Law School Dinner Party with Vegan Menu :o)

My good friend, Cody Kees, is in law school with me, and last year, I hosted a dinner for him and my other baby 1Ls with the famous Lippert Lasagna. It was such a hit that earlier this semester he asked if I'd do it for his mentees this year, and I was happy to oblige. This was one of the largest groups I've cooked for with 14 guests, and I was also surprised when I learned that I would have vegan guests, so that threw me for a bit of a loop at first, but I did some online recipe research and found some yummy choices for our guests with special tastes. :o)

Menu

Fruit Tray with Fluff Fruit Dip

Lasagna

French Garlic Bread

Baby Spinach Salad

Sundried Tomato Basil Artichoke Vegan Pasta

Lemon Bundt Cake

Happy Vegan Carob Cookies

See my previous posts for recipes for my Fruit Fluff, Lasagna, French Garlic Bread, & Baby Spinach Salad.

Sundried Tomato Basil Artichoke Vegan Pasta

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=7775.0

Ingredients:

1/2-1 lb of pasta, depending on how much you eat (be sure to buy vegan friendly!)

2 tablespoon olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 small onion, diced

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1 bunch fresh spinach, chopped

1 jar sun-dried tomatoes (preferably the dry kind and not the kind packed in oil)

1 jar of marinated artichoke hearts (or fresh, if you have them)

Lots of basil (either freshly chopped or dried)

Mushrooms (optional if you like them)

Directions:

In a medium-sized frying pan, heat olive oil, garlic and onions until onions start to brown (about 3-4 minutes). Add peppers, basil and spinach until spinach starts to looks wilted (another 4 minutes or so). Stir in the tomatoes, artichoke hearts and mushrooms, or any other veggies that sound good at the time. Let the mixture simmer for a while until everything starts to take on each others flavors. Oh yeah--don't forget to make the pasta!! Mix the pasta into the vegetables and eat.

Serves: 2

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Lemon Bundt Cake

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/glazed-lemon-bundt-cake/Detail.aspx

Ingredients:

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk

1 tablespoon grated lemon peel

Glaze:

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon water

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

3/4 cup sugar

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in extracts. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Stir in lemon peel. Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes; invert onto a wire rack. Cool 10 minutes longer. Place rack on waxed paper. Combine glaze ingredients; drizzle over the warm cake. Cool completely before serving.

Happy Vegan Carob Cookies

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=6391.0

Ingredients:

2 cups unbleached flour

2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
cinnamon, to taste, optional
vegan chocolate or carob chips, put in as many as you like
1 cup raw sugar (turbinado #1; sucanat works too, but sucks up a lot of the moisture)
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water

Directions:

Very important-make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. It will work if they're not at room temp but it works much better if they are. Also while your oven is pre-heating put the cookie sheets you are going to use on top of the oven so they get preheated as well.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Stir in chips. Make a well in the center and set aside.
2. In a medium size bowl, add together sugar and oil; mix well. Add the vanilla and then add the water; mix well. Add the wet to the well in the dry. Mix it well but be careful not to overwork it. Add more chips if you need to.
3. Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets. Put them in the oven. Bake for 5 minutes and then flip and rotate the sheets (top to bottom & 180 degree rotation). Bake another 4 minutes and check them. The cookies are done when they seem a little bit softer then you want them to be. They will harden up some as they cool. I usually go in two minute increments from here until they get to where I like them.
4. Take them out when they are done and move them to wire cooling racks. If they split or come apart when you try to remove them let them sit on the pan for 2 minutes before transferring them to the racks.

Serves: almost 2 dozen; Preparation Time: 10 minutes; Cooking Time: 10 to 12 minutes

Papa Lippert's Birthday Din-din

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I am very close to my dad, Jerry, so it's only appropriate that my sister and I celebrate his birthday with a meal composed of all his favorites. Happy Birthday Daddy, and we hope you enjoyed your special day and your birthday din-din.

One of Daddy's favorite cakes is lemon, so Nikki made him this delicious and decorative vanilla iced lemon cake.

The spread:

The plate:
French Bread - lightly buttered, garlic-ed, and baked in the oven on 350 for 15 minutes.

Baby Spinach Salad - with raspberry vinaigrette, bacon bits, croutons, and cheese.

Mashed 'taters and gravy - Peel one large potato per person and cut into medium sized cubes. Boil the potatoes and then once soft, mash (or use mixer), add in butter and milk to taste. For gravy, use some of the saved grease from the fried porkchops, add some milk, and some flour in a small saucepan on medium heat and stir continuously until gravy reaches the desired consistency.

Breaded Porkchops - Mash up crackers, melt butter, dip the raw porkchop in the butter and then the cracker. Fry in large frying pan.
Green beans - This time, I first blanched the green beans before baking them in the oven. Then lay out on a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil, bake for 15-20 minutes at 350, and then I sprinkled these with a little parmesan cheese.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese - Nikki actually made this for us, so as soon as she sends me the recipe that she used, I'll post it. It was really good.

Happy Birthday again Daddy! You deserve to have your favorites everyday, so Nikki and I were glad to be able to serve you all of these on your special day. We love you. :o)

The Lippert Family Christmas Dinner

This year, for the very first time!, my mom asked me to make the Christmas day feast for dinner with my family. I was very excited to take on the task, and I am just as excited to document it below!

