Ina All Day, All the Way

JANICE AND INA~I literally spent a full day Saturday with Ina in the kitchen --cooked up 6 recipes! We had plans to have my sister-in-law and brother-in-law over for his birthday, so that seemed like a good time to put Ina to the test--and it would be good to get ahead of this cooking pressure! (Is anyone else feeling it?)

I made the Roasted Vegetable Torte on Friday night, as it needed to hang out in the fridge for a day. This is one recipe that Ina did not describe very well with her instructions. She tells you to put this in a 6-inch cake pan, which is pretty small, and which I didn't have--but did have a 7 1/2 inch souffle dish that I used. My dish was tall, so I put saran wrap loosely over the dish, then weighed it down as instructed. The next day the dish was full with liquid--just covering the stack of vegetables, and I drained it off. Ina did not say how to get the torte OUT of the dish...so I very hesitatingly turned it upside down over a plate, and thankfully it all stayed together. Mine was not quite as pretty as the book, but it came very close! And, it was not only cute, but very tasty. The whole dinner party liked it room temperature as Ina said, though my husband thought hot might be better, so he stuck his portion in the microwave. It was good, but I thought heating it kind of defeats the purpose of it being your "cold salad" as a temperate taste difference.... My guests were very impressed with this dish. I will make this one again. (It also sliced up very nicely.)

My main dish was the Perfect Roast Chicken. I have a roasting rack, so I used that to hold my chicken above the drippings. I only used half a lemon, quartered, and half a head of garlic--just because I thought that was plenty. I did use a lot of thyme branches to stuff inside, just because I have lots of it growing in my garden. I lowered the oven to 400 after 30 min. as I got worried it was browning too fast--and eventually, I put a tent of foil over it. It definitely takes the full 1 1/2 hours to cook. The chicken was very delicate tasting and tender. I made the gravy too, which was wonderful on it. (Also, after carving it, I saved the chicken carcus in a plastic bag, and used it the next day to boil it and make some wonderful homemade chicken broth.)

I also made the potato-fennel gratin, with the fennel Julia brought me from Houston. The Gruyere was expensive (about 16.95/lb. I think!) but with half a recipe, I only needed 1/4 lb, so just around $4. I thought it a wonderful cheese, even for snacking (except for the expense!). After tasting it though, I think you could make a substitution with half Parmesan and half Swiss cheese to come reasonably close to the taste. I could not handle all the cream in this recipe...(plus, it seemed mean to do that to my relatives who watch their diet pretty closely!) so for the 1 cup of heavy cream, I used 1/2 cup chicken broth, 1/4 cup half-and half, and 1/4 cup heavy cream. I don't know what the fully leaded version tastes like--but we defiantly did not feel we were eating low fat even with this concoction for the liquids! The potatoes were creamy and delicious!

For the bread for our meal, I made the Cheddar-dill scones that morning, then heated them up for dinner. I didn't have fresh dill, so used 1 T dried dill, plus a teaspoon or so of a dried herb mix. The scones had a lot of flavor. I forgot the diced cheese till I almost had them rolled out, so I added my cheese chunks (probably cut a little too big) to the dough and tried to barely work it in. The cheese melted out a lot because of that I guess...but after I cleaned up the edges they made a nice presentation and suited the meal well. (The next day, we tried some hot pepper jelly with the leftover scones, and it was a perfect fit--really good!) Unfortunately, my relatives had noticed a trend in Ina cooking...and asked how much butter was in the scones...and even though I actually did cut back on the butter some, I didn't have the heart to tell them how much butter they were eating!

My brother-in-law commented that all the foods went very well together. He said he had had several birthday meals over the week, but this one was his favorite. That made me feel it was worth my long day in the kitchen.

But then it was time for desert: the classic peach and raspberry crisp. I made it as directed, except also added a handful of frozen blueberries because I have a bunch of them in my freezer from blueberry picking this summer. My peaches and raspberries were frozen too, so it took the crisp longer to cook than what Ina said. To top off the crisp, I made the orange yogurt (not wanting to add ice cream or whip cream out of deference to my guest's diets--of which my sister-in-law thanked me for!) I will tell you about the orange yogurt, plus one more dish I made in another post, as this one is getting too long!

Two hours after dinner, my sister-in-law said she was even more full than after she ate--she thinks all that butter gives a person a "food baby" and keeps you full a very long time!