Sunday, March 2, 2008

Saturday Evening with Great Friends

Last evening Peter and I had several friends over to spend some time with Jun, a friend who now lives in NYC. Everyone had a great time and the kids (OK, and the adults) were up way past their bed time.

The food was excellent as always, we do have some great cooks in this group. Unfortunately I did not take photos of everything.....I need to get better about that. But we had beef and cheese roll ups, spinach & artichoke dip, white pizza dip, mac & cheese, and ham & cheese tarts. Delicious!


For this gathering I tested out two recipe's out of my new cookbook Baking Illustrated.


Classic Oatmeal raisin.




Personally I am not a big fan of Oatmeal Raisin (especially the raisin part) however these looked great and the recipe was thorough and easy to follow. They were gobbled up pretty fast and the boys even got into the secret stash with extras that I had in the pantry.


Thick & Chewy Double Chocolate Cookies





Now this one is more up my ally. These cookies are boarder line sinful!! Moist and chewy they are almost brownie like. Also, the chocolate flavor is spot on. This recipe was again very thorough and I am really enjoying the notes before every recipe in this book, it helps to ensure the recipe turns out well every time. This one was a bit more difficult to put together, several steps are involved and then the dough has to rest for 30 minutes before baking.


I also put together an antipasto platter with all sorts of treats. Prosciutto, Salami, Olives, etc. The cheese was an Irish Cheddar with Porter and was surprisingly tasty, although not as appealing to the eye. I also made an herbed goat cheese from the Dinner Party's magazine I picked up last weekend which also turned out well.






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