Weekend in the Kitchen

The question is really, what didn't I cook this weekend?

Friday night I spent preparing for a day of festivities on Saturday, assembling/cooking the following:
Goat-Cheese Stuffed Pappardew Peppers (look it up, they're awesome)
Ham & Cream Cheese Pinwheels with dates and scallions
Parmesan Olive Biscuit Poppers
Spinach Dip
White Bean & Rosemary dip
Crack Brownies to Cry For
French Toast Casserole (like bread pudding, only better, because you can justify eating it for breakfast.)

Saturday I played caterer for a friends' B-Day/Housewarming party, so I schlepped myself and all my stuff out to Long Island City. (Truthfully, not very far for all you non-New-Yorkers out there.) Upon arrival I put the casserole in the oven, and commenced to cooking bacon, which raised the question of "second hand pork" and whether it is vegetarian-friendly to even cook bacon in the same room as vegetarians. I then scrambled some eggs with cream cheese and scallions. All was tasty.

After the small brunch crowd left, I set about toasting approximately 384 pita chips. And by "approximately" I mean "exactly," and by "toasting" I mean haphazardly "broiling/baking/and occasionally setting on fire." There are pictures of this on Facebook somewhere if you know the parties involved. The beauty of that situation is when I pulled flaming pita chips out of the oven, none of the three people in the room was freaked out enough to try to put the fire out immediately, insteading all deciding to take pictures first.

Then I attended a wine class with Eva. Mention the words "pinot noir" or "burgundy" to either of us, and you'll probably get a handful of random info spewed at you.

We returned together to LIC for Ben's evening festivities. While waiting for the crowd to show up I cooked more bacon, (just because) and then decided to throw together one more dip (since we did have 384 pita chips to get through) with leftover sausage, cream cheese, and scallions from the morning. And a dash of cocktail sauce, you know, just to make it pink.

And that was only Saturday!

Sunday I took the train out of the city to lovely Beacon, New York, to make cookies with my friends Carrie and Mary. Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter Hershey's Kiss, and Chocolate Oatmeal Cherry Chip cookies happened. As did wine. And a rainstick. (Don't ask.)

Sunday evening I set about making braised short ribs. For those of you who have read/seen "Julie and Julia," the author of that tome has a new book out called "Cleaving," primarily about a 6-month apprenticeship she did at a butcher shop. I can imagine that this book may turn some people off of meat altogether, but for me it just made me want to cook different cuts that I haven't before. So: shortribs. Most of the cooking happens in the oven with little involvement on your part, which freed up my hands for cooking some barley risotto. (Because you need to eat something with your shortribs.)

Since the shortribs require 2 hours in the oven and will therefore be Monday's lunch, I made a couple of soft-boiled eggs.

T-minus 25 minutes until the oven goes off.

xoxo -P