February 2, 2014 Dinner Party for Cynthia, Ricardo, Dick and Nora

February 2, 2014 Dinner Party for Cynthia, Ricardo, Dick and Nora

We got up and after a bit of work and discussing the menu for the dinner party tonight at 11:00 we went to Sprouts to buy ingredients.  We had decided to make pork confit, and a pasta dish and serve boiled artichokes as an appetizer.  So I found our pork confit recipe in a November 2012 blog and around 10:00 we thawed and diced two pork tenderloins and marinated them in fresh and dried thyme and fresh rosemary and garlic and salt and pepper corns and five or six cloves of fresh chopped garlic and a bit of olive oil because the meat needed to marinate for 6 to 7 hours.

Here is the recipe:

Suzette started the Pork Confit by crushing in a mortar 2 Tbsp. coarse sea salt, 1 Tbsp. Black pepper, two leaves of bay laurel, and three sprigs of fresh thyme and about 1 Tbsp of dried thyme and 2 Tbsp. of fresh chopped rosemary leaves.  I then put the spice mixture in a gallon Ziploc freezer bag and added two pounds of boneless pork tenderloin cubed in 1 inch cubes and tossed the pork with the herbs and let it sit in the fridge for 6 to 7 hours.

Then Suzette and I transferred the pork and spice combination  to a covered enamel casserole and added enough olive oil to the casserole to cover the meat, about 1 ½ cups to 2 cups.  Then we brought the casseroles to a boil and then put them into a 225˚ oven and cooked them for 2 ½ hours

END OF RECIPE

I suggested orzo, so I fetched a 1 lb. bag of that and then we left for Sprouts.  Sprouts was crowded; I guess with lots of folks shopping for Super Bowl stuff.  We gravitated to the olive bar first and filled a small container with roasted herbed tomatoes and filled another small container with pickled golden cherry peppers.  I bought two red bell peppers (2 for $1.00), three large slicing tomatoes ($.88/lb.), and four pounds of fresh asparagus ($1.48/lb.).  We also bought a lb. of crab claw meat for $8.99 and a lb. of sea scallops for $6.99/lb.  Suzette was making up the pasta dish on the fly and she bought a bunch of lovely fresh arugula.  When she saw fresh stalks of rhubarb ($2.49/lb.) and strawberries were $2.50 for a quart, she decided to make a rhubarb and strawberry compote and serve it with ice cream for dessert.  I bought a 6 oz. plastic box of blackberries for $1.25 and several other items like lemons and onions and a half gallon of Blue Bell brown label vanilla ice cream ($6.99).

When we arrived at home, I boiled two artichokes I had bought at Sprouts last week (2 for $3.00).

At 4:00 Suzette began cooking the pork by putting it in a large Le Crueset casserole and covering it with olive oil and putting the casserole into a 225˚ oven for 2 hours.

I made the sauce for the artichokes.  I squeezed the juice of ½ lemon into a bowl and added ½ cup of prepared mayonnaise and added salt and chopped up several sprigs of fresh oregano and added that and a dash of Sleman’s olive oil.

Suzette then made the rhubarb and strawberry compote. She chopped the three stalks (about 1 lb.) of rhubarb into pieces and put them into a large sauce pan with about 10 to 12 de-stemmed large strawberries with about 2 Tbsp. of water and ½ cup of sugar and cooked them until they collapsed into a bright red compote.   

Suzette decided to bake the asparagus in the oven with the pork, so I snapped the ends off the stalks of two bunches of asparagus and she oiled them and put them  into a ceramic baking dish and put them into the oven.  She looked at them after about 30 minutes and they were still hard, but when Cynthia, Ricardo, Nora and Dick arrived she started talking with Nora and Cynthia and eating artichokes stopped monitoring their progress and they over cooked and collapsed, but it was a good idea.

We cut eh artichokes in half and removed the hairy core covering the heart and put the sauce into a bowl and served the artichokes and sauce on our new appetizer platter.

