Vegetarian Red Posole with Jackfruit (Instant Pot)

 Jackfruit does a great job subbing for pork here.  This is a riff on this posole.

Ingredients: 

Group One:

3 guajillo chilis

4 cloves minced garlic

1 small white onion, diced

1 TB ground cumin

2 TB red chili powder

1 can tomato paste (I had to get creative and use 4 TB of harissa paste once instead, and it was great)

Group Two:

3 cans hominy

2 cans jackfruit (make sure you get young jackfruit canned in water, not ripe or canned in syrup)

2 bay leaves

3 cups broth, 4 cups water

To serve: 

Quartered limes, cilantro, sliced avocado, plain yogurt, greens dressed with lime and olive oil, etc. as you prefer

First, halve and de-seed the chilis, and toast them for a few minutes per side in a dry skillet, until they char a bit.  (You may need to open a window).  Put them aside.

Add olive oil to the skillet, and cook the onion and garlic until onion softens, then add the rest of Group One (cumin, chili powder, tomato paste) and cook together.  

Drain the hominy and jackfruit, then add all Group Two ingredients to the instant pot along with the contents of the skillet AND the charred peppers you set aside.  Cook on high pressure for 17 minutes, use quick release, remove the guajillos and bay leaves, and eat.

Hearty Fava and Kale Soup with Polenta Croutons (Instant Pot)

Ingredients

For Soup:

Group One:

1 small white onion, diced

4 cloves minced garlic

2 TB herbs de provence 

Pinch kosher salt 

Pinch crushed red pepper 

Group Two:

1 lb dried fava beans 

4 cups broth, 4 cups water

Group Three: 

1 bunch of kale, washed and torn

For Croutons:

1 polenta log (the firm kind)

Olive oil, salt

More garlic if you like 

To top:  

Hard white cheese and good olive oil

Arugula dressed with olive oil, salt and lemon juice

Cook the onion and garlic in olive oil in a skillet.  (You can do this in the bottom of the instant pot on "saute," but I've had that cause a "burn" error often enough that I prefer to use a separate pan.)  After about 5 mins when the onion softens, add the herbs de provence, salt, and red pepper flakes.  

Put the Group Two ingredients in the instant pot, then add the contents of the skillet (Group One).  Set to cook at high pressure for 20 minutes.  

Meanwhile, make the croutons:  cut the polenta into cubes, coat skillet in olive oil, heat to medium, throw the cubes in, add salt and garlic or whatever other herbs you like, cook (tossing periodically) until browned.  

When the instant pot is done cooking, use the quick release method and stir in the kale immediately, then use an immersion blender or potato masher to get the consistency you prefer.  Top with the polenta croutons, dressed arugula, a swirl of olive oil, and grated hard white cheese.

Christmas Roundup

A roundup of sweets & treats that could warm your home this holiday week. I've been prepping away for all the family to arrive in Arizona for a desert Christmas, so here are some recipes we love that you can use to welcome the ones you love! For more holiday pie recipes, please see Thanksgiving roundups One and Two, which list almost all of our favorite pies.

Holiday Snacks
Orange Chipotle Spiced Pecans: A great Christmas gift, or a snack to be made in advance of carloads of family arriving at your door. 

Cranberry Chutney with Baked Brie:  This recipe was included in a past Thanksgiving roundup, but really belongs in your holiday party or lunch line-up, so I'm cross-posting here. 

Baked Feta: Writing this roundup reminded me that I haven't written up a recent Parady sister discovery: almost all baked cheese is magic, feta included.

Ricotta and Roasted Grape Crostini I pulled some recipes from an impressive party menu Sarah once created, but I'm pretty sure I've had these elsewhere and they were excellent.

Stuffed Dates: Sarah does hers with bleu cheese & marscapone, I've had them with parmesan and drool just thinking about it.

Roasted Tomato and Rosemary White Bean Dip: K made this for a Christmas spread one year, and it's perfect party fare - a lovely warm dip, without being too heavy.

Gin-Marinated Olives

Cookies!

