Fall Dinner Party

Komi-style dates stuffed with mascarpone and Greek yogurt
Butternut squash soup with creme fraiche and chives
Cheddar-bacon-green onion souffles with salad
Roast pork tenderloin with apples and onions, roasted red potatoes with thyme, green beans
Pear-ginger strudel with ginger custard sauce

Guests: Nicole, Sullins and Brian

The dates were awesome. I bought maybe half a pound and could have used twice that. I may go buy some more to use up the extra filling. Beth found a great finishing salt at Williams-Sonoma with nice flat flakes that made the perfect sprinkle.

Creme fraiche is very nice in the soup. Sour cream works, but it's nice to spring for the extra creaminess.

The souffle recipe made what seemed like an awful lot of cheese base. I made a recipe and a half, expecting eight people, but the five of us ate half of that (so 3/4 of a batch) quite comfortably. Of course, that was as one course among many, so the larger serving might be better if it's the main event. The souffles did not rise to quite the towering heights I had hoped for, but I was a bit rushed so I may not have whipped the egg whites quite long enough. For individual souffles I kept the temp at 375 but dropped the cook time to 20 minutes.

Iron Chef Throwdown!

THE MENU
First Course - Battle Avocado
Beer-battered fried avocados with shrimp, scallop, crab, and snapper ceviche (me)
v.
Seared sea scallop with guacamole salad and jalapeño pesto (Jay)

Second Course - Battle Duck
Coffee-cardamom grilled duck breast in fig-balsamic sauce with pear-onion potato hash and grilled broccolini (me)
v.
Award-winning duck gumbo with fried boudin balls (Jay)

Dessert - Battle Chocolate
Cappuccino fudge cheesecake in chocolate sauce (me)
v.
Duo of bread puddings with sweet cherry sauce and crème anglaise (Jay)

The beer batter needs a little work - it didn't coat as thickly as I'd like. I used 1 cup flour, 1 cup cornmeal, 2 cups Shiner, salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne, set for two hours.

The fig balsamic sauce was a great success. Equal parts fig preserves and balsamic vinegar simmered on low until reduced by half, then an equal amount of duck stock added and simmered until reduced by half again. Chicken stock would probably be fine for other applications, but the duck stock made a significant difference in flavor.

For the duck breasts I used this recipe with the marinade from this one. The spice notes were a lovely enhancement without overpowering either the fig sauce or the flavor of the duck itself.

I should get Jay's recipe/experiment with jalapeño pesto. It had a nice burn without being overpowering and is tasty on all kinds of things. I mixed it with some mayo to eat on the leftover boudin balls, and it's awesome.

Summer Dinner Party

Prosciutto-melon skewers: in the future, wrap the melon cubes with ham separately rather than weaving the ham through several cubes on a skewer. It'll be easier to eat that way.
Summer squash soup with mint-parsley pesto
Stuffed baked branzino with lemon-caper sauce, greek salad, rosemary foccacia, green onion and pine nut couscous
Strawberry tiramisu: even though the epicurious comments are full of people whining that the original instructions have too much Cointreau, ignore them. Those commenters are pussies.