something old, something new

I wheeled out a couple of familiar recipes last night and tried a few new ones. Mixed success, in my brutally honest opinion, but a fine dinner overall.

Speaking of old and new, that was the mix at our kitchen table. Conrad and I have each been with the Smelts 10+ years. Brad and Matt are at about a year apiece. We have a great group of younger swimmers on the team these days, and it was a nice opportunity to get to know both of them a little better. The dinner started from a Facebook post by Brad when he was visiting a particular winery in California, Merry Edwards. I commented that Conrad loved the Pinot Noir from that winery, and Brad said he had picked up a bottle to share. I suggested he bring it for dinner, he agreed and invited Matt along to fill out the table nicely. A vegetarian meal to fit Brad's diet, and some good wine to enjoy. Oh, plus team gossip, of course!

Unusually for me, I did not force everyone out of the kitchen while I cooked. Conrad opened a bottle of Champagne for the four of us (why not celebrate anything we could?), and they munched on cheese, quince paste, crackers, olives, nuts, and caper berries. Me? I finished off a batch of rice cooked with the liquid drained from black beans I'd cooked up. Then I turned my attention to empanadas. Ah yes, fried food. Mmmmmm. A fine recipe, and one you've seen from me before.

I had roasted two types of mushroom (trumpet and hen-of-the-woods) and chopped those up. To them I added some cooked diced potato, charred garlic, diced goat milk gouda, and some chopped rehydrated red chile. This became the filling for the empanadas. While we chatted, I was pressing the dough and folding it closed around the mushroom mixture. A lighter set of flavours - a little earthy, but not too deep and rich - to go with the Pinot, or so I hoped.

But I'll be honest, I could have done better with the empanadas. The oil wasn't hot enough at first, and the slow cooking let the first several I made open up as they cooked. Grrrr. The last several were better, I'm glad to say, but it was a bit embarrassing to have kitchen mistakes on full view. Brad and Matt were very indulgent of them, thankfully.

I served the empanadas with the rice (which also was a bit less good than I would have liked, though I think the leftovers will go nicely with eggs and a chile sauce of some sort - it's been a long time since last I made that recipe, but I used to love it in the days back at the restaurant), red chard, and a sauce I'd made using dried red chiles, onion, charred garlic, dried mushrooms, and tomato. It turned out well, I think, a happy experiment.

And so we dined.

And the wine, I should add, was delicious.

After dinner, we remained in the kitchen. Matt had brought a Washington Cab blend, and we slowly sipped our way through that. Conrad helped tidy a bit, and I started on dessert. Here's where the new recipes came in, and frankly, I thought they were pretty darn good. I had made hazelnut shortbreads from Emily Luchetti's truly wonderful Stars Desserts cookbook (my hardcover edition needs rebinding badly) earlier in the afternoon. I also made a batch of hazelnut ice cream from a recipe I found online. It was well worth skinning all those nuts, I tell you. The nut flavour was subtle, and it would be understandable to think that the ice cream was a good, rich vanilla. There are a lot of leftovers of it, though, and I may find myself tempted in days ahead.

I went with hazelnut, though, because I think its a great complement to plums. The plum season will soon end, and I will be sorry to see it over. For snacking or for cooking, plums are a wonderful fruit, after all. I used 9 prune plums last night in making the showstopper: souffles.

There I was, in the kitchen, mixer running at high speed as I whipped up egg whites and sugar. I folded them in batches into a strained plum puree. Three ingredients, that was it. The mix then went into prepared ramekins and into the oven. A short time after that, Brad started getting excited, asking if I had made baked Alaska. He knew that I had made ice cream, and he thought that egg whites plus ice cream logically meant that classic dessert. Nope, sorry Brad. His excitement was cute, though. My own excitement came with the rising of the souffles. I had plates ready with a scoop of ice cream (for adding into the hot, sweet-tart souffle) and a couple of cookies. The souffles came out of the oven, a nice brown on top, pink around the sides. Onto the plates, onto the table, and delighted reactions all around (including from me). This was one of the best desserts I've done in ages - a little forethought on what to make and how to present it, a willingness to take a small risk.

We ate it all up, full as we were, and settled into contented conversation once the plates were clean.