Brunch with friends old and new

A  couple of months ago, my good friend and new mommy, Diana and I decided we needed to get friends together and cook for them.  Both of us are good cooks (if we do say so ourselves) and enjoy entertaining.  Also, Diana hasn't shown off her 6 month old baby Bryan to everyone yet.  So we decided to throw a little brunch get together today.  It went so well!  We cooked but it never felt like work, we cleaned up but did it together so it went by quickly.  Cooking and eating (and even clean up) is way better with company!

Here are a few pics of the goodies:

Dorie Greenspan's mushroom and shallot quiche (I added spinach) and berries with honeyed greek yogurt

Ina Garten's Cape Cod Salad

Crispy and flavorful potato hash and fragrant pumpkin muffins served with honey butter

moist and delicious buttermilk raspberry cake

Great girls, delicious food and a great afternoon.  I was excited to make pumpkin muffins (again) and decided to make them a little healthier - knocked out about 1/2 the oil and more than 1/3 of the sugar... still ended up delicious, without the guilt!  We ended up keeping the meal pretty light and none of us felt too full afterwards. We provided the right combination of sweet and savory.

I got the recipe from Kirbie's Cravings and when I just went to her site to pull the recipe up, I noticed that she has post titled CINNAMON SUGAR PUMPKIN DONUT MUFFINS... Aaaaaaah I gotta try those next!  !!!  Anyway, here is the recipe and I've noted in bold italics any changes I made.

Pumpkin Bread

(Kirbie says this makes 3-7x3 loaves... I say it makes 2-9x5 loaves OR 24 muffins OR 1 9x5 loaf and 12 muffins)

Ingredients

  1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree

  4 eggs

   1 cup vegetable oil (i used 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup no sugar added apple sauce)

   2/3 cup water

  3 cups white sugar (I used 1 c brown sugar, 2/3 cup white sugar - consistency didn't change at all)

   3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

   2 teaspoons baking soda

  1 1/2 teaspoons salt

    1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon)

   1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

   1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (I used a pinch - probably 1/2 tsp... not a huge clove fan)

    1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (I didn't have ginger so left it out)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7×3 inch loaf pans. (see above for other pan options)
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar
   until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour,
   baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry
   ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. (I usually use the hand mixer here for a little bit because my flour mixture always clumps.  I only mix it until most of the clumps are out.) Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when
   toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

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What are some of your favorite brunch foods?  Feel free to share with me here!

Chow for now!  :)

Fancy French lunch (and dessert!) with a good friend.

Yesterday I caught up with my beautiful friend D, who looks radiant and is a few weeks away from having her first baby!  Since I missed her shower two weekends ago becuase of my appendicitis, we had lunch to catch up yesterday.  She wanted to cook for me so she made lunch and I made dessert.  It was all quite DELICIOUS!

Both of us are big fans of Ina Garten (also known as The Barefoot Contessa), a Long Island woman like myself who makes lovely French influenced meals and desserts.  D even got to meet her once and got her autograph at a book signing.  Diana chose to cook Ina's Blue Cheese Souffle and made a lovely fresh salad using vegetables from her garden and the farmers market.  She topped the salad with Ina's ceasar dressing (made without raw egg but still delicious!) and also served chicken ceasar salad sandwhiches.  All of these dishes came out delicious.  A picture of the finished souffle is below...before we attacked it.

I knew when D told me she would be making a souffle for a Wednesday afternoon lunch that I had to make an equally fancy dessert.  I have made this Rustic Pear Tart before and it's basically fool proof.   The recipe was from Sunset Magazine (east coasters check it out - it's a gorgeous magazine).

Recipe is below along with pics.

Rustic Pear Tarts with Crème Fraîche

Time: about 1 1/4 hours. Fresh pears and purchased puff pastry add up to an incredibly easy seasonal dessert.

Yield: Serves 6


Ingredients


1 sheet (about 10 by 12 in.) frozen puff pastry (14-oz. package), thawed
2 or 3 firm-ripe pears, such as Bosc or Comice
About 1/3 cup orange marmalade
1 large egg, beaten to blend
About 2 tbsp. turbinado sugar
6 tablespoons crème fraîche
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 375°. Lightly butter 2 large baking sheets. On a floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll out pastry to 16 by 18 in. Cut pastry in thirds lengthwise and in half crosswise. With a wide spatula, transfer the 6 rectangles to baking sheets.


2. Core pears and cut into thin wedges. Arrange, slightly overlapping, on pastry rectangles, leaving a 1 1/2-in. border bare (angle slices if necessary). Warm marmalade in a microwave oven to melt, then brush over pears. Fold border over edge of pears, stretching slightly and pressing down to hold. Brush new edges with egg, then sprinkle turbinado sugar over tarts, especially pastry edges.

3. Bake until pastries are richly browned, 25 to 30 minutes. In a small bowl, whisk crème fraîche and granulated sugar until slightly thickened. Serve tarts warm or cool, with crème fraîche.

I made two medium sized tarts instead of 6...and I cut the marmalade, crème fraîche and sugars in half. 
This could be my "signature dessert!"

Chow for Now! :)