Holiday Cookie Roundup  I shouldn't even need a cookie section, because almost all the cookies you could need can be found in this post here, from a year where Sarah was clearly amped on holiday cheer and let it all out in the form of baking.

Spicy Gingerbread Cookies: The way gingerbread is meant to be: dark, strong, and with a kick.

Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies: Another place these flavors blend together perfectly is this pie. 

Sweet Potato Biscotti: A guest post by one of our mum's co-librarians!

G-Free Salted Oatmeal Cookies

Grown-Up No-Bake Cookies

Flourless Mexican Chocolate Cookies

Christmas Wreath Cookies Inexplicably, these cookies that I made as a college student in a tiny apartment reign supreme as one of the top five  most popular recipes ever posted on this blog. 

Eggnog Florentines

Pie & Other Desserts

Chocolate-Covered Candied Oranges My favorite stocking gift as a kid were those chocolate oranges that you "whack and unwrap".  Here, a much classier version. 

Dark Chocolate Pomegranate Pie: A recent original Parady pie recipe.

Black-Bottom Citrus Pie: Four & Twenty Blackbirds makes a black-bottom lemon pie that is a dream during citrus season, but I've played with the idea of hearkening to the above-mentioned chocolate oranges by replacing the lemons with oranges here. Let me know if you try it!

The Molasses Pie!: Another cross-post...I know I tell you to make this every Thanksgiving, but you should make it every Christmas, too.  

Egg N' Grogg Pie: Another Four & Twenty Blackbirds creation - all the boozy, creamy goodness of eggnog wrapped up in a pie. 

Whiskey-Soaked Dark Chocolate Cake: Can you think of anything else a dessert needs to contain? I can't. 

For Christmas Morning: Growing up, our family used to be gifted with a homemade potica by an old family friend, and I would always have a slice on Christmas morning. Seeing as how I haven't yet mustered the energy to tackle that kitchen challenge, I'm forever in search of a Christmas breakfast that is both festive and minimal effort the morning-of, lest breakfast stand in the way of present-opening.

Applesauce Sticky Cake with Dates

Stromboli: This is a guest post by my very good friend, whose family is filled with chefs, and who whip this up quickly for their family each year while making hundreds of cinnamon rolls for family and friends. 

Orange, Pistachio and Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls

Green Chili Souffle K & S made this for a long-ago Christmas morning for which I was not present, so I'm thinking I'll force them to make it again this Christmas, no? 

Gingerbread Dutch Baby: Dutch Babies are SO much easier than pancakes and waffles, and here's a perfect Christmas one!

Dark, Stout Gingerbread

Drinks - the warm and the boozy

Winter Marshmallow Trio: Chai, Peppermint, and Espresso: If you're going to get fancy enough to make your own marshmallows, you might as well go to town on the flavors, too. 

Decadent Hot Chocolate Mix: I often find myself disappointed in hot chocolate, and have searched high and low for a recipe that's foolproof to creating a rich, sturdy mug of hot chocolate without being sickeningly sweet.  Deb, of course, had the answer.  You will never need another hot chocolate recipe again.

Italian Amaretto Cookies and Bourbon Hot Toddys: Our hot toddy recipes on this blog are extensive (here, here and here). In this edition, Kate paired them with some lovely cookies for a Christmas celebration.

Coconut Curry Hot Chocolate: Make your hot chocolate with coconut milk and add curry marshmallows, because we all need a little sweet & spicy for our holidays. 

Gingerbread Latte Make a batch of syrup in advance and you're set for holiday coffee without the drive-through line.

Cranberry Sorbet Fizz

Fairytale of New York: This is described as a "winter-spiced old-fashioned", so I made a batch of the syrup in advance of our whiskey-loving family arriving.  It made my kitchen smell like heaven. 

Baked Feta

K told me a secret about a year ago - that Brie isn't the only cheese that gets 5x dreamier if you slip it in the oven before serving.  She has a different baked feta recipe, but below is the version I've been adding to every cheese plate since.  It's a simple way to knock your hor d'oeuvres spread out of the park. I'm confident it would be excellent with any manner of herbs.

