Recently, I’ve been trying to do that thing where when people come over I don’t spend 90% of my time either in the kitchen or running back and forth between the kitchen and somewhere else. Personally I don’t mind, but Mme. Pants has been encouraging this. She says that people who come over like to “see me” and “talk to me”. I’ve done both and can assure you that they are absolutely overrated.
Regardless, it seems my hosting abilities are gradually but steadily being nudged toward the Martha end of the spectrum. I hope not too far though, as I’m not comely as a blonde and the rectally inserted rolling pin sounds like it may chafe.
Click on the picture for the recipe
So, what great secrets am I employing to wow my guests with my poise and preparedness? Simple, I’ve implemented the age old practice of making big vats or pans of vittles before hand and then just scoop and slop when company comes around. I know. I’m a freaking genius.
Seriously though, it has been a little more difficult for me than I seems like it ought to be. For some reason getting the timing down proves a tad more troublesome than it should with many dishes. Cold soups work well. You can make them days in advance and then just pour into a bowl. We started this particular meal with the above pictured, crazy tasty watercress soup with green onion crème fraiche. Tre magnifique! It's a little spicy and very refreshing.
I’ve also discovered a whole class of foods that lend themselves particularly nicely to low maintenance, low worry serving. I call them “Stuff on Polenta,” or SoP for short.
The SoP requirements are short. Just take something, preferably easy to handle and not too temperature sensitive and put it on polenta. Done. My most recent SoP were some delightful Eggplant Involtini filled with homemade ricotta and herbs and baked in a light tomato sauce.
Involtini just means rolled. I probably should have cut the eggplant lengthwise to get a nice long wrap. But I didn’t and people ate them anyway.
One little trick to cooking with eggplant is to make sure you purge them of excess water. After you slice them, salt both sides heavily and then set them to dry on a wire rack with some paper towels underneath. After an hour or so, rinse them off real well and give each one a gentle squeeze. I think this really helps both the texture and the flavor.
The tomato sauce is a riff on Mario’s basic recipe just using whatever herbs and whatnot that I had in the fridge. The filling can be whatever you want really, but currently I’m obsessed with making ricotta so that’s what I did. Sure you can buy it, but it’s soooo much better homemade. I’m going to do a post about the process soon so I won’t go into a lot of detail about it here. Sorry turophiles, you just have to wait.
Polenta is always easy of course, but you have to use good stuff – none of that instant or quick cook crap. If you can get it, I can’t recommend Anson Mills enough. It’s so much better than other polenta that I’ve had that it’s almost like a whole different animal.
You can cook your polenta with practically any liquid you want – stock, cream, water, whatever, but if you have one handy, I highly encourage you to throw in a bay leaf. Laurel makes things better.
All in all, it seemed to work. All I had to do was pull one thing out of the oven and throw some stuff on plates. I saw the people who had come to eat. They saw me. Words were exchanged. In short, success.
-L. Pants
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