Roasted Asparagus Pasta

I wonder how many of you have ever had a go-to dish that you suddenly didn't make any more?  I know there've been many in my life.  Fortunately, this one is now back in my life. 

This recipe came from my friend, Cindy, many years ago.  I made it with great regularity for lots of years.  It's easy, fabulous and I have no clue why it suddenly fell out of my life.

After the party, I went through the refrigerator and identified things that needed to be used up.  A bunch of asparagus was on the list.  Unfortunately, we got into the party leftovers and the asparagus got ignored.  Ignored, that is until the heads of the stalks had gotten pretty mushy.  Yuck.  But, the stalks were still just fine.  My Scotch nature just wouldn't let me toss the stalks.  I racked my brain for a way to use them that the lack of the heads wouldn't be horribly noticible.  Hmmm, in a pasta sauce would be perfect.  Ah, what about Cindy's Asparagus Pasta?

Connie walked into the kitchen while I was getting this together.  He says, "What happened to the asparagus heads?"  So much for my subterfuge.  The end result more than justified the means.  This is one incredible dish.

Cindy's Roasted Asparagus Pasta
serves 2

Ingredients:
farfalle
1 bunch asparagus
olive oil
1 13 3/4 oz can chicken broth
1-2 T lemon juice
freshly grated parmesan or romano
freshly shaved parmesan or romano
2 T toasted pinenuts

Directions:

Start a pot of water boiling for the pasta.  Preheat the oven to 500.  Pour the chicken broth into a large skillet and turn the heat to medium.  You're going to want to reduce the broth by about 2/3 to 3/4. 

Chop the asparagus into bite-sized pieces and put it in a 9x13 oven proof pan.  Toss it with a little olive oil. 

Pop the pan into the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes.  Check the broth to make sure it's not all boiling away.  Yes, that's the voice of experience... 

Toast the pine nuts and set them aside.

Shave the parmesan.  Shaving in this case is better than grating.

When the chicken broth has reduced enough, add the lemon juice.  Then, toss in the roasted asparagus and half the shaved parmesan.  Toss to coat the asparagus. 

By the time the asparagus is coated, the cheese will probably be melted into the sauce.  That's a good thing.    

Toss with the farfalle and serve topped with the toasted pine nuts and the rest of the shaved parmesan or romano.

Poached Eggs with Spicy Dill Sauce

Connie and I absolutely loved the spicy dill sauce on the smoked salmon appetizer that we tested for the party.  We probably loved it even more because it's so wicked for us.  Cream, butter, cheese.  Ah, the ideal sauce for a poached egg we both said.  I had some of my homemade buttermilk bread in the freezer, plenty of eggs and smoked salmon and a bit of sauce leftover.  Perfect for a really quick Sunday brunch. 

What did we think?  We liked the sauce better this way than in the appetizer.  It played perfectly with the egg and toast and smoked salmon.  It's quick and so very easy to make.  It reheated very well.  All in all, a dish we'll make again.

Poached Eggs with Spicy Dill Sauce

Ingredients per serving:

1 piece of bread
1 egg
slices of smoked salmon
1-2T spicy dill sauce

Directions:

Toast bread.

Poach egg(s)

Make or reheat the spicy dill sauce.  Here's the link to that recipe:  Spicy Dill Sauce.

To plate the dish, top a slice of toast with smoked salmon.

Then a poached egg

Then some spicy dill sauce

Smoked Salmon Appetizers

We tested two smoked salmon appetizers and two crabmeat appetizers to see if we wanted to add them to the party menu.  I'll tell you about the crabmeat appetizers in another post.  As for the smoked salmon appetizers, both were terrific but one is much better for a small group - or just a couple.  When I'm cooking food for the party I need to be able make dishes in large quantities, prepare ahead and have it easy for my kitchen crew to replenish the serving dishes.  The party is all about saying thank you to our wonderful clients and friends and is not about me spending the whole time in the kitchen!

By the way, all four recipes came from fellow food bloggers.  So, this is an opportunity for you to hop over to some other blogs and get acquainted with them. 

The first recipe for smoked salmon came from Cardamom Hills.  It's called Smoked Salmon with Spicy Dill Sauce.  The sauce in her photo was a good bit thicker than mine was.  We loved the little bit of spiciness added by the green chiles.  I commented that this would be wonderful served in a crepe.  Or, perhaps on a piece of toast with a poached egg.  (Stay tuned for a post about this!)  But, it won't work for a crowd.  Too much last minute prep work. 

