanish adventure begins.  Neither Elena nor Kellie had ever made paella, which presented the first challenge.  Then there was the issue of making paella on an $80 budget… for 10 people (what?!!).  We’re sad but not ashamed to say that we went a tad overbudget. Paella generally contains 9 different types of protein, but ours had chicken, mussels, shrimp and chorizo.  It was plenty and so so bueno.
Sangria seemed the next logical step.  Isn’t it always?  Here’s how you too can experience Kellie’s sangria hangover:

2 oranges, 1 juiced and the other sliced

½ lemon, sliced

3 tablespoons fine sugar

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice 

¼ cup Grand Marnier

¼ cup brandy

1 cup fresh blackberries

1 bottle inexpensive red wine (we used merlot)

1 (750 ml) bottle sparkling water

- place the orange slices, lemon slices and sugar into a large pitcher and with a wooden spoon gently mash together

- add orange and lime juice, Grand Marnier, brandy, blackberries and red wine

- chill mixture in refrigerator for at least 2 and up to 8 hours

- add sparkling water just before serving

Kellie recommends that you enjoy this festive beverage in moderation.  

Salud!

Can I photograph the smell of this HOMEMADE bread?!