A Trip Down Anniversary Lane

Justin and I got married a year ago yesterday! In honor of the most amazing day, full of family, friends…and food, a look back at the wedding menu created by our amazing caterer, J&L.

All photos by the wonderful Susan Ryan Photography. Please do not reproduce without permission.

Appetizers

These were passed around in the lobby of the Notebaert Nature Museum during cocktail hour.

Grilled Jumbo Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce

Rice Paper Baskets with Seared Tuna, Avocado and Japanese Pickled Ginger

Not pictured: Miniature Scallion Corncakes with Prosciutto, Crème Fraiche and Chive; Herbed Crepe Bundles with Lemon Asparagus Mousse; Miniature Pizza Wedges with Spinach, Caramelized Onions and Shiitake Mushrooms.

First Course

Out on the patio: Trio of Chilled Soups served with Parmesan Bread Stick

Behind the scenes: Chef Kevin Kelly plating a LOT of soup

Left to Right: Mint Infused Spring Pea with Drizzle of Paprika Oil, Gingered Carrot garnished with Crème Fraiche, Chive Vichyssoise garnished with Crispy Leek

Second Course

Salad of Mesclun, Red Oak Leaf Lettuce and Watercress with Spring Asparagus, Roasted Red and Yellow Beet, Crumbled Goat Cheese, and Lemon Tarragon Vinaigrette

Mmm, bread.

Entree Options

Served with mini truffle scented twice-baked potatoes and market veggies.

Roasted Salmon Roulade with Caramelized Leeks & Roasted Peppers, Stone Ground Mustard Veloute

Sliced Peppercorn Crusted Grilled Beef Tenderloin served with Red Wine and Balsamic Reduction

Crispy Pan Seared Risotto Cake with Sliced Wild Mushroom & Red Wine Reduction...and kiddie meal

Dessert

Created by Maggie Roeder Cakes (but, we didn’t actually have a cake!).

Cupcakes! Square: Mocha Chocolate Dipped in Ganache. Round: Almond with White Chocolate Buttercream and Chocolate Flower

Late-night friandise: Chocolate Ganache Tarts with Gold Dusted Ganache Filled Raspberries, Prickly Pear Pate De Fruit, Lemon Mousse Tarts with Lemon Candy Garnish, Cream Puffs Filled with Peanut Butter Buttercream and Dipped in Chocolate, Espresso Truffles, Apricot Linzor Bars, 3 Ginger Cookies, Meringue Sandwich Cookies Filled with Preserves

Petite sweets for a little sugar kick on the dance floor!

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Around the World in a Week – Day 7: Italy

For the last night in our international cuisine challenge, we headed back to more familiar cooking territory: Italian food. Rather than pasta, though, I was in the mood for seafood, and found a recipe for pesce all’acqua pazza in Marcella Hazan’s “Marcella Cucina.”

I liked how Hazan’s recipe intro noted that she was at first turned off by the name of the dish, because I almost passed it up too – Fish in Crazy Water? But I was intrigued by the simplicity of the ingredient list for the sauce: tomatoes, water, garlic, parsley, red chili pepper, olive oil, and salt. I wasn’t expecting anything too exciting, especially after I cut open my apparently ripe tomatoes to reveal disappointingly light pink insides. So, I added a squirt of tomato paste to bump up the color and flavor, and hoped for the best.

We weren’t disappointed – after simmering for over 45 minutes, the ingredients married perfectly into a beautifully rich, flavorful sauce for our rockfish (a good alternative to the called-for red snapper, which is on the seafood watch list to avoid). Even Justin, who prefers meatier, oilier fish, said that this was his favorite dish of the week! I think it didn’t hurt that I served it with his favorite garlicky new potatoes… 🙂

One of the lessons from our experience this week is to not be afraid to get creative: we had no red chilies in house, so I substituted a spoonful of leftover piri piri sauce from the other night. Stay tuned for other thoughts about our international challenge!

