Card Worthy

There are few things I enjoy more than cooking a yummy, delicious, rich, low calorie meal. One of them however is preparing a yummy, delicious, rich meal for people who appreciate it and Kitkat and Fauntleroy not only fall into that category, they helped create it.

They are also wonderful, and willing, guinea pigs. Between the Dollhouse Girls providing me with issues of Martha and Real Simple, LCBO’s Food & Drink and my collection of cookbooks, there are always new creations to create, baked goods to bake and flambés to, well, flambé.

In a fit of cleansing, last week I thumbed through 2 years worth of Martha and tore out an assortment of treats to make. I then hauled the remainder of the magazines to work where they were quickly snatched up from the kitchen.

Aside from a disastrous blending of grilled mini bananas and mascarpone cheese, my boys have been, I like to think, handsomely rewarded via my experiments. And it must be said that I too am spoiled with deliciously satisfying meals from my Thursday night counterparts.

Tonight though, there were not old stand-bys, it was all new. Whenever I make something from a magazine, it is deemed card worthy or not. Another purge / cleansing ritual is to mount the yummy creations on recipe cards and neatly house them in my recipe box. Otherwise, into the recycling bin they go.

We had four card mount worthy contenders this evening. While not the 12 course Victorian era dinner I would like, I do have a full time job you know, it certainly was a nice quarter. Starting to eat at 8:00 PM helps with the prep.

I will concede that the first course hardly counts as such, but when it is paired with what Martha calls “the love child of wine and Champagne”, it earns its own place. I at least hope it was Martha and not that poindexter Jay Sharkey that writes for her. Never met him, but a cake made out of Oreos is NOT Martha, it’s lazy.

Lambrusco, I have decided, will be the drink of the summer. Agreed, it ‘does deserve as much attention as other sparkling wines’, but I hope not too much as the $8.90 / bottle price will surely be a thing of the past. Pair it with presquille from Quebec and a spicy chorizo and BAM! First course complete.

The second course was not ‘new’, but asparagus is in season so in terms of freshness of ingredients, I am calling it such. I have already pickled some of the lovely young pieces as well that will remind me of the spring when winter rolls around again. Did I really just say that?

I then quite literally tore a page from Martha Stewart for roasted parsnip bread pudding that was a side of fluffy goodness dotted with roasted treats. It was paired with a pork roast stuffed with Vidalia onions and rose wine sauce. Both were a tick fussy but not at all complicated and the results were tres tres bien!

And finally, while we watched The Killing (Kalifornia Fauntleroy, that is where she is from) we devoured a rhubarb upside-down cake. The caramelized sides took a scrumptious dessert to a decadent level.

The food was good, the friends were fun and the fizz was fabulous…what else can one ask for on a Thursday?