Entertaining friends...too much time or totally worth it?

This past weekend I had guests over for the second time this quarter and I made (almost) an entire meal. I was lucky. I had my best friend over helping me. So that was good. The first challenge we both faced was whether we should even cook for 6 people. I know that my friends wanted me to make something, but also that they wouldn't be upset or anything if I didn't cook. We decided to cook because I personally love cooking for friends and family. The next obstacle were the ingredients. How much to buy, and what to buy. Planning the menu was a little tricky, we wanted to be as inexpensive as possible (yet still ended up spending a little over $50!!), but not cheap. I settled on pasta because I already had three boxes of it in my kitchen cabinet. I made the baked pasta dish (with a few variations because of ingredient reasons) that I've posted in this blog before for the main course. For the appetizer I put out a greek yogurt dip, absolutely refreshing and so creamy. The secret is using full fat greek yogurt and sour cream! I found this recipe online and it was my second time serving it. This was served with pita bread, which I cut and dressed with olive oil, then put into the oven right before my friends arrived so they could be slightly warm.

Dessert was something I decided to rely on the store for. Pillsbury reduced fat crescents (which I was scared about serving because of the reduced fat, but I didn't miss the extra fat!!) with a small piece of Hershey's chocolate rolled up inside of them. This was simply exquisite. The chocolate softened just slightly but didn't melt and ooze out and make a mess like I thought it would. This is one thing from a cardboard tube I wouldn't mind making again and again! My roommate Pallavi, gave me the idea of putting the chocolate in the croissants, and I am so grateful for it! I am excited to try this again, maybe with a few other fillings!

To prepare for the entire meal, I started prepping the night before, soaking the cucumber in salt for the dip for three hours, then mixing everything together in about 10 minutes. The peeling and mincing of the garlic took long, but maybe because my friend was a little slower than usual! The dish that cook the most time and effort was obviously the pasta, since all the vegetables had to be cut, seasoned, roasted. Then the pasta had to boil (only half way since the entire thing would be baked too) and we had to mix an alfredo and marinara sauce together. Once everything was mixed it was just a matter of putting it in the oven when we were about ready to eat. Oh, and how can I forget the soy chicken we put in it? We got this packet of buffalo wings with a spicy sauce packet. But we decided to cook and shred just the plain soy pieces and add them to the pasta to make it a little more meatier. I really liked it! Although I think the Italian style Smart Sausages I had in the fridge would have worked better, just because they are flavored and more meat-like.

All in all, I would say the experience was worth it, especially since I had a wonderful person helping me in the kitchen (and who also helpede pay for the groceries; I am ever thankful). I loved being able to ease my STARVING friends' hunger while enjoying their good company. Even though the entire process did take time and was on my mind for most of the weekend, I know that this is something I will do again in the future.

Pizza, an Art

This was a tough one. No matter how good the pictures look. First thing that I think I might have done wrong: missed the salt in the dough. I think my mind was somewhere else. It really made a difference even though it was only 1 teaspoon of salt in the entire thing. Second thing: I covered the pizza pan with foil on the bottom. My pan was filled with a lot of holes, so I didnt want to roll out the dough on the pan because then the dough would come out through the holes. I should have removed the foil before baking the pizza so the crust would have gotten a chance to become more crispy. Instead, I cut up the pizza to discover the crust was still pretty soft, so I had to pop it back in the oven for about ten more minutes, this time removing the foil.

The next day, I used the second batch of dough. And this time I baked it without the foil below the pan AND on the lower rack. The base of the pizza turned out super crispy (how my family LOVES it) and it was even more delicious than the first time I made it. Pizza making is really an art. I remember making pizza about 4 years ago. The pizza always turned out really watery because I would put a lot of fresh tomatoes as a part of the toppings. This time, I decided to leave those out and use something that releases less water, like zucchini! I also could never get the base of the pizza to be crunchy/firm. It always came out soft, no matter what I did. This time I spent more time looking up a good dough recipe and decided to bake the pizza closer to the heat rather than in the center. After I was sure the base was cooked and crunchy, I moved the pizza to the top of the oven to let the cheese melt more and brown evenly.

Pizza is one of those things that's pretty much all about the toppings. And me, being a vegetable lover, used all my favorite vegetables. I should have also added pineapples, they add such a wonderful sweetness to all the savory flavors on the pizza.