Hors d'oeuvres Table Menu

Fresh Fruit with Lemon Yogurt and Caramel Fruit Dips

Homemade Fudge

Pumpkin Bread

Cream Cheese Pumpkin Dip with Graham Crackers

Cheese and Crackers

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Greek Hummus with Triscuits

Christmas Dinner Menu

Baby Spinach Green Salad with a Raspberry Vinaigrette

Rock Cornish Game Hen in a Cherry Glaze

Traditional Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows

Roasted Fresh Green Bean Bundles tied with Green Onions

Bowtie Pasta in a Almond Garlic Cream Sauce

Fresh Homemade Rolls

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie

Dinner Recipes

Baby Spinach Green Salad with a Raspberry Vinaigrette:

I found the recipe for the vinaigrette on MyRecipes.com which I have linked below. I had made a raspberry vinaigrette before with a different recipe that was thicker and used fresh raspberries which added a pretty pink color. The two offered very different flavors - both of which were good, but I think next time I will add the raspberries for the texture and color that I liked for the first time I made it. For the salad base, I simply used a bag of baby spinach and then garnished with candied walnuts and parmesan cheese. Here is that link: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1046883.

Rock Cornish Game Hen in a Cherry Glaze:

To cook the hen, I just followed the directions on the back of the packaging which simply required you to fully thaw the chickens and then roast them in the oven for about an hour and a half at 350 or 400 degrees continuously basting with butter throughout their cook time. As opposed to the recipe directions for the sauce below, I chose small enough hens so as to be able to serve each of my guests a whole chicken to make for prettier plates. Also, I probably actually cooked the hens for almost two hours basting them every 10-15 minutes or so and I flipped the hens in order to brown them a little bit on the underside after the first hour and a half. Despite the extra cooking time, they turned out wonderfully moist, and I didn't have any complaints! For the glaze, I found the recipe on FoodReference.com which you can find here: http://www.foodreference.com/html/cherrysauce1.html. The only alterations I made to this recipe were that we didn't have any rum around the house, so I replaced it with brandy instead. Also, I cut the cherries in half before I added them to the sauce, because I found them too large in their original condition for my taste. The sauce was *very* fragrant, which had me a little worried, but I thought that it actually complimented the hen meat very well afterall!

Traditional Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows:

I found this recipe on Food Network's website. I followed this recipe pretty closely, but I doubled the cinnamon and almost another whole cup of marshmallows to top them. This was a delicious recipe for sweet potatoes - and even my mother, who doesn't like sweet potatoes, thought they were good. My daddy said they were the best he'd ever had. Yumm! Here's that link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/heavenly-sweet-potatoes-recipe/index.html.

Roasted Fresh Green Bean Bundles tied with Green Onions:

To make the green bean bundles, I picked out a handful of fresh green beans per person in the produce section at the grocery store, and trimmed the ends. Then I laid them out on a cookie sheet and brushed them with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I put them in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 and then turned them at the half way point. We all decided that they could have been in the oven for a bit longer - probably almost another ten minutes or so. With about 5 minutes left, I put the green onion stems in the oven to soften. After the green beans and the green onions had cooled a bit, I put the green beans in the oven and then tied them with the green onions. Then I salted and peppered them again before serving. I actually love doing this with asparagus, but my family preferred green beans - so I switched out the vegetables.

Bowtie Pasta in an Almond Garlic Cream Sauce:

I found this recipe on Epicurious.com. However, I left out the peas. I also think that I added quite a bit more butter than the recipe called for. I did have to blanch the almonds which I had never done before - because I could only find whole almonds with the skins on. To blanch the almonds, you boil water, and pour over the whole almonds - let them sit for 1 minute (not longer). Then strain the almonds and run cold water over them. At this point, you should be able to slip off the brown covering. I had also never worked with a whole garlic prior to this - as I usually buy the garlic cloves in the jar, but I never use them all in time before they start to mold, ew. I thought it was really neat to peel the fresh garlic and then crush the cloves. I will definitely use it from now on - it's much cheaper too! The pasta turned out great - and my sister even took the rest home. I had made it a part of the menu just for her because she is a vegetarian (so the game hen wasn't going to cut it for her). But everyone seemed to enjoy it. See the full recipe here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/pasta-in-almond-garlic-sauce-352291.

Fresh Homemade Rolls:

To make pretty rolls, my mom has always just bought Rhodes frozen rolls. So I figured why mess with perfection. To bake, we start by greasing a muffin pan with shortening and then greasing the frozen rolls with shortening (to prevent sticking to plastic wrap). You put 2 rolls per muffin cup, and then loosely cover with saran wrap. Let set for about 3 1/2 hours at room temperature to rise (this depends on room temperature - they will rise faster if kitchen is really warm). After risen to desired height, bake at 350 degrees 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Brush with butter for a shiny look. Remove from pan promptly to cooling rack or to a basket lined with cloth towel - to prevent bottoms from getting condensation from cooling. Be careful pre-baking so as to keep the rolls from falling. I prefer to serve my rolls with a strawberry jam and of course a pad of butter. They are always a huge hit.

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie:

For dessert, I wanted to make something traditional, so I went with an apple pie recipe that I found at Epicurious too. I bought the amount of apples indicated in the recipe (3 1/4 lbs.) plus one apple or so. When I went to cut them, I felt that there were too many apples for just one pie, but not quite enough for two pies as they sank a little bit so I probably should have cut the extra apples too. I did go ahead and make two pies, so I doubled the filling ingredients to coat the apples. Also, I didn't care for the crumble topping - I wanted it to be more apple-crisp like but this was more like sugar clumps on top. It tasted good though, just wasn't quite what I was expecting. Do make sure to serve it warm and with the ice cream though! Here is the link: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cinnamon-Crumble-Apple-Pie-108650.

I felt that the meal made a pretty plate, and it was certainly delicious. I paired the game hen with a Chenin Blanc - which I felt was a great complement although it isn't my favorite white wine. I also thought that each of the sides went well with the hen. I'm sure that my family would have told me that they enjoyed it whether they did or not, but I think their compliments were sincere! And I am pretty hard on myself, but I thought that it was a great Christmas dinner - especially for my first ever!