Spooky Dinner Party

I’ve made progress on my endeavor to entertain more!  The other weekend I had a few ladies over for a little dinner party.  A journey of a thousand miles and all that.

Since its October, I wanted to make the table setting festive for the season.  Since I don’t trust the kittens to not get into everything, I didn’t want to do any big centerpiece or ANY candles (it hurt my heart to have a dinner party without candles, but it would hurt my heart more if one of my kittens set themselves on fire).  Even though it wasn’t much of an elaborate table, it was still festive.

For the menu, I kept it pretty simple.  I have come up with a sort of formula that I like for dinner parties: protein, salad, crusty bread and then something nice for dessert. I like to make or at least prep everything that I can ahead of time so that I can relax, drink wine and enjoy visiting with my guests rather than being tied up in the kitchen.

This night we had lemon butter blue fin tuna, autumn salad with shallot vinaigrette and Martha Stewart’s pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. I was able to have everything prepped ahead of time, so when my guests arrived, I just put the tuna in the oven and threw the salad together and we were good to go.

Tuna in the oven, how could you!? Well, while I love to eat raw and seared tuna, I just don’t feel comfortable serving undercooked fish to guests.

Here are my tips for making delicious cooked tuna in the over: 1) coat the fish with olive oil or butter; 2) cook at very high heat (450 degrees) for not very long (these steaks were pretty thick, so I cooked them for 10 minutes).

The salad was a big hit and my friend asked that I share the recipe. I made the whole thing using the eyeball method, so here is the best that I can do for you as far as measurements go:

Autumn Salad with Shallot Vinaigrette

Shallot Vinaigrette:

• one small shallot, minced very finely
• some (1/3 cup?) apple cider vinegar
• some (1 tbsp?) prepared mustard
• few pinches of salt
• few grinds of pepper
• splash or so of olive oil

Combine all ingredients in a small mason jar (something with a trustworthy lid). Shake well to combine (it will emulsify thanks to the mustard, no need to drizzle and whisk). Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

For the Salad:

• ½ bag of arugula
• ½ cups of prepared spaghetti squash (can be roasted and “spaghettied” ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator)
• Pomegranate seeds from one medium pomegranate (can be prepared ahead of time and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator)
• ½ cup(ish) pistachio nutmeat (I prefer unsalted)

To assemble the salad: Throw squash and arugula in a bowl, toss until combined(ish). Dump dressing on it, toss again. Throw pomegranate and pistachio in, one last light toss.  Serve immediately.

I had the coffee maker ready to make a pot of decaf, so once we were done with dinner, all I had to do was press the button (we still make coffee by the pot) and retrieve dessert from the refrigerator.  I totally reccommend Martha Stewart’s recipe for pumpkin cheesecake.  It was easy to throw together, and it came out great.  If you think you want to try it, make it at least one day before you want to serve it (I made mine two days before) because the baking and cooling takes a while and you’re going to want to let it sit in the refrigerator so that the flavors can blend.

After we were suitably wined and dined, I sent everyone home with a nice, big piece of cheesecake so that I wouldn’t eat it all.  Time to plan another get-together!