The next thing I'll make AGAIN: bread pudding. Stay tuned <3

Napa

So I was looking through some of my old stuff and found this phrase (bear with me, it's in Hindi): "khana banaye, parosiye pyaar." It means make food, serve love. I think it's such a cool phrase.

Anyway, I thought I could write about the espresso brownies I made just this past Friday (they were a hit amongst my sister and friends!) but something else I experienced changed my mind. This thing that changed my mind is a small, but sprawling resort in Napa Valley. It's called Auberge du Soleil, meaning sun hotel in french. I feel that this place made their food and served their love! Me and my special someone had researched places to eat in Napa and this was one of the places we found. It was bout 8:15pm our first night in Napa and we were hungry, so we whipped out our iphones and looked up the directions to this place. The hotel was nestled up on a hill in the middle of a valley. It was extremely dark as we drove up the hill, unsure of where we were really going. When we got to the restaurant we immediately knew that this was some place special and something like we (or I, at least) had never experienced. The people behind the counter and the waiters and waitresses were exceptionally friendly and very kind. We decided to dine from their bistro menu instead of the fine dining because you needed reservations for the fine dining (not to mention that it was $98 per person, although now I can safely say that it would probably have been worth it!). Dinner was impressive. The portions were just right and the food impeccable. We chose to split two dishes and the kitchen pre split each dish for us and brought it to the table, not just an extra plate. We decided on a portabello mushroom sandwich (sounds ordinary but wasn't, the mushroom was drenched in balsamic vinegar and was so flavorful, and the grilled vegetables on it added a great balance) and a summer vegetable pasta (perfectly cooking fusilli, or some other tightly wound pasta, with peas and the sweetest cherry tomatoes in an extremely light but rich cheese sauce). For dessert we decided on profiteroles, which are french cream puffs and are filled with ice cream with chocolate sauce over them. The pastry, also called Pâte à choux , was just perfect; mind blowingly light and airy. Our waitress was an elegant young lady who recommended we split the dishes and brought them in at a very comfortable pace as we ate. After dinner, we were convinced that we would try the brunch saturday morning because we were told the view was amazing in the morning.

So we made reservations and looked forward to it. We thought dinner was delicious, but come lunch we would find out that this place served the softest and melt in your mouth gnocchi and warm and deliciously fluffy scones. Brunch was a four part affair, starting with a drink and fresh (when I mean fresh, I mean the baker brings it to your table from the oven) bread and scones, a light plate of an appetizer of some sort, then the "sustenance" as it said on the menu, and then finally dessert. We started off with a drink called Strawberry Sun, a mixture of strawberry juice, orange juice, and apply juiced combined with coconut milk and ice. It was tangy and sweet, but smooth from the coconut milk. Our bread basket consisted of a pumpkin bread and some sort of a white rustic bread as well as warm berry scones. The scones were light and flaky, and nothing short of perfection. Even the butters they brought with the breads are worth talking about. There was the regular butter which tasted so fresh as well as a lemon buttery concoction. It was almost like a butter mouse flavored with lemon. Tasted delicious on the bread.

Our first course was a gnocchi with wild mushrooms. I've had gnocchi a few times but nothing compares to what I had that day. It was soft. Soft like velvet, like your softest sheets, like cream, basically so soft that you could feed it to a toothless baby and he would be able to eat it. There was foam surrounding our dish and as my special someone said it, it tasted of the entire essence of the dish. The sauce was thin and creamy and it was all topped with freshly shaved parmesan. The wild mushrooms were perfectly cooked and absolutely refreshing from the usual portabello and button mushrooms you have. The second course was an omelet stuffed with ricotta cheese and sauteed onions served with a firm, juicy, and sweet tomato that was topped with bread crumbs and baked, as well as potatoes. The omelet tasted slightly sweet, and I'm guessing either the eggs were from the farm or they had added a sweet cream to the eggs because the omelet was extremely fluffy. As for the tomato, I was scared to eat it because I thought it would fall apart into mush if I took a piece of it. But it was so firm!! the entire tomato retained its shape as I kept cutting pieces off with my knife. The bread crumbs were garlic-y and buttery, and this saltiness went perfectly with the sweetness of the tomato. The potatoes were your normal breakfast potatoes, either fried or baked (I want to say baked because there wasn't any oil). These three entire things on the plate worked very well together.