The second recipe is for Cream Cheese Pancakes with Smoked Salmon.  Evil Shenanigans posted this one. We loved it New Years Eve and tried it for breakfast the next morning to see how these tasted chilled.  Every bit as good.  I'd have loved to put this one on the party menu but couldn't figure out how to refrigerate a platter of the little yummies with everything else in in the fridge.

Smoked Salmon with Spicy Dill Sauce

Ingredients:
smoked salmon
1 T butter
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
4 sprigs dill, 2 sprigs chopped
2 oz chopped green chilies
4 T heavy cream
2 T cheddar, finely shredded
2 T parmesan, finely shredded


Directions:

In a small saucepan, melt the butter.  Add the garlic and chopped dill and saute until the garlic is very soft.  Add the chopped green chilies and saute until they're warmed.  Stir in the cream and cheeses.  Stir until the cheeses are melted. 

To plate, cut the smoked salmon into one inch squares.  Top with a bit of sauce and a small dill sprig.

adapted from Cardamom Hills


Smoked Salmon on Chive Cream Cheese Pancakes

Ingredients:
For the pancakes:


1 c flour
1 1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 T fresh chopped chives
1 oz cream cheese, softened
1 T butter, softened
1 egg
3/4 c milk
8 oz cold smoked salmon
Capers, for garnish


For the sour cream sauce:

1/2 c sour cream
1 t horseradish
1/4 t salt

Directions:
for the pancakes:

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. 

Whisk the cream cheese and butter together in a another bowl.  Whisk in the egg,

then the milk.  Now, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.  Mix just until they're incorporated.  Don't overmix or you'll have tough pancakes! 

Heat a large skillet.  Coat the bottom with a bit of butter or olive oil (not evoo, it'll impart a flavor you don't want.)  When the skillet is hot enough that a drop of water tossed in sizzles, pour the batter in by tablespoonful. 

Flip when the first side is nicely browned.

for the sauce:
Mix all ingredients together.

To plate, put a pancake down,

top with a bit of sauce,

then a slice of smoked salmon.  Garnish with a few capers.

adapted from Evil Shenanigans

Yes, We Had a Party, Here's the Menu

And, such a party it was.  It was our sixth annual holiday open house.  It's on the first Friday after New Year's unless that would fall on the 1st or 2nd.  Then, it's on the 2nd Friday.  Got it?

The first year, we had it at Connie's old house.  He convinced me that the smartest thing to do was to hire a caterer to do part of the spread.  The guy did a pretty good job on his part but I wasn't totally thrilled.  We probably had 50 guests over the course of the evening.  The next year, we'd moved into OUR home.  It was a bit bigger than Connie's house so we invited more people.  And, again, Connie talked me into having a caterer do part of it.  He brought a sundried tomato and goat cheese dish that was incredible.  But, he was late and not dependable.  The next year, he showed up as the party started with a couple of partially cooked turkey breasts and rolls that hadn't been split.  That was the end of using a caterer for any of the party. 

We now invite almost all of my clients, our families, friends...neighbors, Kiwanis buddies, you name them, we invite them.  It's a great way to tell my clients how much I appreciate them.  So, this year 170 rsvp'd yes.  Yikes.  That was a new high. 

Over the years, I've tweaked the menu.  Added, subtracted.  During the course of the year I cut out recipes that are potentials for the party.  Some we try during the year, some we don't.  But, the basics have pretty much stayed the same for the last few years.  Here's the menu from this year's party.  I've included a link for those recipes that have appeared on here before.  The others, I'll work on getting on here.  May take a while since the list is really long so if there's anything you'd particularly like to see, please let me know.  I've already had a request for the butterscotch brownie recipe so I'll do that soon.  It's one of my personal favorites too!!

One thing I'd love for you to notice in the photos is the "name tags" for the dishes.  My talented husband made those and put cute little icons on each.  Horseshoes for our Colts, owls since I'm a Kappa, a hockey player for his beloved Bruins.  Lots of fun things that mean something to us.

