Two hours prep time start to finish.
Bam!
Part-ay
Dona Emilia, my friend's mama who is visiting from Brazil, had a birthday yesterday and Chris and I hosted the party. I love throwing parties for friends, specially good friends because if they need a glass of water they go and get it themselves. And everyone laughs, at everyone else.
I came up with a simple menu the night before. I wanted something elegant but not too time consuming. Sundays are a day of rest except when it's not, and usually it's not. We're busy getting ready for church in the morning then we're back from church at 3:00pm famished. We had our guests over at 5:00 so we only had 2 hours to cook everything and it went very smoothly. Christian was even able to clean the bathroom before everyone arrived. Which is a very very god thing he did.
Berries are classic. They're pretty and easy to serve. We had an assortment of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries with a big bowl of homemade whip cream with cinnamon on the side.
I made an asparagus-gruyere tart using Martha's recipe. This is the second time making this tart. It does not disappoint and it's seriously easy. Just bake a sheet of puff pastry at 400* for 15 minutes than remove from the oven and add 2 cups shredded gruyere cheese and asparagus and bake for an additional 20 minutes. Puff pastry is king! People think you're a total chef when you use puff pastry even though you just got it from the frozen section of Whole Foods.
I also served chicken salad on homemade buns. I like the easy rolls recipe because it's moist. Please don't make chicken salad used canned chicken, unless you really have to.
If you cook 2 lbs of seasoned chicken breasts (skinless and boneless) in a dutch oven at 350* for 40 minutes with 1/2 cup water and some italian seasoning you'll get really soft and tender meat that just pulls apart. I like to mix it with a little mustard and a tiny bit of mayonnaise and a lot of grapes. The grapes are for Enzo.
Did you have a fun weekend?
What was on your menu?