The dessert is really something to talk about. My partner in food crime ordered the best thing on the menu, apparently! Filo wrapped Belgium chocolate with tarragon ice cream and alveoli oil. The oil didn't really do it for us, but boy, the ice cream and chocolate really did!!! The chocolate was extremely dark and rich and it was enveloped by the crunchy and light filo. The tarragon ice cream looked like regular vanilla bean ice cream but it had an herby milky taste to it that I really enjoyed. My dessert was a white chocolate mousse which was fluffed up to perfection. It was served with a Sake sorbet (pure alcohol sorbet!) and strawberries. A mouth watering combination, even though the sorbet was a little over powering. It was a perfect way to end our brunch, which by the way, took an hour and a half to complete.

Let's talk about the view and the service. Our table was overlooking a vast area of vineyards, and we could see the surrounding hills and mountains. It was breathtaking, and we were so glad to come back in the morning because we hadn't seen this view the night before. It was the silver lining on the entire meal! The weather was perfect in the morning and it didn't get too warm until later. As for the service...just spectacular. You might think that the waiters and cheesecake factory or olive garden have good manners and are nice. But these people were so warm and so welcoming. We felt like kings and queens. I could tell from their eyes and actions that they treated each guest with the most respect and a smile, no matter what kind of guest happened to come to their hotel. We were glad to have dined at Auberge du Soleil and will most definitely go back there. I encourage you to go there if you go to Napa and happen to have a moderate budget (don't go there if you're on a tight budget, just a warning!) and want to try a meal that will add a whole lotta happiness to your trip!! :)

Food for Thought

Good painting is like good cooking: it can be tasted, but not explained.
-Maurice de Vlaminck

Fusilli with eggplant, cherry tomatoes and basil pesto

This recipe is supposed to use trenette, another kind of short pasta, but I couldn't find that at Trader Joe's so I used what I really like, Fusilli, because I think it has more personality then penne and is easier to eat than linguine.

I made pesto at home for the first time, and it was pretty exciting (besides the technical difficulties with the blender...). The recipe called for two packed cups of basil leaves, and boy, did I pack those two cups! I was really uncertain after I was done making the pesto, because it looked so less for the one pound of pasta I was boiling. And so I added a little bit more oil, something I shouldn't do next time because the eggplant already has oil and the sauce thins out since you get to add some pasta water at the end (tip for you!) The addition of cherry tomatoes was my idea, and I thought they worked great because they cut through the creaminess of the pesto and eggplant. Plus they add such lovely color. The pesto is your truly basic pesto, with basil leaves, pine nuts (SO pricy btw, $8 for 8oz!), garlic, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese, and oh of course, EVOO. I think it's something I'd like to make again, even though using the packet of dry pesto powder is so much easier. The flavor you get from this is so much more fresh (obviously) and so I'd think its worth it.

Something that I think I'd want to do next time: roast the eggplant instead of cooking it on the stove. I think that roasting it would help cook it better without the eggplant having to absorb so much oil. It's something that I'd definitely want to try if I make this again!

Hope you guys enjoy the pictures :)

Pasta with a twist: Baked!!

So we've all heard of lasagnas being baked in ovens, and they're pastas, right? I never thought of actually baking short pasta (like penne, rigatoni, etc) before. A lot of the things I've been making are really simple to make, but the flavor you get in the end is just amazing.

This dish just takes time in the roasting and baking, and the rest is just about combining. Again, a little help from the store getting ready made sauces doesn't hurt! I used two types of sauces: a little bit of left over Ragu from the raviolis and a creamy marinara (I didn't even know they sold creamy marinara sauces in stores!!). I needed a whopping three cups of sauce for this, and I'm glad I didn't use any less because you don't want the pasta to be dry after it bakes. The recipe asked you to use all kinds of vegetables, but I omitted the summer squash because I wasn't sure if my family would like it. I used eggplant instead, and after roasting it, it was so creamy! Absolutely delicious. Another thing that I had to buy was herbs de provence. It's a mixture of herbs that both the Italians and French use. It was a little expensive, but I didn't want to compromise the taste of the roasted vegetables. The other vegetables were red bell peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, and I added a clove of garlic. I tossed these with salt, pepper, olive oil, and the herbs and popped them in the oven for a bit. Then after they were done roasting I mixed the pasta (which I boiled for about 6 minutes) and the sauces in, and put them in the glass baking dish and topped it with butter and some cheese and let it bake some more so the pasta could cook and all the flavors could mix).

