This week marks another milestone for our Monday Night Dining crowd. As the days grow inexorably shorter, and the nights become cooler, it is the inevitable cycle, that leads us to…. Pax Christi Chorale rehearsals!!! Tonight was our first rehearsal, for the 2015 season, which means we need to get back into a more rigorous schedule. We have had the luxury of adding extra courses at a whim, or stretching out our evenings, with conversation, music, or sparklers. Now we must buckle down and find the roots of Monday Night Dining. How to serve a dinner in an hour and a half and make it to rehearsals on time….
This week the menu came together with not much effort. The star of the show, as usual this time of year is our garden. With fresh produce available we just needed to let it guide us. We also went back to one of our “wheelhouse” cuisines, French. For our first foray into Monday night dining, in season, we didn’t want to overdo the guest list, so joining our trio tonight is one of our favorite guests, Janet (because Grandma always said to keep even numbers at the table).
We had not planned an aperitif for the evening, but of course the ever resourceful Janet, did some research on the first course and brought a lovely accompaniment…. Lighthall, 2014 The Fence Sparkling Rose. After greetings and some catching up, of our summer adventures, we sat down to more of the sparkling wine to pair with our Roasted Red Pepper bisque.
The colour of this soup alone, was impressive, truly vibrant, but with freshly picked peppers and basil, from the garden, we could not go wrong. Shawn’s addition of the Chevre was inspired, as it melted into the warm soup. I can’t believe I almost forgot the fresh thyme crackers, that accompanied the bisque. A simple dough with lots of fresh lemon thyme, that was run though our pasta machine, then cut into wedges and baked. We could not stop “taste testing” these… so fresh.
For our main, we served a favorite of ours, but strangely a dish that has not made it onto the blog, rack of lamb, in Phyllo pastry with ricotta gnocchi and sautéed mushrooms. For this dish, a rack of lamb is deboned and the bones are reduced, with aromatics, bourbon and beef stock, to create a lamb jus. The lamb is wrapped in phyllo pastry, with wilted spinach (fresh from the garden), and Dijon, then baked. I think this was one of Shawn’s best attempts at ricotta gnocchi, with fresh herbs form the garden, and sage and butter sauce. We paired this with a 2012 Famille Perrin, Chateauneuf-du-pape.
Cooking in pastry is fun, but you can’t really tell if the meat is cooked properly until you cut into the packet. Luckily we know this dish well, and trusted our instincts.
For dessert, we tried a new recipe. A warm almond financier with seedless grapes. I was very tempted to use a different fruit, because usually all we can find are green seedless grapes. We lucked out and found some beautiful ruby seedless grapes. I think these are my new favorite grape. The grapes were marinated in brandy and Cointreau. The Financier is moist and slightly chewing and served just warm, with a little crème fraiche. This was a nice lighter dessert and I recommend trying it for yourself, and then mixing it up with different fruits.
So we made it through dinner and strangely had a bit of extra time to finish our herbal tea and have a little chin wag. There was a moment when I looked longingly at the piano, but we must go to rehearsal. Our first show is with the Gloucester Cathedral men and boys choir, so we want to be on our game, because these guys are the real deal. We have enjoyed our summer, but there is something comforting about getting back to our in season Monday night dinners. Like going back to your roots. It was really nice to see more friends at rehearsal and catch up on their summers. I will have to catch up with the rest in subsequent weeks.
You have good “instincts” about these things. I watched the side conversation about – “is it done?” is it not done?” and love the way you guys figure everything out so calmly! See you Monday.
Steph