Meats

Turkey, brined and rubbed with onion and rosemary

Grand marnier cranberry compote

Pork tenderloin, marinated in bourbon, soy sauce and brown sugar

Scallion mustard mayonnaise sauce

Beef tenderloins rubbed with garlic, honey and thyme

Horseradish sauce

Ham with lemon and rosemary

Dijon mustard

Chicken satay with peanut sauce
Flank steak skewers marinated in teriyaki sauce

Cameroon flank steak

Shrimp and pineapple skewers, with cilantro spicy baste

Sassy marinated shrimp

Smoked salmon with onion, whipped cream cheese and capers

Bourbon cured salmon



Veggies

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Carrots

Celery

Bell peppers

Tapenade

Pesto dip




Crackers, baguette and bagel chips

 Brie with cranberry chutney

Clam diggers dip

Crab rangoon dip

Eggplant caponata

Blue cheese spread

Mushroom truffle pesto

Pimento cheese

Pistachio covered cheese log

Greek layered dip

Buffalo hot wing spread

Goat cheese with rosemary cream




Chips

 Black bean salsa

Mexicali scoop
Mexicorn dip

Smoked salmon tartare



Hot Bites

 Crab cakes with remoulade sauce

Ham and cheddar bites

Pizza bites

Meatballs

Rumaki

Wrapped water chestnuts

Mustard and ginger sausages




Cold Bites

Cheese wafersCream cheese olive bites

Marinated mixed olives

Smoked oysters

Rolled salami with cream cheese filling

Eggs with crispy anchovy crumbs
Deviled eggs with smoked salmon
Caesar deviled eggs

Marinated provolone

Caprese skewers

Greek salad stackers





Antipasto plate

Marinated artichoke heartsMarinated asparagus

Gardineria

Rolled anchovies
Salami etc
Olives
Cheese





Dessert

 Christmas cookies

Chocolate brownies

Butterscotch brownies

Butterscotch oatmeal bars

Special K bars

Pirouettes with cheesecake sauce

Chocolate, peanut butter etc dipped butter cookies

Smores cherries

cheesecakes

Detritus Dinner

Connie actually suggested the name of this post.  Clever man.  So, when we throw our annual holiday open house we usually have TONS of leftovers and freeze them for later.  This year, not so much.  Maybe because I cut down on the quantity I made.  Or because we had so many more folks join us.  Whatever the reason, there wasn't a lot left over.  Connie had sliced three of the four beef tenderloins and six of the eight pork tenderloins.  I thought he was going to have to slice the fourth beef tenderloin during the party but we just barely made it.  I think there were about three slices left of the third tenderloin.  That meant that we had one leftover.  YAY!  My favorite leftover!! 

The best part of this story is that I got to meet one of my favorite fellow bloggers at the party.  Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake.  (If you've not yet discovered her blog, please pay her a visit.  She's got WONDERFUL recipes!)  One of her best friends is a bridge player, as is Connie.  Suzanne told Liz about my blog and she dropped me a note.  We've been talking back and forth ever since.  And, along the way, we've found that we know a lot of folks in common.  Across the street from Liz and her hubby, live Steve and Pam.  Steve and I go back about 40 years or more.  We'd fallen out of contact but now that Liz and I have gotten to know each other, we'll not let that happen again.  Small world.  So, Liz and Suzanne and Pam came to the party.  Steve was home sick.  Here's a horrible photo of me and a great photo of Liz in my pantry:

Now, you probably want to hear the rest of the story...

Liz brought us some wonderful black truffle salt, a bottle of fig balsamic vinegar and a bottle of blood orange extra virgin olive oil.  The bag of salt said it'd be great on beef.  Hmmm, did I ever have some beef to use it on.  It also said potatoes.  I had some red potatoes that needed to be used up.  And, I could taste the evoo on some steamed broccoli.  Dinner.  Absolutely not detritus.  We loved the black truffle salt and the blood orange evoo.  Now, I'm going to try to fix something else tonight.  But, we may have beef tenderloin with black truffle salt again.  Thank you Liz!

