This week I hosted cooking club at our new flat with the theme being recipes from Ina Garten. I always get a lot of questions about how our cooking club works so here is a little rundown: There are six of us. We each take turns hosting. When we host we come up with the theme and prepare the main dish. The others are assigned general courses (appetizer, side dish, dessert, drinks, etc). Sometimes it’s casual, sometimes it’s more formal. It’s whatever the host feels like doing.
I made Ina Garten’s short ribs. Verdict: Delicious! Adding it to my ‘meals to impress company’ category. The beef just fell off the bone it was so tender. Other great dishes: Melon wrapped in Prosciutto, garlic sauteed spinach, parmesan and thyme crackers.
For dessert we did something different. We had a chocolate chip cookie taste test with our favorite recipes (due to a ongoing debate on this topic). I printed out little cards for each entry and we took very scientific notes on our favorites. Turns out, above anything else, freshness (i.e. warm out of the oven) was paramount. So the results were somewhat inconclusive. Several followup experiments might be needed.
Having space to actually entertain was so much fun. I’m thinking we will definitely do it more often now.