Ingredients:

1 block of feta (doesn't need to be fancy, as you're about to fancy it up anyways)
Crushed Red Pepper
Oregano
Olive Oil

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Cover the top of your feta liberally with herbs and crushed red pepper.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Bake until just soft, 10-15 minutes.  Serve immediately with your favorite crackers.

Curried Vegetable Fritters

Using Deb of smitten kitchen and The Kitch'n as a guide, I set out to make vegetable fritters without realizing that they are a tad more time-consuming than my night allowed for (mainly due to grating).  Never fear, I read about anti-poverty policy with my computer propped next to the sizzling frying pan. The result was a happily veggie-filled dinner to fuel my homework, paired with tomato soup and topped with my most recent Deb obsession: the crispy egg.

These portions are great for two, or for one single lady's dinner + lunch.

1/2 sweet potato
2 carrots
1/4 medium yellow onion
2 large florets cauliflower
1/4 cup feta
1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic
Handful of cilantro
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon yellow curry powder
1/2 teaspoon coriander
Salt, black pepper and/or red pepper flakes to taste
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup flour

Boil cauliflower in a small saucepan.  Meanwhile, grate sweet potato, carrots and onion into a medium bowl (if grating onions makes you weep, metaphorically or literally, slice it finely). Once soft, use a potato masher or fork to break up the cauliflower, add it to the bowl.  Chop ginger, garlic and cilantro finely, add them along with spices and feta.  Toss it all around with a fork. Add beaten egg, then flour, toss it all around some more.  Make sure the mixture will hold together well if you press it into a ball.  If not, add more flour (I wished I'd had).

Heat a frying pan with a thick coating of olive oil in the bottom of the pan over medium heat. Roll a roughly 1/4 cup sized portion into a ball. Drop into pan, flatten with a spatula. Let sit for a few (2-3) minutes, then flip and do the same on the other side.  If it's not quite ready to flip without crumbling, wait a bit longer. Once both sides are nicely browned, transfer to a plate.

Deb serves it with a nice yogurt dip.  I stirred together yogurt, cumin and lemon juice for my lunch fritters tomorrow, but really enjoyed these with a fried egg on top.

Party Menu

Just add people!  :)

Clockwise, we have:

1.  Endives with goat cheese.
2.  In the blue bowl, fava puree with cherries and parsley.  Cucumbers on the side for dipping.
3.  A salad with grapefruit, avocado, endives, spring greens, marcona almonds, and a mustardy-lemony-mapley dressing.
4.  These tomato puffed pastries - they were the only thing I probably wouldn't make again.  Or, would make in the summer with better tomatoes or use some slow-roasted tomatoes.
5.  These no-bake cookies.  (FYI, I made them with vegan butter substitute for some vegan guests.  Worked just fine.)
6. Smitten Kitchen's orange olive oil cake, cut into cubes with whipped cream for dipping.
7. Newfangled cheese ball.
8.  Just above that, apricot butter with bread.
9.  Ottolhengi's gorgeous beet dip with chili and yogurt.  I wish I had seen his suggestion to thicken with mashed potatoes, but tasted amazing.
10.  The cumin chickpea puree from this recipe.

Not pictured, we also had:

11.  Grape, rosemary and ricotta toasts.
12.  Stuffed dates.
13.  Lemon cookies.
14.  Chipotle-orange pecans.
15.  And last but not least, probably my favorite:  Candied chocolate-dipped oranges.

Plus, some guests brought extremely tasty sriracha-roasted cauliflower with sesame dip.

Sweet Potato, Apple and Onion Galette

Grad school homework procrastination means I am back to both cooking and blogging in a big way.  Please no judgement, writing about wrapping fall's best foods in pie crust and calling it dinner is infinitely more enjoyable than working on my first midterm paper.  I made this (a slight variation on this) on a lovely fall evening in Boston, served with a bowl of tomato soup (and a pumpkin beer) it was exactly the sort of indulgence that helps you appropriately enjoy a season.

