Dinner Party.9 and .10

First, New Year's Eve: We had a small dinner party of Elizabeth Bennett, her boyfriend, Wystan and me. Elizabeth made Slovak foods: brinza halushky (more or less--since we don't have brinza in America, we substitute goat cheese mixed with sour cream), halushky with cabbage (it was my first time to taste this, and I loved it), and, for an appetizer, a goat cheese spread, with garlic and onions and spices. I made pate, spinach gnocchi, and tiramisu. The evening was slightly marred by Bennett's boyfriend getting ill (which he claims was from the Slovak food, but I deny that this is possible, since none of the rest of us got ill). But cooking with Elizabeth was lovely. As was starting in the new year with champagne (somehow I missed that this is a tradition). Of course, we don't have champagne flutes, so we drank it out of tumblers.

Second, last night: We held a full-participation dinner party: Whigwham, Stearns and I all collaborated to make home-made raviolis. Since I don't have a pasta maker, the dough was a little thick, although good. We stuffed them with a butternut squash/cheese mixture and topped them with almonds roasted in butter, mixed with pesto. The nuts provided a really nice contrast to the soft squash inside. The recipe called for not almonds, but hazelnuts, which of course I didn't have. I also made up adding the pesto, which worked out swimmingly, I thought. For dessert, we had Godiva truffles, a Christmas gift from Dillard. Picking out which ones you want makes truffles a fitting conclusion to a full-participation dinner party.