Working Dinner

Attendees: Larry, Peanut, Guy, and Miguel
Appetizer: Eggplant, mint, and yogurt dip with flatbread
Main Course: Tourtiere
Side: Frisee salad with onion and dates
Appertif: Ice wine
Dessert: Creme a la Coeur

It's no secret that Peanut's got mad skills, and our friends Guy and Larry definitely took note. When the three of them had to get together for a meeting, Peanut suggested that they come over to our place and that I would make dinner. While I've made dinner for these boys before, it's quite daunting- you see, Guy is a pretty fantastic cook. Since he was coming directly from his hockey game, I was inspired to make this fellow Canuck a main course from his homeland: a tourtiere! To our delight, they brought along our friend Miguel, who was in town from Mexico!

But to start- I was inspired by a recipe by Nigella Lawson that required roasting an eggplant that was then cooked with onions and garlic, mixed with some Greek yogurt and saffron, and topped with mint and toasted pine nuts (served with flatbread).





A tourtiere is a peasant dish from Quebec- a meat pie filled with a mixture of ground pork and beef and seasoned with onions, sage, and ground cloves. I even made my own pastry!



A coworker brought me some dates from her travels in the Middle East that I wanted to incorporate into a salad. I served frisee with a dressing made of a bit of bacon grease, some honey and red wine vinegar, tossed with onions and chopped dates and topped with crumbled goat cheese, walnuts, and bacon bits.



And for dessert- well, it was Valentine's Day on Saturday, so I decided to move the spirit forward a day with a simple, and decadent, Creme a la Coeur, which we served with some Canadian Ice Wine as an appertif.