Serves 4 as an appetizer, 2 as part of a main course

1 single refrigerated pie crust (If I had had premade pie crust on hand, I would have been tempted to speed the dinner process along by using it.  However, that's why I don't keep storebought pie crust on hand- it really is so much better when you make it yourself, even when you mess it up slightly and it's hard to roll out or too sticky) (Requested edit: I like smitten kitchen's and Joy the Baker's pie crusts, if you are in need of a trusty recipe)
1 small sweet potato, or half a large one (peeled, cut in half lengthwise and sliced)
1 apple, cored and sliced
1 quarter of an onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup sharp white cheddar, cubed
1 tsp sage
1 tsp rosemary
2 T butter, cubed

Preheat oven to 375.

Roll out pie crust on a flat surface, transfer to a baking pan (do this before filling the crust, don't make the same mistake I did).  Dab crust with a few cubes of butter and cubes of cheddar, gently shake some of the spices over.  Artfully layer the sweet potato, apple and onion slices, starting with a circle in the middle and tucking butter and cheddar cubes throughout.  Be sure to leave 3/4 - 1 inch around the edge for the crust.  When finished, top with any leftover butter and cheddar, and the rest of the spices.  Use your discretion on the amounts of apple, sweet potato and onion - you want the same amount of apple and sweet potato, less onion, and for your crust not to be overloaded.  Fold the edge of the crust over the edges.  Because this is a galette, it's supposed to be a little imperfect compared to its fussy cousin, pie.  Bake for 40 minutes, rotating halfway through.

Serve with a bowl of soup or a hearty salad, or as the sort of appetizer that makes the main course feel embarrassed to follow.  I would imagine that if you caramelized the onions, this would be even better, but didn't get to that point last night - let me know if you do.

Melon-Olive Skewers with Bread & Rosemary

I haven't snapped a picture of these skewers at any of the several summer barbeques for which I've made them, but besides being juicy and chewy and savory and sweet, they are also quite lovely, pale green and red and black.  You'll need:

One ripe green melon (really key that you get a good one, as we all know the horrors of unripe honeydew - cantaloupe would probably be nice too), cubed

Cherry or grape tomatoes 

Gemlik olives (mild, wrinkly black "breakfast olives"), pitted

Crusty bread, cubed

Skewer these items (all at a 1:1 ratio); drizzle them with a mixture of olive oil, something tart (lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, balsamic, apple cider vinegar, etc.), rosemary, and salt; and grill them.  Smaller cubes grill more nicely and are easier to eat.  You can serve people their own skewers, or unskewer everything, toss in a bowl, and serve as a salad.

Roasted Tomato & Rosemary White Bean Dip

Spring has come to Arizona, but for everyone still suffering from cold weather this roasted tomato and rosemary white bean dip is just the thing. I served it during the holidays and for the superbowl; it's great party fare but also nice to have on hand during the week to use as a sandwich spread or salad topper.

Ingredients

1 container grape or cherry tomatoes

3-4 roma or hothouse tomatoes

1 head garlic

10 sprigs fresh rosemary 

3 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

Olive oil

Sea salt

Black pepper

Smoked paprika

Chipotle powder (optional)

Assembly

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Quarter roma or hothouse tomatoes and halve grape or cherry tomatoes. Slice the top off of the garlic head. Arrange tomatoes and garlic together in roasting pan and drizzle very generously with olive oil, pouring a nice glug directly over the head of garlic, especially. Season with sea salt and black pepper. Let roast for 30 minutes, then add about half of your rosemary  and stir or flip tomatoes. Roast for an additional 30 minutes or until your tomatoes are running with juice and beginning to caramelize. 

While tomatoes are roasting, pour three cans of rinsed and drained cannellini bins into a large saucepan. Drizzle generously with olive oil and season with sea salt, black pepper, and smoked paprika to taste. Add chipotle powder if interested in a spicier, smokier dip. Add good amount of de-stemmed rosemary leaves to the saucepan. Stir and mash gently while beans heat all the way through. Add more olive oil if they begin to get too dry. 

