foodiefanatics

The menu: tomato soup, Chicken Tikki Masala, spicy broccoli, eggplant and canned dal (which, by the way, is quite good).
The reviews:  Tomato soup was excellent, with the dominant taste that of fresh tomato (so the tomatoes have to be good) (from The ARt of Indian Vegetarian Cooking)
Broccoli was quite simple and incredibly easy to make (Madhur Jaffrey's World VEg) but quite tasty, just garlic, ginger, salt and sesame oil.  The kids loved it.
Eggplant was fantastic, almost like caramelized eggplant (the kids wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole), but I wished we had tons more. It was called Char-flavored eggplant with green peas (also from Art of Indian Veg). You cook the eggplant with spices without stirring until all the liquid evaporates and it starts to caramelize and literally melts in your mouth.
Chicken Tikka Masala was also excellent.  I used the Chicken tandoori recipe from Cooking Light which uses thighs marinated in a tandoori paste and then cooked on the grill. The key to the cooking is not drying the meat out. I cooked it barely 6 minutes a side, checking often, at about 400 degrees. I then used the Tikka masala sauce from 1,000 Indian recipes which was fantastic but I did not have fenugreek leaves and I think it really could have used that. This is close to the sauce from a restaurant (although the chicken itself does not have the charred flavor from a restaurant).
Great Meal.

Last night we tried some creative mex.  Chicken tostados (using the chicken tandoori I'd made a few nights before which was great by the way--more on that later) and carrot mole.  I was the only one who liked the mole, but for a quick dinner side dish, I highly recommend it for those who like mole (it's from The Border Cookbook, by Bill and Cheryl Jamison).  The Chicken Tostados were great, from the quick section of Gourmet (July 2008)

Doing a birthday brunch for my sister in law tomorrow.  This is quite the cooking weekend.  We are having greek yogurt with figs (using that fig tree again!) with honey (from a local purveyor made with thistle) and pine nuts. We had a similar yogurt dish at a restaurant in San Diego for Brunch (Cafe Chloe) We are doing grapefruit mimosas (with a bit of cranberry juice in them, Sunset May 08), puffy pancake with nutty banana butterscotch (Rachel Ray, I've made it now about 5 times and we love it), lamb sausage (from our farm, deck family farm), and wrinkled potatoes with spicy chile mojo (this is xeroxed from a cookbook but I don't know which cookbook!).  My daughter is making a boxed cake and I'm going to make some kind of Indian dessert as well but haven't decided what yet.

Tonight, I've got an unusual combination of dishes. We're starting with a fig pizza with goat cheese and prosciutto (but I'm actually going to use sopresetta because I'm kind of tired of prosciutto and its texture).  I've got figs on my fig tree so I'm trying fig recipes. And, I'm retrying the pizza crust recipe from cooking light that I made such a mess of last time. That starter will be followed by halibut with corn gravy and chive mashed potatoes (Rachel Ray, 7/08).  The corn gravy is a mix of bacon, milk, chicken broth, corn, thyme and red bell pepper.  Dessert is a carrot cake recipe I downloaded from epicurious.com that was originally from Bon 10/04. 
I did a bunch of research before picking this recipe.  I looked through four different recipes trying to get a sense of the differences.  The recipes were quite different. Some had very little flour, other very little carrot. The Martha STewart recipe had 1 1/2 pounds of cream cheese and 3/4 cup of butter in the frosting!  Sounded great but too much.  This recipe had lots of reviews that were very positive and seemed a bit middle of the road.
I'm doing the crust for the pizza on the grill.  Hope it works out.

Thursday, the menu included avocado tomato stacks (cooking light, June 08) and Welsh rarebit burgers (Rachel Ray, 7/08). We had pecan pie for dessert.  The avocado tomato stacks were fantastic and looked good too. If I can ever figure out how to get the pictures on her, I'll post one.  Of course, once you cut into the stack the whole thing falls apart.  They were drizzled with a cilantro buttermilk dressing.
The Welsh rarebit burgers are fantastic if you like the flavor of the rarebit sauce (cheddar/Worcestershire/Guinness).  The burgers are browned in the skillet and then placed on pumpernickel bread with broiled rarebit sauce, tomato and bacon. 

The meal was fabulous. The flavors went together well and preparations were relatively easy for such a large menu during the hot summer. Guests favs included the toasts with chipotle, the figs (which people raved about and I ended up making three days in a row), the pork tenderloin and polenta.  When we got to dessert, I thought we'd just pick at it but we ate almost all the dessert.  Guests loved the blueberry bread pudding and asked for the recipe. It's from Cooking Light (I did not exactly follow the recipe, reducing the eggs to 4 whole eggs and 2 egg whites) and the whole milk to skim). 

Here's the fig recipe
6 black mission figs (make sure these are not super ripe and they can even be a bit not ripe)
honey
12 teaspoons goat cheese
6 slices of prosciutto
4-6 oz of baby spinach, arugula or lighter lettuce
2 T olive oil
1 T balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat broiler.  Cut the stems off the figs and cut off the top until the pink insides are showing. Drizzle honey into the center of the fig (it will be about 1t and some of the honey may leak out).  Broil on a cookie sheet for about 3 minutes until the tops just start to char.  Remove from oven and put on a plate. Let cool.

Clean spinach, spin and toss with 1 T oil and vinegar. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and salt to taste.  Put a small pile of greens on 6 plates.

Heat 1 T oil in 10 inch skillet on medium heat.  Fill each fig with 2t goat cheese or as much as will fit (this works best with cold goat cheese. I used three different kinds and all were equally good).  Wrap each fig with prosciutto making sure that the open side is covered completely with the ham.  Set the figs into the hot oil with the open side down first.  Fry each fig for about 2 minutes on each side. They should sizzle. If the cheese starts to come out, remove from the skillet, or turn them so the cheese will stay in.

Place one fig on each plate. Serve with a sharp knife.

Notes: If lots of honey comes out, you may want to drizzle a bit of honey over the salad.