A Holiday Dinner

I made a Ligurian ragu for my dinner party this past weekend.

My daughter made this cake.

It was a chocolate peppermint cake with a buttercream and ganache frosting.

We served the cake with candycane ice cream on the side in these cute 29 cent thrift shop glass dishes.

I made a light dill dip as an appetizer.

This salad was quite a hit.  It was marinated cherry tomatoes with anchovies, capers, balsamic vinegar and good olive oil.  They marinate all day and then you serve them topped with burrata and garlic toast to soak up the dressing.  Excellent!

I also made a Ligurian pesto pasta.  Pasta with a side of pasta....how decadent.

The ragu is made with beef and pork and a soffritto base served on a pappardelle.  It has a bit of tomato paste, lemon and orange zest, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Amazing.

For the pesto, I do it all by hand in a mortar and pestle.  I start with toasted pignolia nuts.

And grind and grind until it forms a paste.

Add some salt, garlic and basil and grind some more. Then start adding olive oil slowly.

You end up with a silky pesto unlike any other I've ever had.

The Parmesan and Pecorino are added just before serving.

I coupled it with gemelli pasta.

Just pretend the green one is  a vegetable.  No one complained about having two pastas served.

It was a rather eclectically set table.  I used some fern plates I have, both oval and round. Laguiole cutlery was paired with them. Lots of room in the middle for the food. I served this dinner family style.

And some settings were done with my cabbage plate collection.  Cutlery by RL with these. Waterford water glasses I bought in Ireland and wine glasses I bought in Prague. As usual, I forgot to take more pics.  No matter how prepared I am, once the guests arrive and the last minute preparations begin, I always forget the camera. A good time was had by all.