Remove tomatoes and garlic from oven and beans from heat. Add tomatoes and beans to a large serving bowl. Remove rosemary sprigs, but feel free to knock the leaves off into the beans and tomato bowl. Rinse garlic head under cold water and then slip skin off of the roasted cloves. Mash cloves into the beans and tomatoes with a masher or a large fork until texture is how you prefer. I like it fairly smooth but with some of the beans keeping their form. Make sure to pour all of the oil from the roasting pan into the dip, and add other seasonings until the flavor is as you prefer. Decorate with remaining rosemary sprigs.

Serve warm with roasted or raw vegetables, crackers, bread, or even tortilla or potato chips. Enjoy.

Food Allergies and Ethics: The dip itself is gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan. Just be mindful of what you serve it with. 

Newfangled Cheese Ball

I made this over the holidays and it got eaten faster than anything else on the snack table.  The parsley makes it much more attractive than your traditional cheddar-and-almonds orange blob.

In case of recipe link death (it has happened to some of our early posts!  Quelle horreur!), here's what you need to know:

Ingredients:

Group One:
1 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 TB buttermilk
8 ounces cream cheese
about 3 Medjool dates, minced (should be 3 TB)

Group Two:
1 TB minced shallots
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Group Three:
1/4 cup minced parsley
2.5 TB walnuts, toasted and finely chopped


Thoroughly mix Group One (you may need to let your cheeses soften first), then mix in Group Two.  Use saran wrap to form this mixture into a ball, refrigerating it for a bit first if needed.  Unwrap, separately mix together Group Three, and roll the cheeseball in the mixture.

Roasted Eggplant with Buttermilk

This is a completely heavenly recipe from "Plenty."  (Actually, it's the cover recipe!)  I made it as soon as I got home from Turkey a few weeks ago, because I realized while I was there that I've been cooking eggplant wrong forever (basically, by doing anything other than baking it until it falls out of its skin), and this recipe seemed like it would fix that.   Oh man: it did.

Just to assuage my guilt about reposting other people's recipes, let me tell you that esp if you are a vegetarian, you need to buy this cookbook!  This particular recipe, for example, includes a miraculous method for de-seeding pomegranates that I'm not going to spill here.

Here's what I will tell you, though.  This is one beautiful set of flavors, and it was barely any work.  Also, this is how you cook an eggplant, regardless of what you top it with.

Ingredients:

2 large eggplants
1/3 cup olive oil
1.5 tsp lemon thyme (I used a mix of thyme and lemon verbena)
1 pomegranate, seeded
1 tsp za'atar (make your own like this)

For sauce:
9 TB buttermilk
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1.5 TB olive oil
1 small garlic clove, crushed
pinch of salt

1.  Preheat oven to 400 and prepare eggplants:  Cut in half lengthwise, leaving stem on.  Lay on baking sheet, cut sides up.  Then, "score" the flesh of each eggplant deeply with a knife, both from side-to-side and diagonally, being careful not to cut through the skin.  Finally, brush with olive oil.  Keep brushing until the flesh of the 4 halves has soaked up the entire 1/3 cup.  Sprinkle with lemon thyme, salt, and pepper.  Roast for 35-40 minutes or until soft and browned.

2.  To make the sauce, just whisk everything together.  To serve the eggplants, pour some buttermilk sauce over each half, and top with pomegranate seeds, za'aatar, and a drizzle of olive oil.  

Tomato Cucumber Salad with Middle Eastern Yogurt Dressing

Chop up 2 cups each cucumbers and tomatoes.   Dress with:

2 finely chopped chiles 

skin of 1/2 preserved lemon, finely chopped

chopped parsley and mint

juice of 1 lemon

1 cup good plain yogurt

plenty of salt
dash of olive oil

"Ricotta"

In quotes b/c I have no idea if this is how one actually makes ricotta.  But you can't beat the level of effort:

Bring 1/2 a gallon of whole milk and a cup of cream to a boil with 1/2 a tsp of salt.  As soon as it reaches a rolling boil, toss in 4 TB fresh lemon juice, bring down to a simmer, and stir for a minute or two to make sure everything curdles.  (Fascinating!)  Drain in a cheesecloth-coated strainer for an hour.  Keep the whey for smoothies if you're into that kind of thing.  Eat.