Dinner amidst the chaos

Sometimes the best meals come from the chaos.  On the Wednesday before the party on Friday, Connie cleaned four beef tenderloins.  That meant four roasts to go into the freezer and a bag full of chain that he'll trim later.  It also meant a little pile of tips.  I had a box of sliced portabellas that was older than the box of white button mushrooms I'd bought for the mushroom truffle pesto.  So, that got used for the pesto and the button mushrooms were cooling in the garage.  Yes, we were out of space in the house for anything that isn't fussy.  Mushrooms are not fussy.  Milk is.  He asked if we could saute the beef tips with some onions and garlic.  Well, sure.  Kind of.  I already had the grill going for the tenderloins - pork and beef.  Onions were sitting out on the counter.  Besides, he'd asked for onions, hadn't he? 

Here's how it went together:

Chaos Dinner

Beef Tips
salt and freshly ground pepper
Worcestershire sauce

Mushrooms
olive oil

Hell Grilled Onions
1 large white onion
mayonnaise
shredded parmesan, romano or gruyere
garlic powder
cayenne pepper

I started out by tossing the beef tips with salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce.  Then, I let them sit on the counter to warm up to room temperature.  The mushrooms were sliced and tossed into a skillet with a bit of olive oil.  Last, but not least, the onion was trimmed and cut into half.   I mixed a couple of tablespoons of mayo with some shredded cheese and a little garlic powder.  That got schmeared on top then sprinkled with cayenne pepper. 

The onions went on to the grill first. 

They need about 15 minutes to get really well done.  Be VERY careful when taking them off the grill so you don't lose the topping.  The meat will take a few minutes to cook - particularly if you like beef rare like we do.  The beef was cooked in a grill basket to keep the pieces from slipping thru the grates of the grill.

The Party's Over

Over and done for another year.  The house was packed.  Thanks to wonderful helpers there's not a lot of clean up to do.  Well, that's a relative term when you've had close to 170 people in your home.  We had a bit of snow and some really cold temps so that kept a few folks home.  All in all, we thought it was pretty successful. 

It's interesting to see which food goes fastest.  As you might guess, the beef tenderloin, crab cakes and the shrimp both go really quickly.  The wrapped waterchestnuts in a chili sauce disappeared post haste.  And, so did the rumaki!  I always thought most people really didn't like chicken livers.  But, when I put a crockpot full of 200 rumaki out and they're gone in three hours, well, more than a couple of folks clearly like chicken livers!

We'd cut the bar cookies on a large cutting board and put the leftovers on the bar.  Folks kept walking by and eating those.  So, early on, the desserts were pretty well gone. A couple of desserts I'd not really been excited about making were the most popular.  So, I'll make sure to make them next year.

When I made a trial run of the buffalo wing eggrolls done in wonton wrappers so as to be one-biters, I wasn't too thrilled with the outcome.  The filling to dough ratio was just wrong.  So, I turned the filling into a hot dip.  Now, that was popular stuff.   

Connie particularly loved the bourbon cured salmon.  It's easy to make so we'll make it again sooon just for us.  There's not one particular dish that I crave more than the others.  I always enjoy the rumaki and the bacon wrapped waterchestnuts.  I guess the surprise winner for me this year was one that didn't make it out to the table - smoked salmon tartare.  I'd make smoked salmon deviled eggs and the leftover mixture - sans egg yolks - went out instead of the smoked salmon tartare.  Saturday morning I discovered the tartare so I took it to work with me for lunch.  It was so wonderful that I really had to force myself to quit eating it! 

There were a couple of things that just weren't popular.  Cracker spreads are slow movers.  The clam dip and the mushroom truffle pesto were both barely touched.  I need to break down and just make ranch dip for the veggies since my favorites aren't as popular. 

I'll follow up with links to recipes I've already posted and will work on posting the rest of the recipes over the next couple of weeks.  Please leave me a message if there's anything you'd particularly like to see.

Here are some photos of the serving tables:

Hot plates awaiting buffalo chicken dip, brie with cranberry chutney and crab rangoon dip.

Meat tray with beef tenderloin, pork tenderloin, ham and turkey

Smoked salmon - we wound up flaking this.

Bourbon cured salmon - we wound up removing the skin and slicing this.

Crab cakes and pizza bites

Chips with mexicali scoop, black bean salsa and smoked salmon dip.  Then, lots of antipasto.

Didn't Ashley do a magnificent job on this platter of antipasto veggies?

Hard cooked eggs with anchovy crumbs in the foreground.  Greek salad stackers behind them on the table.

A small portion of the dessert table.