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Around the World in a Week – Day 6: Africa

Off to Africa for our sixth night of international cooking! Though one of my all-time favorite cuisines is Ethiopian, I didn’t quite feel up to the challenge of making injera. Nevertheless, we stuck to sub-Saharan East Africa to create sweet potato patties served with mixed greens and mung bean sprouts. The recipe is from a vegetarian cookbook called “World Food Cafe 2” by Chris and Carolyn Caldicott.

The patties are actually a mixture of sweet and white potatoes, onion, red pepper, and fresh corn, flavored with an array of spices including cumin, cinnamon, cloves, turmeric, cayenne peppers, and fresh ginger and cilantro (the recipe also calls for ground cardamom, but at around $15 for a tiny jar, we skipped it!). After frying in sunflower oil, they had a scrumptious flavor similar to some Indian pakoras I’ve had the pleasure to consume. The accompanying piri piri, a chili-based sauce used throughout Africa, added just the right kick of heat – and we have plenty left over to use as a future marinade. Tip: ALWAYS wear gloves when handling hot chilies!

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Around the World in a Week – Day 5: Spain

Ah, Spain. Land of tapas: plates small enough that you can try a million different dishes in one sitting. Well, maybe not a million. Last night we opted for a more realistic count of three.

With my sister as a third chef in the kitchen, she, J, and I each chose a recipe from the “Tapas Deck” by José Andrés. No need to make a grocery list – just take the individual cards with you to the store! It’s said that tapas originated when Spanish sherry drinkers came up with the ingenious idea of keeping fruit flies out of their glasses by covering them with tiny plates bearing snacks. While we didn’t need to cover our drinks last night with small dishes, we did enjoy plating our creations on larger platters.

Justin’s Roasted Vidalia Onions with Cabrales Cheese

This dish initially stalled a bit as the onions didn’t brown as expected (we think it may have had something to do with the type of baking dish we used), but they came out  deliciously soft and sweet regardless, topped with creamy cheese crumbles, pine nuts, and chopped chives. Note: rather than make the extra trip to the Whole Foods cheese counter, we used the recommended substitution of gorgonzola.

Rachel’s White Mushrooms with Garlic and Parsley

This is the perfect dish for mushroom lovers (which all three of us are): a simple saute with olive oil, garlic, fresh thyme, and sherry, finished just as simply with salt, white pepper, and chopped parsley. The recipe notes that this preparation is common in Logroño, the capital of the northern Spanish province of La Rioja.

Lily’s Crab-Filled Cherry Tomatoes

The most complex dish of the evening is probably also the most appropriate for summer given its minimal cooking time. The tomatoes are quickly blanched and skinned, then stuffed with lump crab meat which has been dressed with mustard, mayo, parsley, olive oil, sherry vinegar, and crushed toasted nuts. For a finishing touch, a sprinkling of hard-boiled eggs added a pretty yellow color to the plate. While the tomatoes are small, they are quite rich and pack a good punch of flavor.

We rounded out the meal with a mixed green salad and bread, and some good family chat time. The three of us have been to Spain together before, and I think we’ll be cooking tapas together again!

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Around the World in a Week – Day 4: China

After our labor-intensive Indian meal, we were eager to prepare something a tad easier for our fourth day around the world. Simple but delicious? We knew we need look no further than Mark Bittman. He’s well-known for his New York Times column “The Minimalist,”  which showcases his signature straightforward cooking style. He also has the cojones to write cookbooks with names like “How to Cook Everything” and “The Best Recipes in the World.” It was the latter in which we found a variation on beef lo mein which had on the table in about 15 minutes: saute Chinese chives and shiitake mushrooms until browned…add garlic, ginger, soy sauce, a little water, and cooked lo mein noodles…toss, and serve!

For such little effort, we were rewarded with big flavors. The satisfyingly chewy noodles provided the perfect stage for the mild onion taste of the Chinese chives (about two feet long before you chop them) and the subtle meatiness of the mushrooms. Bittman notes that this is a traditional dish at weddings and New Year’s parties, but the ease of preparation has earned it a place in our repertoire for much more humble occasions!

