Halloween Dinner Party

I am a HUGE Halloween nut. As a kid, I loved trick-or-treating and eating from my huge bucket of candy every day after school, all year long. But it wasn't until I went to college that I started craving a fun, sophisticated Halloween experience. You see, I went to a small university where the students just weren't interested in the spooky holiday. I almost went trick-or-treating for UNICEF once, but I sprained my ankle and was sidelined indefinitely. When I moved to New York, I was so excited to watch the annual village parade and attend parties thrown by friends and acquaintances, and I had a great time doing so. Just over two years ago, though, after being a devoted Martha fan for a few years, I began to crave a slightly different Halloween experience: the dinner party. This year was our third annual Halloween party and I think I have finally come up with a magic formula. To throw a successful, but still small, bash you need:

• A spooky but sophisticated ambiance

• Several courses of tricky treats

• A grand dessert finale

• And of course, required costumes!

Before delving into recipes, I'd like to say a little something about the meaning of the holiday. Although the day has roots in several cultures and religions (Roman Parentalia and feast of Pomona, Celtic Calan Gaeaf, Mexico's Day of the Dead, and All Saint's Day, amongst others), I believe that it's current meaning is more secular and philosphical.

You see, I hate all things scary. Horror movies, frightening practical jokes, any potentially dangerous situation, and above all, the dreaded nightmare. I prefer to be safe, secure, and away from all that stuff. So, why then, do I love this spooky and scary day? I finally get the chance to mock and tease all of the things that I am afraid of! I find it really empowering. I'll admit that I still tend to focus on fictional frights (goblins, ghosts, vampires and zombies) rather than the grotesque and possible (psych units gone awry and anything slasher), but I still feel satisfied and relieved by the end of the frightful night.

This year, I opted to place a menu with silly, spooky names at each place setting. This was a huge hit at the party and guests loved to look back and forth between their plates and the menu in order to figure out which tricky dish they were eating at the time. My favorite recipes from our 2010 Halloween Dinner Party:

Eyes of Newt Salad with Cockroaches Combine fresh baby spinach leaves with cubed apples or pears, and candied pecans. Top the salad off with peeled concord grapes. Served with my signature Spiced Sesame Salad Dressing.

Sauteed Broken Bones with wild fungus in a garlic creme sauce. This recipe was adapted from a ricotta gnocci from The New York Times. I sauteed an assortment of mushrooms in olive oil with fresh sage and tossed with the "broken bones" before serving. I can't wait to make this again, and maybe with a butternut squash sage sauce (for semi homemade recipe, cartoned soup would work nicely).

Goblin Claws Roasted artichokes, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with breadcrumbs. Roast at 425 degrees until the outer leaves are golden and fanning outward, while the bottom of the stem is easily pierced with a fork.

Jack O'Lantern Brulee I combined Emeril Lagasse's pumpkin custard with Martha Stewart's candied pumpkin. This was one of the biggest hits of the whole night and I hope to be able to make it again for Thanksgiving! Guests loved being able to eat the shell.

Throughout this post, you've found a few photos from this year's bash. I'd also like to show you some of my favorite photos from Halloweens past:

Red Velvet Skull with marshmallow fluff icing

Red Velvet Zombie
with Cranberry Sauce, Twizzlers and White Chocolate Covered Figs

Pear Skull Pops with butterscotch and white & milk chocolate
Meringue Bones dusted with cocoa powder Witches Fingers

Homemade Candy Corn Boozy Chocolate Fig PumpkinsHard-Boiled Eyeballs with guacamole
I hope you had a happy Halloween!

Food Photography

Because I have taken so many photos over the years of foods that I or others have made, I thought it would be fun to upload them all here in a slideshow. Enjoy!

Planning Ahead: A Veggie Thanksgiving

I was perusing the New York Times food section this morning and stumbled upon a fantastic post about veggie thanksgiving recipes! I felt a little giddy at first, amazed at all of these fantastic recipes and pretty excited about starting to plan Thanksgiving with my mom. Then I realized that this is actually a collage of recipes from an array of amazing articles on various food sensitivities, restrictions and diets. My favorite recipes out of the bunch?

