I love that Jerusalem cookbook. The photographs are total food porn, and the recipes are amazing.

One of my go-to meals for a crowd is poached salmon. In the summer I like to do it the night before, and serve it cold with a good dill/creme fraiche sauce and veggies to make a bit of a salmon nicoise (spelling?) platter. in the winter I serve it hot with roasted potatoes or rice and some kind of steamed veggie.

In both cases, lots of garlic bread!

Gosh… we haven’t had company (at the dinner level) for a very long time.

We had a houseguest who ate nothing but meat and leafy vegetables. We fed him meat and leafy vegetables.

We had a houseguest from France for two weeks and he did a lot of the cooking. He was here over Halloween and we made shrunken heads (stuffed peppers with faces carved in them). We fed him what we normally eat.

The last time Mrs pj’s ex was here, I made a variety of sausages on the grill with beans and a salad.

I guess if I was “entertaining”, I would probably make pj’s chicken curry, rice, and a salad.

in winter i make lamb stew with parsnips, home-grown tomatoes from the freezer, red wine, and lots and lots of mushrooms. the secret ingredient is dried prunes. i first had this at the macdowell colony and it was such a hit, the next morning the recipe was in everyone's mailboxes.

it's easy to make this far ahead and freeze it, because it comes out even better after freezing. there's nothing to do but heat it up!

for summer i love to make tabbouli, cucumber soup, and sear chicken breasts on the bbq with grilled hot peaches and cream for dessert. the tabbouli and cucumber soup can be made days ahead. the chicken breasts are super easy and always turn out succulent. i like to coat in teriyaki sauce and herbs. or marinate overnight in my own improvised dressing. the peaches are also super easy and delish--they turn out like a grilled peach pie--the sugar in them gets carmelized on the grill.

for a summer lunch i make a huge salad of mixed greens, chopped up sauteed salmon burgers, goat cheese, kalamata olives, and capers.

super easy.

if i am going to a potluck where everyone is knocking themselves out to make something fabulous, i bring a greek spinach pie. very expensive and complicated to make, but so good!

one year for my birthday i made a gigantic seafood paella--i had to use two pots and all the burners on the stove. it was fantastic. i got the recipe from a pianoworld member who got it from placido domingo who got it from his grandmother.

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
If I know that they're open to interesting spices, I have a chicken thighs in morroccan spices with dried apricots crockpot recipe that is to die for when served over couscous. I'd probably do a cucumber and tomato salad with it.

that sounds amazing. recipe?

EDA: nevermind, i see you already linked to it. thanks.