Dinner is Served!

When entertaining, I find that simple elegance is the backbone to any dinner. I love these cherry brandy roses! I composed this wonderful menu of dishes that I'd made before, including an appetizer, soup, and salad, but also I endeavored to prepare a new entree that I'd never made before; a classic Steak Diane. Dessert followed these courses, of course. Read on!

Dinner
ON THE COUCH
Mini pre-made Quiche Lorraine courtesy of FreshDirect.com but the proper recipe for Julia Child's whole quiche is shown in this video.
Serve with a bottle of fizzy Spanish cava. Other various mixed concoctions made with cava found here and here

TO THE TABLE
White Gazpacho
Caesar Salad
Steak Diane*
Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

*We were too stuffed already to make the steak. Read about the ensuing morning here.

An Afternoon with A & P

Baby's father (A) was coming to town with his wife (P), to meet up with her daughter, her daughter's husband and their two children. It was all very last minute and as we had just thrown our Derby party, we wanted to serve something easy but elegant for family, 'natch. I think we quite succeeded, and simply so as well.

Julia Child's Quiche Lorraine (The Eighty-seventh Show) with crumbled fried bacon, eggs and heavy cream was an excellent starter, inverted on tea cup plates, which we chose to serve cold and without a crust. We also used less cream and dispensed with the chilled butter chips as the recipe encourages, we merely rubbed the ramekins with softened butter. All told, it was easy as pie and delicious as quiche.

I'm a huge fan of clever leftovers; the hearty remains of the Southern Shrimp from the Derby with a fresh batch of instant grits made their way onto comfortable spoons again to the delight of a new audience.

We sat with sumptuous crab cakes poised on a shallow pool of horseradish sauce before getting down to business. The medium rare grilled Filet Mignon entree was served with a side of scrumptious lobster mashed potatoes and asparagus, roasted with lemon zest, and lemon- and oregano-infused oils.

Homemade thyme-infused peach sorbet quite finished us off.

Ah oui, mesdames et monsieurs, a perfectly affable afternoon in which to serve Quiche Lorraine!

Soundtrack: Stephane Grappelli, Shades of Django; Henry Mancini, Combo!; Frank Sinatra, Sinatra Sings Cole Porter; Blues in the Night, The Johnny Mercer Songbook; Falling in Love with Glenn Miller.