Harvest-Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms

Gordon Maybury's
Baked Kataifi-Wraped Goat Cheese

Chloe Coscarelli’s
Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Toasted Hazelnuts

Silvana Nardone’s
Gluten-Free Apple-Pecan Cornbread Stuffing

Garden Vegetable Gratin

Skillet Macaroni and Broccoli and Mushrooms and Cheese

All of these photographs are property of The New York Times.

If you like the above recipes, check out these articles as well: Vegetarian Comfort Food at Thanksgiving, Joan Nathan's Jewish-French Thanksgiving, A Gluten Free Thanksgiving, Dr. Weil’s Simple Roasted Root Vegetables, A Vegan Chef Dishes Up Thanksgiving, Food Festival Cuisine for Thanksgiving, and Giving Thanks for Vegetables, Not Turkey,

Happy Eating!

Family Dinners Past: Nacho Night & Pizza/Soup

Because I've been busy the past few weeks and only now really given the chance to catch up on all of my posts and organize photos, I thought it would be a good time to bring up some photos of family dinners past.

A couple weeks ago I was watching tv on a saturday night and someone had the gall to say the word "nachos"! Just like my 3 year old nephew, J, at the slight mention of the words "cookie" or "treat", my ears perked up, my pupils widened and I knew that I simply must have nachos--and soon! It was just my luck that our pantry was running low on Mexican meal ingredients, so I made a quick run to the store and came up with this delicious treat:

I scoured the market for the lowest calorie tortilla chips available (by weight, of course) and eventually chose a bag of the scoop variety. I added some Amy's Refried Black Beans, my absolute favorite, sliced black olives, a blend of shredded "Mexican" cheeses from Shop Rite, a dash of chipotle seasoning, some jarred, spicy tortilla sauce and last, but definitely not least a huge pour of chilie powder (those little black and red speckles you see in the photos add so much delicious flavor without overwhelming the palate with too much spice--highly recommended!). I microwaved the dish for 1.5 minutes. My craving was satiated and I was a very happy camper.

One night that same week, I didn't know what to serve for dinner and hadn't really thought much about it until 6 or 7pm when Doni came home from work. We had some leftover apple/potato soup from the previous shabbat dinner, though the flavor was getting a little too mild. So I chopped up some honeycrisp apples for sweetness, tart and texture and put a handful in my and D's soup bowls. I topped off the soup with some veggie bacon bits and chopped chives and suddenly the too-mild soup was teeming with flavor:


Because few things make me happier than pizza, I grabbed some small pitas from the fridge, turned them into a slight garlic bread with olive oil, garlic and spices, added cheddar cheese (what we happened to have in the fridge) and some veggie pepperoni. I baked the pizzas at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes--just wait until the cheese is bubbly. I really thought that the pitas would dry out, but I was pleasantly surprised. This really easy recipe might be one of my favorite pizzas out there. Who knew?

Tip: The key to working with veggie pepperoni is brushing the tops of each one with a touch of olive oil, or spraying them with nonstick cooking spray. If you skip this key step, the pepperoni dries out a bit and doesn't have it's full potential of flavor.

Two very easy & delicious (semi?) homemade dinners that would make our new governor's girlfriend very proud. Bon appetit!

Shabbat This Week: A 5 Course Menu

I won't lie, I'm super excited about shabbat this week because for the first time in so long I am hosting a shabbat dinner! Granted, it's a small one, but I'm very happy to get off my lazy bum and actually have some people over.

I just got off the phone with my good friend Joanie and together we created what I think will be a really fun and delicious menu. I'll post photos of the foods if I can before I light the candles tomorrow evening. Here's my menu:


Shabbat Dinner:

Course 1: Challah and hummus
Course 2: Apple/Potato Soup
Course 3: Kale salad, corn salad
Course 4: Individual Mock Chicken Pot Pies, Roasted Butternut Squash, Green Beans with Almonds, Rice
Course 5: Poached Pears in a Red Wine Glaze with Candied Pecans and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Off to the grocery store!

All the Sweet Stuff: Root Beer's Birthday!

