Thursday, April 14, 2011

Cooking for Friends... Or as I like to say a Dinner Party

I decided now that I am back on two feet it is time to get back into the kitchen and do some real cooking, so I invited three friends over to see how well I would fare in the kitchen.

Let's just say it was a success!!!!

I started the meal with a Fresh Tomato Salad

Ingredients:
1 lb tomatoes
Arugula
2 tbsp EVOO
2 tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
Salt / Pepper
(Serves 4)

I sliced up the sorted tomatoes from the Union Square Farmers Market and arranged them on a plate, once arranged I prepared the dressing and then poured half of the dressing over the tomatoes and then used the rest to toss into Baby Arugula.


For the main course I had one dish in mind; Linguine with Sausage, Peppers and Arugula.

Ingredients:
¾ lb of Linguini (I used fresh pasta)
3 Sausage Links
2 Bell Peppers
1 tbsp Butter
2 Garlic Cloves

In the past I have sautéed sausage but after reading a few recipes I decided to cook them covered with 2 tbsp of water in a nonstick pan, they came out perfectly (cook for 5-7 minutes pending stove).

While the Sausage was cooking I added the Linguini to a pot of boiling water. While the Linguini was cooking I removed the sausage and began to slice them. I then strained the Linguini (reserving 1 cup of the water) and placed the sausage back into the pan with a tbsp of butter, ½ cup of reserved water as well as the sliced peppers and sautéed and covered until peppers were soft.

I then added the Linguine to the pan and topped with Arugula and poured in some reserved water as well.

While preparing the meal I was informed I had a guest that does not eat pork! Lucky for me and him I keep batches of my Turkey Meat Sauce in the freezer for such occasions so I defrosted that as well to add to pasta.
Low and behold I had three dishes, a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white and four happy people sitting around the table.
 This meal took me 45minutes including prep. It's fun and easy to cook with friends.

Stay tuned for my next feature on Cooking with Friends...

No comments:

Post a Comment