Lemon Upside Down Cake

A little bit out of season...

but what do you make when you have a LOT of leftover roasted butternut squash and some buttermilk? You make a butternut squash / buttermilk pie. Tastes like Thanksgiving.

Catering 3.22.2010

Another catering event today!

This was the second lecture in Mortar Board's Last Lecture Series. This evening Professor Whitney in the econ department gave an inspiring speech about "the good life." It was refreshing for a lot of us seniors to hear that jumping right into adulthood (having a 9-5 job and settling down) is not always what is best. It sounds like most of the best years of Professor Whitney's life were right after college when he had the time and energy to volunteer and travel around the world. I think we were all touched by his talk.

On to the food! Giulia and I catered the event. We kept it simple yet delicious. Two types of crostini-- one with spicy snashed chick peas (jalepeno and rosemary) and one with potatoes in a chili/ tomato/ hazelnut sauce. We also made a lovely lemon buttermilk cake, surrounded by fresh strawberries and a fruit platter with cara caras, pears and mandarins. These catering jobs just keep getting easier and easier and better and better. We have two more coming up soon, hopefully more to follow!

Catering 3.18.2010

we assembled the sandwiches on the table in my front yard.

Janette Sadik-Khan, transportation commissioner for New York, has been at Oxy for the last few days, inspiring all of us with the incredible work she does. If you missed her speech last night I recommend checking her out on your own-- she has completely transformed the streets of New York by turning them into art galleries and bicycle and pedestrian havens. We in Los Angeles have a lot to learn from her!

We at Well Fed were ecstatic to be invited to cater one of the lunches she spoke at!

The menu was:

3 different kinds of sandwiches (all on ciabatta):

Fresh mozzarella, roasted butternut squash and cilantro* pesto

Prosciutto, braised balsamic/dijon leeks and mozzarella

Lamb, fennel, mint and ricotta salata

Beet salad with arugula*, nasturtium flowers* and feta

Moroccan carrot salad

Cara Cara oranges, Blood Oranges, Oro Blanco Grapefrfuits

Strawberries

Brownies

Lemon* Bars

*Grown in the FEAST garden or foraged on campus

Spring Break Cooking!

So now that we're on Spring break we've all had a lot more time to cook. Giulia had some people over the other night for some of the best pizza of my life. Of course she made the crust which is always very thin and very crispy. She harvested some treats from the garden to put on top. The final pizzas were:

Roasted red bell pepper and mozzarella with green garlic and basil

Italian ham with crushed pepper flakes and arugula*

Cilantro pesto*, mozzarella

She topped the whole meal off with salted caramel ice cream!

I had her and Dylan over the next night for chicken legs braised in fennel, leeks and white wine with some bloomsdale spinach in butter and lemon, couscous and salad. There was also an oddly textured chocolate mousse tart for dessert.

I'm going to make some chicken stock this afternoon and I look forward to figuring out the menu for our camping trip later this week. For now back to comps....

Dinner 03. 3. 2010

Had some friends over for dinner the other night! Something I definitely want to do more... more cooking and more time with friends is a great combination. Unfortunately we are all so busy with senior thesis work that its hard to nail down a time.

Menu:

Fresh chamomile iced tea with blood orange and lemon

roasted root vegetables

fresh pasta with english shelling peas, chanterelles

green salad

pavlova with fresh strawberries, raspberries and raspberry sauce

I wish I had gotten more pictures of the food but the moment its time to serve also happens to be the least appealing time to take a picture.