It turns out that yesterday was the birthday of the modern root beer float! I hate to admit how long it's been since I've indulged in one. Granny--my mom's mom--used to make them for us on long, hot summer days in Dallas when I was a child. The frothy, sweet and cold beverage (or is it a dessert?) has such a unique flavor--it's like Proustian madeleine transporting me back to Granny's table.

With great respect for the classic soda shop treat, Doni and I had a taste test tonight. We used diet root beer, hoping it would cancel out the ice cream calories. That was a bad idea--it tasted like a root beer float, sure, but it wasn't rich enough and it didn't invoke the magic memories that the right flavor should. So I highly recommend ditching the diet and doing it right.

We also sampled plain vanilla ice cream and chocolate chip vanilla, both Edys Slow Churned. Doni preferred vanilla, but I loved the chocolate chip. I like the texture that it added to the ice cream and the way it just barely dissolved into the soda and left a slight chocolate after-taste. Here's a photo of my chocolate chip root beer float:


Any other interesting root beer float flavors out there?

Adaptations: Lauren's Bachelorette Weekend

Back in June, one of my close friends, Lauren, got married. It was a gorgeous and fun wedding. As a bridesmaid, one of my most important duties was organizing her bachelorette weekend extravaganza. I'll give you three guesses as to what I spent my time on.

Okay, so I designed the invitations...but I'm talking about food. Two dishes were my favorite of the weekend and real crowd-pleasers. Below you'll find the recipes and lots of comments for Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas and Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles. You might notice a heart-shaped theme here. That was one of a few themes we played with over the course of the weekend, but we won't go there...


Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas
Dairy

Inspiration for this recipe came from an art therapy conference I attended last November in Dallas. I stayed at the Fairmont Hotel and because the conference took place entirely there, I didn't have much time for food options. Because it was in Dallas (my home state, mind you), the veggie options were few and far between--except for the hotel bar. The Pyramid offered an amazing pizza. It was a thin crust, crispy and warm delight. Instead of tomato sauce, they used a fig jam. Layered on top of the jam were leaves of baby spinach and baby arugula. In addition to shredded mozzarella, the restaurant used Feta and shredded Parmesan. I'm not ashamed to say that I had at least one pizza a day during my stay.

When I make this at home, I follow the above description pretty closely. Because this time I was cooking at Lauren's family beach house, though, I had to make a few adjustments. The grocery store didn't have fig jam or fresh figs, so I improvised with standard white pizza base and dried figs. It was also too time consuming to make the pizza crust dough from scratch and I didn't have access to Whole Foods for my trusted frozen dough, so I used Pillsbury's refrigerated dough instead. I happened to end up with some extra pizza crust dough, so Stephanie R--my handy co-bridesmaid sous chef--and I braided it to make three loaves of challah, as you'll see in the photo below.


Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas

1 pkg Pillsbury refrigerated pizza crust dough
8 Tbsp Ricotta cheese
8 oz shredded Mozzarella
4 oz Feta
4 oz Parmesan
fresh baby spinach & arugula, torn in pieces
1 cup of sliced dry figs
olive oil
salt and black pepper, to taste

Directions. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the dough into a large circle. Use a pastry cutter or a pizza slicer to create 8 slices of pizza dough. Shape each triangle into a heart shape and stretch to make it longer and thinner. Brush each heart with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sprinkle half of the desired amount of Mozzarella on each heart. Layer with spinach and arugula, followed with the other half of Mozzarella. Sprinkle some Feta on top of that and add two dollops of Ricotta per heart. Add the sliced figs and top off each heart with a small sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and a scant pinch of black pepper. Bake for 10 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and slightly golden.


Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles
Dairy

I've been making variations of this recipe for years. It's so easy and a great make-ahead dish for breakfast or brunch. It could also work as dessert. If you'd like to make the dish a little more complex, you could add raisins, bananas, apples, or peaches to the batter or use day old challah or cinnamon/raisin bread.


Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles

1 loaf of day old bread, cubed
6 eggs
2 cups of milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean)
maple syrup, as desired
powdered sugar, as desired
butter or margarine

Directions. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla. Combine with bread cubes until fully coated. Scoop into individual heart-shaped tins or a 9x13 baking dish and chill overnight, if possible. Remove from the refrigerator and dot with butter. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, or until puffy and golden. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with warm maple syrup, if desired.