Asparagus Parmesan Tart with Garlic Olive Oil and Balsamic Reduction

So I graduated, am working my first "real" job and am spending my year navigating the pitfalls and advantages that come with being an adult.  And suddenly it's December, and I recently had my first work Christmas potluck.  I wanted to make something that demonstrated (mostly for me) how very grownup and together I am.

see, there's a green vegetable that i am going to promptly coat with that big pile of cheese, some oil and lots of buttery bread.  how very adult of me.

You see, as a postgrad, it's the small things that make you feel either incredibly accomplished or like you should just lock yourself inside and never try to do anything remotely responsible ever again. It's like this comic, which has become a sort of anthem for my friends and I in this stage of life due to its stunning (and terrifying) accuracy. One day you are decorating your entire house for Christmas and making cider for your book club that you actually read the book for, and the next day you are running late and there's a pile of dishes in the sink and you end up eating mac n' cheese straight out of the pan.  And your emotions run a similar roller coaster to your functionality.

GRATE ALL THE CHEESE

And so I knew that if I were able to create something mouthwateringly delicious and semi creative, than I would have a responsible high to cruise on for weeks.  Potlucks are tricky, because the food has to be transportable and you also have to predict what others will bring.  I know we are all stunned that I didn't bring a pie, especially with so many options in my arsenal.  But it's the holiday season, and I knew at least half the spread would be sweets, so savory it was.

I discover this tart from my aforementioned favorite blogger, Joy The Baker.  Here's her version.   The minute I saw it I knew it would perfectly suit my needs for something fancy yet entirely doable and affordable.  Here's my version, which is mostly modified due to cost and availability of ingredients.

parmesan instead of gruyere, crescent roll dough instead of puff pastry

Ingredients
2 cans of crescent roll dough
1 lb of asparagus
1 egg, beaten
about 2 cups of grated Parmesan
A few tablespoons of olive oil
Some garlic
1 bottle of balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll each can of crescent roll dough onto one cookie sheet. Smooth over perforations in dough, creating full sheets of dough.  At this point you can optionally cut the dough into smaller rectangles if you want individualized tarts.  Brush dough with beaten egg. Layer parmesan cheese on top, press asparagus on top in a row. Simmer olive oil with garlic to infuse.  Brush on top of asparagus generously (it will soak into the dough and take it to a whole 'nother level).  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until dough is golden.

Simmer balsamic vinegar in a small pan until reduced to a thick syrup.  Drizzle artistically on top of tart.  Admire, serve and receive compliments while eating.

**We are currently baking a version of this for Christmas Eve dinner, with puff pastry as Joy calls for and thinly sliced apricots snuggled between the asparagus.  Get creative, too!**

This is the recipe for the next time you need a large dose of affirmation in your life perfect dish for a party, holiday or otherwise.  It comes together easy and quick, stands out in a lineup and is also incredibly aesthetically pleasing.  Enjoy!

Fava Puree with Parsley and Dried Cherries

Last time we were in Brooklyn, I loaded up both of our carryons with things I miss from the peerless Sahadi's, like cardamom tea and harissa paste and pistachio oil.  (Actually, the pistachio oil was a problem as it was over the size limit for said carryons.  Luckily, we were in NY to visit a baby with a very smart mama, who filled two of his bottles---under the volume limit---with my precious oil and sent me on my way.)

I also got a nice big container of dried, shelled fava beans.  They may not be as tender as the farmer's-market-fresh batch that went into this soup, but the nutty flavor and velvet texture when pureed are all there.  I love the flavor of this puree and was tempted to eat it with a spoon (or on little toasts, perhaps?).  Instead, it went over some store-bought "wild mushroom agnolotti" with ribbons of barely-steamed asparagus.

2 cups dried, shelled favas
juice of 1 lemon (maybe 2 if yours are small and/or store bought - mine was the last of my Arizona trove)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 package finely chopped dried cherries
One bunch fresh parsley, stemmed and chopped
1/2 cup grated nutty white cheese
splash of white balsamic vinegar
Salt

Quick-soak the favas beans (cover in water, about 2-3 inches above beans, bring to boil, boil for one minute, turn off heat, let sit for one hour). 

