Dinner party!

Saturday night I had a most excellent dinner party with my roommate and a few of our friends. When I was out of the room for a minute they took about 30 pictures of themselves with my camera, but I'll keep this post to pictures of the food.

I made focaccia with oven-dried tomato tapenade and roasted garlic; arugula salad with tahini-lemon dressing and roasted root vegetables; stuffed cabbage with wild rice, brown rice, tofu and vegetables; and chocolate cake with blood orange compote. Everything turned out well and looked pretty, if I do say so myself.


The focaccia (recipe below) turned out great - light and flavorful. I used dried herbs because I didn't have any fresh, but I don't think it hurt the results too much. We ate this with an oven-dried tomato tapenade that I made and froze at the end of summer, when there were still tomatoes at the farmers market (and there was still a farmer's market). I just seeded and sliced tomatoes with some onions, garlic, olive oil, and salt, and baked in a low oven - 250 degrees or so - for several hours. The result is thick, spreadable, and super flavorful. I also roasted a head of garlic and threw that on the table with some olive oil.



The salad was green leaf lettuce and arugula, tossed with a simple dressing of tahini, lemon juice, minced garlic, salt, pepper, and a dash of cider vinegar, thinned with a little water and olive oil. Roasted beets, parsnips, and carrots went on top with some scallions. The flavors went really well together. Aren't tahini dressings the best?

Apparently this looked good enough to eat with your hands.



The cabbage rolls were stuffed with a mix of wild rice - the real wild harvested Minnesota stuff - brown basmati rice, tofu, red onion, garlic, and bell pepper. They were baked with a tomato/veggie broth mix and served on more wild/brown rice.

I used tomato sauce that I'd made and frozen back when I made the tapenade. It's great having something that close to fresh tomatoes in February, but the 20 pound box of tomatoes didn't make a whole lot, so I'm going to have to ration what's left.



Here are the cabbage rolls ready to go in the oven -



And here they are when they came out, after baking for about 45 minutes. I turned them twice so they wouldn't get dry on top, then added a bit more tomato broth before serving them. For the filling, I first browned a whole block of pressed firm tofu, then added a whole chopped red onion and 4 large cloves of garlic, finally adding the bell pepper. The seasonings were thyme, paprika, salt, pepper, a little sesame oil, a splash of white wine, and a good-sized scoop of nutritional yeast.



I cooked the brown rice and wild rice together in vegetable broth. I also threw in a few chopped up dried chanterelles, which are the result of a hugely successful fall foraging trip in Oregon. Those added a ton of flavor and rehydrated nicely. I'd never been so glad to have a food dehydrator.



Dessert was a chocolate cake with blood orange compote. I used the chocolate cake recipe from the Voluptuous Vegan, but with a few changes. I added the zest of a couple blood oranges, and put some of the orangey simple syrup left over from candied orange peel making in the icing. I decorated the top with candied peel too, so the orange flavor really came across, but not overwhelmingly so.



The compote was a nice addition to the cake, especially because the icing was simple - mostly just chocolate chips - and so it wasn't too over-the-top. The recipe is posted at www.thebittenword.typepad.com. I followed the recommendations on that blog and chopped the oranges in to small slices, rather than leaving them in big chunks, and I think that was a good move. Here's my version, with a couple changes from the original:

- 3 medium blood oranges, chopped into small slices, peel and all
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 1/2 cups water

Boil the sugar and water until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the oranges and cook on medium-low for at least an hour, stirring frequently - the time in the original recipe is not long enough to reduce the compote to a nice syrupy consistency. You also want to make sure the peels have gotten nice and soft, since you'll be eating them.
Let cool, add a splash or raspberry or some other liqueur (I didn't have orange)

I found it a little bit one-note, and really sweet, but in small amounts it does add something. A bit of cointreau would have been good I'm sure.





Really Good Focaccia (makes 2 8" pans)

- 2 1/2 t yeast
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 t salt
- 1 T chopped fresh thyme or 1 t dried
- 1 1/2 t chopped fresh rosemary or 1/2 t dried
- 1 C lukewarm water + a pinch of sugar
- 2 C white flour plus more to knead in
- olive oil to brush on top, and coarse salt

1. Proof the yeast in the warm water + sugar. I added the herbs here as well, so they would have a chance to rehydrate. No one wants a chunk of hard, dried rosemary in their bread. If using fresh, add the herbs with the flour.
2. Add the olive oil, salt, and 1 C flour, whisk until smooth.
3. Add the second C flour 1/4 C at a time, whisking or mixing it in until you have a dough (it will be super wet - feel free to add some more here)
4. Turn the dough out on a well-floured surface, and knead 8-10 minutes, adding more flour as needed to keep it from being too sticky. This will seem like a lot of flour, but just keep adding it til you have a smooth dough that won't stick to your hands, but is still pretty loose.
5. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise til doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.
6. Punch the dough down, knead briefly, and divide in half.
7. Lightly oil 2 8" cake pans, put a portion of dough in each, and gently stretch to the edges, pulling from the center outward. If the dough is too springy, which, based on my experience, it will be, cover and let rest for 10 minutes, then try again.
8. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise about 45 minutes, until soft and puffy, and almost doubled.
9. Preheat oven to 475. Dimple the dough (poke it with your finger) about 1/2" deep every couple inches or so.
10. Re-cover with towels and rise another 20 minutes.
11. Bake until golden brown and cooked through, about 15 minutes.
12. Immediately brush generously with olive oil, and sprinkle with coarse salt. I used black salt for dramatic effect. I also briefly warmed it back up in the oven before serving.

Even though this recipes has a lot of little steps and silly short rises, meaning there's a lot of "active time" involved, it's a good one to try if you're intimidated by yeasted breads, because it's a pretty small amount of dough to work with. Rewriting this recipe is making me wish I had some left over.