Barbara's Birthday Dinner

Wine:

Champagne Michel Dervin Brut
Chablis Premier Cru Domaine Servin 2004
Grand Vin De Leoville Saint-Julien 1982
Chateau Canon 1er Grand Cru Classe Saint-Emilion 1985
BV Georges De Latour Private Reserve 2003

Our friend Barbara had come down from San Francisco to celebrate her Birthday and the New Year. We had Billy / Kevin and Tim over to join us for the dinner.
John, another friend of ours had also come down from San Francisco and had left for Thailand. He left us a gift of two exceptional old wines that we decided to drink in honor of Barbara’s big day on the 30th.

We started with Lobster Raviolis from a favorite Silverlake caterer, Matt Poley. He is definitely king of lasagna. You can buy his products at Silverlake Wine. His web site is: www.heirloomla.com.

We had a surprise when a different Matt, who is the chef of Mozza called us and asked us if we have his recipe for Squash & Farro Soup. He had given us the recipe for this delicious soup years ago, and had apparently lost it. We hadn’t made it for quite a while and had forgotten about it. Luckily the recipe was on our blog, and we copied and sent it to him. In addition we decided to make it ourselves for Barbara’s Birthday. We really love the soup, it is very thick and perfect for a cold winter day.

For the main course we made a Beef Tagine with Sweet Potatoes from: THE FOOD of Morocco Cookbook. You can get the recipe from our blog of Oct 2, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe. Because there were so many of us, we did not use the traditional Tagine pot, but rather an enameled Dutch oven. It turned out just as well. We were very happy.
We made Cous-Cous to go with it.

Barbara’s favorite cake: Spiced Pecan Cake, is from K-Paul’s in New Orleans. We have had it there several times and it is outrageous. We contacted a local bakery: The Village Bakery and Cafe and took the recipe for the cake to them. They agreed to make the cake, it turned out perfectly.


Squash & Farro Soup
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By Matt Molina
Base:
1 cubed squash
1 yellow onion, sliced
4 carrots, sliced 1 celery stalk, sliced
10 whole garlic cloves, peeled
1 dried arbol chile
pinch dried porcini (optional)
1 ounce olive oil
1 quart chicken broth
2 sprigs parsley
1 sprig thyme
2 ounces prosciutto, in one piece
Salt & Pepper

Sweat squash, onion, prosciutto, carrot, celery, garlic, chile and porcini in olive
oil and salt for about 10 minutes.

Add broth, thyme and parsley. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 30-35 minutes-or until squash & garlic are soft.

Once vegetables are tender, remove herbs, prosciutto and chile, then puree well. Set aside.

Farro:

1 cup farro or barley
1 chopped yellow onion
2 ounces chopped pancetta
1 bunch deveined, washed and coarsely chopped beet greens or chard
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cups water
1 tablespoon salt

Toast farro in a saucepan with olive oil over medium high heat, stirring frequently.

Once the farro begins to smell like popcorn, turn down heat and add the pancetta, onion and salt, rendering the pancetta and sweating the onion, about 5 minutes.

Add water and bring to a boil, then simmer about 20 minutes.

Add the greens and cook for 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally until the farro and greens are tender.

When the farro and greens are tender, combine the two components together, and warm. Garnish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and serve.