Almost as good as the meal itself was the trip to the Asian market for ingredients. I spent much longer there than necessary, taking in the giant sacks of rice and aisles full of fragrant spices and produce. The candy section made me feel like a little kid, and I couldn’t resist bringing home some chocolate “burgers” for dessert!

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Around the World in a Week – Day 3: India

I think my love affair with Indian food started in college. My friends and I ate it about once a week, most commonly in the form of a Sunday morning buffet at our favorite restaurant following a late night out. We still laugh about how we would wait outside for the doors to open, and once at our table would order saag paneer in addition to the many all-you-can eat dishes on offer.

I had always wondered about how to recreate the complex flavors of Indian cuisine at home. In one of our few attempts many years ago, this involved grinding MANY different spices with a mortar and pestle. But when I recently took an Indian cooking class with my mom, I discovered another magic ingredient: ghee, or clarified butter. Our instructor had a large jar on hand and kept adding bright yellow scoops to seemingly all the dishes he was teaching us to make, resulting in an incredibly rich and creamy texture.

In our third (and most ambitious) night of world cooking, two of the three recipes called for the use of ghee as the cooking fat. Unfortunately, even a special trip to a market on Devon Avenue didn’t turn up the jarred version. I could have made my own by simmering unsalted butter until the moisture evaporates and the milk solids settle to the bottom, then spooning off the cooked butter…but I chickened out. The dishes were already complex enough without attempting a new technique, so I used the recommended substitution of vegetable oil. Next time!

All of last night’s recipes came from Julie Sahni’s “Classic Indian Cooking.” This is a really well-written cookbook, and I especially like how Sahni provides ideas for accompaniments for each dish. Using these suggestions, we prepared masala jheengari (shrimp laced with mild spices) served with gobhi sabzi (glazed cauliflower with ginger) and hari chutney ka pullao (mint pilaf).

Sahni notes that masala jheengari is the most widely eaten shellfish dish in India, and I can see why. The shrimp are first heated through in turmeric-spiced water, and the cooking liquid then forms the base of the sumptuous sauce consisting of onions, cumin, ground coriander, paprika, yogurt, salt, green chilies, and ground roasted white poppy seeds (I couldn’t find these at the store, so substituted sesame). After reducing to a thick gravy, the shrimp are added back in along with a swirl of heavy cream and some chopped fresh cilantro. The mouth-watering intensity of the finished entree was perfectly complemented by the more subtle flavors of the stir-fried cauliflower and rice studded with potatoes and infused with a mint and coconut puree.

Our Indian meal. Tip: When making basmati rice, factor an additional 30 minutes into your prep time to allow the grains to soak.

All in all (and despite a false start with the shrimp sauce in which I burned the onions and had to start over!), preparing this meal gave me more confidence with cooking Indian food, and I’m looking forward to creating some of our traditional take-out items at home (some favorites: butter chicken, samosas, malai kofta, and my old friend saag paneer!).

Because these recipes yielded a lot of food, we’ll be enjoying the leftovers tonight…but check back soon for our next international meal!

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Around the World in a Week – Day 2: The Middle East

I love Middle Eastern food, but I have to admit my attempts to cook it at home haven’t extended too far beyond falafel! Last night, we branched out to a main dish and dessert from two different cookbooks.

Up first, we prepared mihshi malfuf (cabbage rolls), a dish native to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The recipe comes from “Middle Eastern Home Cooking” by Tess Mallos, a beautiful cookbook with full-color photographs of each dish. We opted for the vegetarian filling, a mixture of fried scallions, rice, chickpeas, parsley, tomatoes and olive oil seasoned with allspice, salt, and pepper. The stuffed rolls are drizzled with a garlicky mint sauce, then simmered in water for 45 minutes to allow the rice to cook. Served with yogurt and warm pita bread, the finished product was quite tasty, but the flavors didn’t have the “wow” factor necessary to justify the intensive prep and cooking time, not to mention the 30 minutes the rolls had to rest before eating! Maybe we’ll try the meat filling if we make this meal again?

