Porch dinner on a warm night

[magid]

Last night I made a late dinner for friends. Happily, I'd done all the advance prep earlier, so it didn't take long until everything was ready. I lit the lanterns, hung them on the porch, rearranged the furniture on the porch just a bit, and we ate, the cool breezes of the evening being really pleasant, as was the low light from the lanterns and the musical neighbor's room light.

The menu:

• flatbreads with garlic in the dough, topped with olive oil, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, zaatar, and extra sumac
  
• roasted fillets of steelhead trout, topped with a mixture of wasabi-ginger sauce mixed with soy sauce
  
• a green salad, using three kinds of lettuce, arugula, basil, halved cherry tomatoes, and mango, dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette that included a touch of cayenne

The salad turned out well, and the fish was good too, though I think I'd put a bit more sauce on next time, since the wasabi didn't come through so well. The flatbreads were devoured, not a bite left.

It was really satisfying coming up with a meal that felt like it so matched what I wanted to make, what people wanted to eat, what suited the weather, and the time of day (well, night).

Comments

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Drool! Ooh, that sounds so yummy. Time for lunch, I think!

Happily, I'd done all the advance prep earlier, so it didn't take long until everything was ready.

Isn't that great? I like having as much as possible done in advance, so I can send my guests to setting the table and opening the wine, while I just do a quick saute or flash something under the broiler. Then I can sit down with everybody else instead of scurrying around like a maniac.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, almost everything done in advance is *so* much better. Actually, for Shabbat meals, all the cooking is done in advance, so all there is is salad prep, if that. Of course, it means that I never think to make things like soufflees...

In this case, I had the bread dough rising, the salad greens washed, and the fish alread cooked (since pink-flesh fish seems to be pretty good cold, especially when things are hot). All I had to do at the time was roll out the flatbreads, top them with stuff, and bake, and get the rest of the salad ready.

The few leftovers are gone already... :-(