Paired well with our turkey meatloaf. Something about the turkey flavor with ketchup highlighted the honey-sweetness and hint of canned peaches in the wine. Now I am drunk.

Nearly one year later… look what I found! It’s a good thing Barry documented our first? really? official Christmas dinner (a very deep fried xmas, December 24th, 2008), cuz it’s all a red wine colored blur to me! But ah, witness the emotional roller coaster that is White Elephant. O the savagery!

yeeah!

Yay! Looking forward to Christmas Extravaganza 2009!

Ginger & Shitake Pork Huevos Rancheros served with a single Quail Egg

Apple Salad

Davey as Julia Child?

Barry hairdo as Julia Child

Jason struts Julia wig

Tan Julia Child

JULIA CHILD, there you are!

So, the first day of fall kicked off on Sept. 22 and despite being, like, 385 degrees outside, I decided to it was a good time to recreate a pumpkin sage cream sauce ravioli dish that Katie had been craving for years and years. Last time I made it, it seemed like a perfect weeknight dinner because it was so simple and you could just use store bought ingredients and still make it taste swell. 

However, I wanted to up the challenge a little and decided to make everything from scratch. So, Tuesday night, I made chicken liver mousse and quince paste for an appetizer, then Wednesday morning, roasted some butternut squash (could not find any pumpkin yet. so much for fall.) and pureed it, made some pasta dough with a little saffron for color, made a ricotta porcini filling, pickled some onions for the mousse, then made some orange blossom panna cotta for dessert.

When I got to Jancy’s, we all set to work cranking out sheets of pasta and filling those babies up. It went surprisingly fast and we slipped them into the boiling water while I whipped up sauce. So easy! Heavy cream, butternut squash puree, chiffonade sage, salt and pepper and soon we were eating.

Oh, and appetizer was chicken liver mousse crostinis with quince puree and pickled onions. And we had roasted broccoli on the side of the pasta. And old fashioned cocktails to imbibe on. So delicious and so drunk.

No pictures of the panna cotta, but jancy made some cookies to go with it that didn’t flatten, so we crushed them and ate them on top and it turned out better than if they had been wafer-like.

oh computers i hate thee

erin was having problems uploading images. something happened to the upload directory setting, i think when we changed servers. all fixed now!

I had a ‘Brooklyn’ which was so me.  Whiskey-like but with a softer touch.  Not sweet but not harsh. (Buourbon or Rye with DRY VERMOUTH, AMER, MARSCHINO)

The flower tortilla was very good.  Though not as different as you may expect, very very hardy and gorgeous looking.  We had the (chile pasilla relleno  PICKLED MILD CHILE, BURRATA CHEESE, SERVED CHILLED), cordorniz cubana  GRILLED QUAIL, BLACK BEANS, pato al vino  DUCK CONFIT, RIOJA REDUCTION, CASCABEL CHILE, and for dessert — estudio en flan  THREE DIFFERENT STYLES OF THE CLASSIC DESSERT, WITH THREE COMPLEMENTARY SAUCES.

The barrata, always a favorite food item, was solid, not as soft as I prefer it but with the chile relleno, slightly sweet, textured and cheesy in that mozzerlla kind of way.  My other favorite was the quail.  Cooked perfectly and soft, it was placed ontop of oyster mushrooms which was a nice delight as I LOVE mushrooms and it wasn’t listed on the menu.  The duck was solid, a little salty but i definitely wiped up the plate.  Thought I maybe bias, the flan really won me over.  It made me realize how creative the chef is in the way he made these three flavors.  I’ve never had flan such as this, one extremely creamy but with the four sauces to compliment, it was perfect and refreshing.  The middle, though the most traditional and non-unique solid and flavorful.  The last, the most rich was the closest to my heart.  YUM.  It was love at first touch.

Here are some photos I found online as I didn’t realize I didn’t save the photos I saved on my cell.  Enjoy and I hope we can all go together and try the food together.  I know I’m down to try the pork, mole, the cod, spanish creme brulee…and the jamón ibérico!