Small Appliances and the Dinner Party

Last week was fun! Our lilies are coming out and the garden is really blooming.  J and I threw a dinner party of all of his PGY1 OB-GYN colleagues and their partners, Saturday. This, of course, meant that we got to try out all of our small appliances. And cookware, serving dishes, table linens, towels -- seriously. You guys were so generous. I can't believe that we have a fully functioning, fully equipped kitchen. It's like being a grown up!

A prairie lily. How pretty!

It's been hot here lately, so I knew that I wanted to make ice cream for the group. We now have an ice cream maker attachment for our stand mixer, so I decided that vanilla gelato and strawberry sorbet were the ones for me this time. One of J's colleagues was bringing dessert (a seriously AWESOME cake, but more on that later) and I figured that a little ice cream would go well with it. So I used the ice cream maker. 

All went well with the first batch of vanilla gelato, but I had a bit of a mishap with the strawberry sorbet. Perhaps unwisely, I'd decided to wash the floors and then use my juicer to mash the strawberries. At the time it seemed efficient. In reality, I managed to knock into a bowl of strawberry juice, sending a quarter of it flying towards the floor, the cupboards, the island, the stools, but righting myself at the last minute and managing to catch the bowl before it completely spilled. There was strawberry carnage all over my beautifully clean kitchen. Now the kitchen is just extra clean, because I washed it before and after making the sorbet. Lesson learned: Plan to wash floors after making a mess. 

Now, because we were having this dinner party, I went looking for some Raincoat Crisps. You know the ones - the fig and rosemary (and other flavored) crackers that come in the fancy green or purple or yellow package. You can find them at fine grocery store's delis  and they cost about $8 a packet. Well, I couldn't find them here in Saskatoon. There's a strong possibility that I just didn't look hard enough. Or perhaps, because we are not on the "Raincoast" any more, the stores simply don't carry them. So I decided to make my own. And they turned out pretty well! 

Maybe I could call them FlatLand FlatBread. 

For the crackers I had to use the food processor (thank you, Brother-of-Mine!), the stand mixer (thanks Mum!), and the oven (thank you, Landlords!) If you're interested in the recipe, I'm going to write up all the recipes from this week in a new post. Check it out :) 

 We enjoyed artichoke dip (tried using the blender first, then went to the food processor) with the crackers for appetizers. For our dinner we served Slow Cooker pulled pork (thank you E + MC for that slow cooker!), REBAR jalapeno coleslaw, and homemade kaiser rolls (way to go J! Also, the standmixer was used here). J's colleagues brought some seriously delicious food as well: A scrumptious papaya salsa, a vibrant, Farmer's Market fresh green salad, WINE and locally brewed beer, and of course, that cake. Remember, the one that I promised to tell you about in the beginning? 

It's a show stopper. Three layers of lemon sponge cake, with a stabilized lemon-raspberry-whipped-cream-curd in between the layers. This is my favourite cake. YUM. 

The most wonderful cake of them all. 

Writing this is making me hungry. But seriously, we really enjoyed ourselves at appetizers, dinner, and dessert, even having time for a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity after supper. I really hope that we can make it an at-least monthly thing. It'll be tough with all of the residents' schedules, but I think we'll be able to do it. It's a good group! 

In other news of Saskatoon, yesterday J and I went to the gym at the university. He taught me how to lift heavy things. Today both of us have jelly legs. I'd suspect a jinx, but I know that I did it to myself through squatting, dead-lifting, and plyo. (I'd decided to show off some of my work out knowledge and started doing plyometrics in between sets. Bad decision.)

The garden continues to grow and we've got a pretty serious amount of cucumbers coming along. The green peppers are still really cute (as in, little and too small to eat) and I enjoyed a handful of fresh peas earlier today. I'm worried that I've been over watering my tomato plant, because it doesn't seem very happy. Several of its bottom leaves are yellow. Or maybe I've been under watering it? If anyone knows something about tomatoes, please let me know. I really want to have a garden fresh tomato before the frosts come in September! 

The peppers are so small, you can't even see them in this picture!

I will talk to you all again soon. Much love to you all. S+J and J+S.