The taste of this dish was different than any other I've ever made before. I usually make pasta with pesto, not marinara. But the creamy marinara was the really great addition, it wasn't too sweet, which is how some tomato sauces can taste. I used one pound of pasta- this turns into a lot because of all the vegetables! It's enough to serve 6 to 8 people I would say. So me and my family was snacking on this dish the day after I made it too!

Your pretty typical Mushroom and Spinach Ravioli

I love pasta. Ravioli is even better. It's like pasta with a surprise. But this dish. Oh man, you can forget the pasta. Think outside Italy. Maybe China? Yea, that's right. Egg roll wrappers. SAY WHAT?! I know, I never thought it was possible but Giada de Laurentis showed me how. Making these is a little time consuming if you decide to make the marinara sauce at home. I decided not to, because I didn't want to be in the kitchen all day long. So I picked up a jar of extra chunky mushroom Ragu from Safeway, some delicious mascarpone and parmesan cheese, frozen spinach, fresh mushrooms, and egg roll wrappers and watched Giada step by step make these wonderful raviolis. The tricky part is doing the stuffing. Making the stuffing is easy; just put it all into a food processor. I added a clove of garlic because I thought the stuffing could use more flavoring. When stuffing the ravioli, I had to make sure that it didn't leak out of the edges after I cut the egg roll wrappers. Something I wish I had: a ravioli cutter. I used a knife, but I wasnt able to get the pretty edges and I think the ravioli might have sealed better with a cutter. One thing I did love: painting the edges of the wrappers with egg wash! I bought inexpensive basting brushes from Safeway in the cooking gadgets aisle. I had always seen it being done on TV and decided it was time for me to do the same! So tips for the stuffing: dont over stuff, because the stuffing is delicious and I think that a little goes a long way. I had about four raviolis split open when I was cooking them in the water, so all the water got inside, and so I tossed those in the trash. I had tons of extra stuffing so I went ahead and made a lot of raviolis for my family. Make sure to use plenty of egg wash so that the second layer of egg wrapper sticks. After you cook the ravioli, try to dry off the excess water. I put it on a paper towel. But Giada plates the ravioli right after she takes it out of the water, which I thought was weird because there is still so much water around and in the crevices of the ravioli and so the marinara sauce thins out in your plate.

The ravioli looks impressive on a plate and looks like you've put in hours of work, but now you know it's only a matter of about an hour and some preserverance!

-Aparna

And the cooking begins...

So I started cooking as soon as my mom thought it was appropriate for me to learn how to make a proper Indian that I wouldn't deprive my husbands and kids of. I've always had a great affinity for food. When I was a child, I used to point at almost every thing in my sight and ask, "Is that for eating?" in Hindi. I usually get pretty sad if there isn't anything good to eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and I don't like it when people skimp on ingredients because they're watching their weight or whatever. That's why this blog is called Decadent Eatery, I guess!

So the first thing I want to share is chocolate ganache cupcakes I made. The recipe is from Ina Garten of Food Network. Now, Ina has a very unique way of cooking. In most shows, you see a neat counter from the beginning to end and nothing gets dirty. But in her show, the flour gets all over the counter, sauce might splatter a bit, and her hands get messy. Which is partly why I love her. But then you hear her voice, and it's all sophisticated and glossy sounding, and I think that is what rounds out her show.
So this is her recipe and it uses a whole lot of Hershey's chocolate syrup, but the cupcakes are divine. If you don't overmix (which is what I was so scared of, since Ina warned us in the recipe) the batter, the cupcakes turn out really really soft and almost fudgy, but not. As for the word "ganache," it sounded super fancy to my ears but its the most simple thing in the world. It's just melted chocolate in cream in a double boiler! What you get is a shiny melted chocolate that's perfect for dipping the cupcakes into. After a few hours, the chocolate ganache sets. These cupcakes are really chocolatey and you really have to like chocolate to eat them. They are perfect with a glass of milk to tone down the chocolate flavor, though. If you're going to make these, I would recommend that you have an electric mixer on hand because there is a lot of mixing. Also, having the butter at room temperature is a must. When I did this, the butter was almost at room temperature and I still had a little bit of trouble when I was beating the sugar in. Other than that, these are super easy and everyone will love them!

Cheers!
-Aparna

First Post :)

First off, major thanks to Avi for helping me pick a name; This blog is named by him! Second, thanks to Lea, Avi, and Sura for encouraging me to start a food blog. I hope I give you some amazing looks at the food I get the chance to make this summer and hopefully during the school year when I get time.

Let's Eat.
-Aparna