I invited my family over for dinner at my place for the first time since I moved over six years ago on Friday. I have no fantastical reasons like a secret life or loner tendencies for the delay. Simply, my place is rather small and was in serious need of a renovation. The size hasn’t changed, but I love my kitchen now and I wanted to share this new found love with my oldest loves.
As the normal result of time, my family is growing older and thus time together is precious. My dad commented on how as hosts, we were all split between extended family and friends on Thanksgiving, often in different rooms of the house. We resolved then to have an intimate holiday dinner. Since it’s now January, this holiday dinner turned into a birthday dinner for my mom.
I’m a planner (when I have to be), so I searched for the perfect recipes to both appease and impress and started my test kitchen a week and a half before. On the test menu? Bite Sized Baked Brie (Joy the Baker – Love, Love, Love her site btw), Orange-Soy Beef with Asparagus (Woman’s Day), and Mocha Marble Swirl Cheesecake (Woman’s Day).
Hits!
Bite Sized Baked Brie
I love blackberries, so I used blackberry jam. I used a square cookie cutter in the final recipe, but I don’t know if perfect squares are worth wasting some of the puff pastry. These are easy to make, easy to eat, and easily a crowd favorite.
Misses!
Orange-Soy Beef with Asparagus
It’s probably not fair that this made it on the Misses List. I actually liked it, but I decided the orange flavor was a bit strong and might not have widespread family appeal. Plus, I couldn’t get the beef to cook in a way that I found worth sharing. I tried this recipe twice: once with the orange zest and the whole beef slab cooking in a pan and another time without the orange zest and the beef cut into slices. I might retry this one if I had a grill nearby.
Mocha Marble Swirl Cheesecake
It became clear that the measurements in this recipe were off, so I had to supplement the recipe with an almost identical one from another website. The crust was awful and I’ve decided that any crust that doesn’t include some graham cracker or cookie crumbs is a crust not worth eating. Surprisingly the cheesecake itself was good considering it was made with light cream cheese, cottage cheese, and fat free sour cream. The swirl wasn’t enough for me, so I searched for something more decadent (subject for a future post).
Lessons Learned? A week and a half is enough to try some recipes, but not enough to find alternatives should you need some. If like me, you expect to eat all the test food because food isn’t cheap, you need to spread out your test recipes over a few weeks.
eLLe eLLe RAWR 