While they soak, make a vinaigrette of olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar and salt.  Taste and adjust to your liking; measurements approximate.  You can always add more of any of these things to the puree once it's made.   (Chop the parsley and cherries and grate the cheese, too.)

When favas are ready, mash them with vinaigrette using a potato masher, to whatever consistency you like (I think chunky is nice), mix the other ingredients in and mash a bit more, adjust flavors, and serve - hot or cold depending how you use it.

Ed. 11/22/15:  I made this again for a party at my house (served as a cold dip), and have a few notes.  First, I think the better quantity of favas is more like 2 cups AFTER soaking.  Second, this time around I didn't have as much soaking time and the beans weren't quite as soft, so I pureed 2/3 of them with the vinaigrette in the blender (food processor would be even better if you have one) and mashed the rest with a fork.  Third, I needed a lot more olive oil than in the above, partly because of the beans being less soft.  And fourth, I made it without any cheese for some vegan guests and it was still delightful!

Cumin Apple Chips, Panko-Fried Asparagus, Sriracha Mayo, and more

Oscar party menu:

Dip these:

1. Sweet Potato Fries
2. Apple chips, dusted with cumin and sea salt
3. Panko-fried green beans and asparagus

In these:

1. Mayonnaise with sriracha and a squirt of lemon. Unreal.
2. Greek yogurt with Tom Yum paste stirred in.
3. Tarragon mustard with chopped artichokes.

Also there were these:

1. Dates with blue cheese
2. Grown-up No-bakes
3. Lemon cookies

(Plus tsatsiki and dolmas, bought premade, and a phyllo pie with herbed homemade ricotta, brought over by a guest.)

Snack

Sliced Fuji apple, honey mustard, and robusto cheese on toasted ciabatta.

Makes me want to get Hobbesian (no, not THAT kind of Hobbesian!) and say "snack" over and over:

Cranberry Chutney

This one's from our stepmother - great with a warm brie wheel at a party - and I remembered it when I threw up the post about canning chutney last weekend:

Cranberry Chutney

1 16 oz package of cranberries

2 cups sugar

1 cup water

1 tablespoon grated orange peel

1 cup orange juice

1 cup golden seedless raisins

1 cup walnuts, chopped

1 cup celery, chopped

1 medium apple, chopped

1 teaspoon ground ginger

In a 3-quart saucepan over medium heat, heat cranberries, sugar and water to boiling, stirring the mixture frequently.

Reduce heat to low and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in remaining ingredients. Serve.

Orange-Coconut-Garlic Guacamole

It's been raining cold rain for 3 days in Denver, so for a friend's b-day dinner tonight, I just wanted big pots simmering on the stove and warm, heat-your-bones flavors. So I made a pot of Katelyn's Red Hot Posole - see my comment on her recipe for some additional notes.

To make it a proper dinner-party meal, I also made some very tasty vegetarian refried beans (tomato paste will work in place of diced tomatoes and as always I recommended upping most of the spices in the linked recipe, but it was basically great), and a bright crunchy jicama salad. And for an appetizer, I tried something similar to Rick Bayless's tropical take on guacamole:

Mash 5 avos, and add:

1. 6 large garlic cloves, halved and broiled in the toaster till soft, then mashed into a paste
2. Insides & juice of 1 orange (cut out the fruit from inside each little section to avoid any membrane) + a squeeze of lime juice
3. Splash of lite coconut milk
4. handful of freezedried shallots (grilled onions would be better)
5. Salt to taste

....and now everything's shipshape and I can kick back with tea until people show up. That's a rare outcome when I try to cook a whole dang meal. ;)

Tomato & Artichoke Bruschetta

Sitting at my sunny table with 2 slices of lightly toasted sourdough, topped with:

Tiny baby farmer's market grape tomatos, halved
small cubes of drunken goat cheese
shredded artichokes from a jar
EVO, balsamic, salt, garlic paste.

Summer!!