Then we started a pot of water boiling for the orzo and I chopped the Italian golden peppers and roasted tomatoes into bite size pieces and Suzette chopped up an onion and she then sautéed the peppers, onion and tomatoes in a large skillet.  While I showed Nora and Dick and Ricardo the art in the house, Suzette and Cynthia ate artichokes and cooked.

When the orzo was cooked, she drained the orzo and added it to the pepper, tomato and onion mixture to it tossed it with about 2/3 of the bunch of arugula in the skillet and we removed the confit and asparagus from the oven and we were ready to eat. 

I had chilled a 2009 Antonini Cerese Grillo from Sicily (Indicaxione Geografica Typica, which I assume mens from a specific region) and a Gruet champagne.  Dick and Nora and Cynthia and Ricardo arrived around 6:00, bringing several bottles including a Freizenet Spanish Cava Spumante from Sant Sadurni d’ Anoia, Spain that Dick and Nora brought from Maine.

Suzette wanted a light red so I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of 2011 Castillo de Monséran Garnacha from the Cariñena denominación de origen region in Aragon near Zaragoza, Spain that someone had brought to the Christmas Open House.   I also brought up two bottles of Lionello Marchesi estate bottled 2010 Castello de Monastero Chianti Superiore (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita).

 I opened the 2011 Castillo de Monséran and it was a big full bodied fruit forward grenache.  I also opened the Grillo white and poured Nora a glass.  The grillo was a medium bodied delicate wine that I and Suzette found very pleasant.  Dick removed the corkscrew puller from the bottle I had gotten it stuck in by turning the bottle off the corkscrew and I realized in a flash that Dick was very smart and how the electric corkscrew worked.  It has a stationary corkscrew and a rotating side that turns the bottle up and down the corkscrew.   Free at last.

When Suzette called us to the table for dinner, she had put the orzo mixture in a large bowl and the pork confit in another.  The asparagus were served in their ceramic baking dish.   We had a lovely dinner catching up on folks we had met in Maine and talking about Dick and Nora’s trip (they are driving a camper to California to visit their kids and grand-children).  Their next stop is the Grand Canyon, with their final destination being near Eureka, California.  We also discussed their newly acquired apartment on the Costa Sol near Malaga, Spain and traveling around southern Spain.

The dining room table set with the red and white French tablecloth and napkins and French chandelier with the two candelabras with their six candles looked great and made a good impression.  Suzette noted that the color of the table cloth and the fabric covering the dining room chairs was almost identical.

After we had eaten and drunk the main course, we served the rhubarb-strawberry compote and vanilla ice cream with the Freizenet Spumante.  I loved the Spumante.  It was light and not as sweet as I would have imagined and it had that dry cava flavor, rather than the French Chardonnay and Pinot Noir taste.  I liked it a lot.

The rhubarb strawberry compote was still bright red and deliciously fresh and not very sweet either.  My impression was one of fresh fruit and it was particularly delicious with the creamy vanilla ice cream with its little flecks of vanilla bean.    

I thought dinner was terrific.  It was simple fresh food cooked in a pleasing manner.  The pork confit was particularly good.  It melted in your mouth and the extra bit of olive oil on the meat mixed nicely with the orzo mixture.  Dick commented that he liked dishes like the orzo that include ingredients that are pickled in vinegar, such as the pickled golden peppers in this dish.  He made a good point.  The orzo was deceptively complex because it contained roasted tomatoes marinated in herbs and olive oil, pickled Italian sweet peppers and fresh arugula that gave the dish a fresh vegetable flavor but with an edge of bitterness.  Hooray, finally the fresh Spring vegetables are starting to come in. 

   

After dinner I offered them glasses of liquor and Dick selected a black thick Sambuco because he liked licorice.  I also poured Ricardo a glass of Suzette’s European juniper berry infused vodka.

At around 10:00 Cynthia and Ricardo started nodding off because they were exhausted from preparing, cooking for and hosting their marriage reception that went until 2:00 in the morning the night before.   We said goodnight at 10:15. 

Bon Appétit