For dessert, we had burnt honey ice cream from Greg and Lucy Malouf’s “Artichoke to Za’atar: Modern Middle Eastern Food.” We were intrigued by the technique of caramelizing honey to the point that it becomes slightly bitter, then adding it to a custard base and letting the ice cream machine work its magic. The result was very rich, with an intriguing flavor that we weren’t sure about at first, but turned out to be very “more-ish” (my mom’s term for when you can’t stop eating something). The ice cream is pictured here topped with almonds and lingonberries (I know, not Middle Eastern at all! But a nice tart antidote to the richness).

Off to the grocery store…what country will we be visiting tonight?

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Around the World in a Week – Day 1: France

Every household has its go-to recipes. In mine, it’s a rare week that goes by without seeing a burrito or a bowl of pasta on the table. While we love these tried and true meals, J and I have decided to challenge ourselves to try a new recipe each day for 7 days. It would be easy to scan the internet for ideas, but we plan to search exclusively within our wonderful but underused collection of cookbooks. With so many different cuisines to explore, we’re going to try a different one each day!

My parents are currently vacationing in France, so in their honor (or, let’s be honest, out of jealousy), we decided to start our world tour last night with a meal from France. For a muggy summer evening, we thought a light meal would be perfect, and we found what we were looking for in a recipe for la salade de roquette, asperges, et Parmesan de Ladurée from Patricia Wells’ “The Paris Cookbook.”

In the recipe introduction, Wells notes that she sampled this salad during a day at Ladurée, the famous French pastry shop (coincidentally known for inventing the modern macaron!). The fairly simple preparation of arugula tossed in a red wine vinaigrette and topped with asparagus, shaved Parmesan cheese, and a poached egg yielded fantastic flavor. Served with a baguette and a glass of rosé, la belle France set the bar high for our first day! Stay tuned for tonight’s recipe…

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A Pinch of Vintage

When J and I got married, we marveled at the change in our kitchen collection. Suddenly, we had a full set of plates and more than two matching wine glasses!  While we’re thrilled to finally be fully stocked with these beautiful basics, we still love to mix it up with funky items like colorful bowls or diner-style coffee mugs. It’s also fun to contrast the modern feel of our registry items with vintage kitchenware. For example:

This old scale was a gift from my mom. We have a digital one for when we need better accuracy, but we like having this one on display.

We fell in love with this spice rack at an antique market in Georgia. They provide a great pop of color on our sideboard, and double as a bookend for our cookbook collection! After painstakingly scrubbing off the glue from their old labels, I made my own using transparent stickers so it almost looks like the spice names are printed right on the jars.

Can you tell I like white opaque glass? I got these dainty coffee cups from my college roommate’s online vintage store, Octavia & Brown.

She has a great eye for all kinds of old-school tableware, from cordial glasses ($30) to salt and pepper shakers ($20). Check out her website or take a look around your local antique store – you never know what you’ll find!

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Tasty Trend: Macarons

News flash: there’s a new dessert trend on the scene! That’s right, foodies are taking to macarons like a tween girl to Justin Bieber. These tiny meringue sandwiches originated in France and are traditionally made with almond flour, though the overall flavor of the cookie and the filling (from buttercream to jam) can come in a huge variety of choices. Note: the macarons described here are very different from coconut macaroons.

Macarons

Macaroons

I had been noticing these treats popping up in food world discussions, and was happily able to taste them myself courtesy of fiancees Tom and Kate, who received a beautiful boxful as a gift and were generous enough to pass it around after their engagement party in L.A. After selecting and savoring just one mint-chocolate version, I was hooked enough to seek out macarons back home in Chicago.

I found them at Floriole ($1.50 might seem like a lot as they’re so small, but trust me, it’s worth it), where they come in 3 flavors. I would highly recommend the chocolate, which is filled with a divinely rich ganache. Luckily, if you’re seeking these chewy/creamy sweets elsewhere, you have a good shot at pretty much any artisan bakery. So the next time you’re looking for something to take to a dinner party, consider skipping the chocolates and impress your hosts with the latest must-have dessert before another delectable fad comes along!

Photo by Floriole Bakery

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