We had a great, mellow Friday evening dinner with our friends Alex & Kristen the other night and it goes to show you that you don't have to go to a ton of trouble to host a great dinner.
A & K are world-class entertainers, and I think their key to having people over is to make it fun, seemingly effortless , and get everyone involved. Alex is not afraid to put his guests to work, and it's great because people always end up in the kitchen and would actually much rather have something to do than stand around while the host scrambles to make dinner. The four of us cook together all the time, and it's always a blast.
So for this meal, some good sausages and simple sides are all that are required. Since I wasn't leading the charge, I'm not going to do a full blown recipe here, but give you the gist of what went down.
What you need:
Some good sausages
Yukon Potatoe
Two bags of fresh spinach
Rosemary
Garlic
Olivie Oil (OO)
Quarter your potatoes, put in a bowl and toss in OO, salt, pepper, and chopped rosemary. Put on a baking sheet and into the oven on 350 for 1 hour.
Now pour a glass of wine and hangout for 40 mins...
40 mins later, heat up your grill for 5 minutes or so. Put on the sausages on medium heat.
Back inside, wash up your spinach and put it in a pan on med-high heat. It's ok if the spinach is still wet. Put in a glug of olive oil, chopped up a few garlic cloves and sautee until the spinach is soft, but still a nice shade of green. If you cook it too long, the spinach will become a brownish color that is not appealing and doesn't tase as good either.
Check on your sausages. When their ready, take off. Should be about 7 minutes per side.
Serve with the potatoes and spinach. Boom. A nice, rustic meal.
Now, the kicker to this dish, was this amazing braised cabbage relish that Alex made. I don't know how he did it, because he had made it a couple of weeks ago and froze a bunch of extra portions.
This is a genius trick that I've been using for the past couple of years -- THE FROZEN DINNER. Often, there's just not enough time to prepare a meal, right? You'd like to have people over, but you just won't be able to throw something together. That's why on the days you DO have the time to cook, it's a good idea to make some basic things in bulk to have on hand, just in case! I like to cook on Sunday mornings. I go to the Farmer's Market, pick up some good stuff, then spend a few hours in the kitchen, making dinner for that night, as well as a bunch of extra to freeze for a later date. I also like to freeze things in different sized containers for individual portions when I'm alone, two for just me and the wife, or four or more for when we have guests.
Right now in my freezer I have a gorgeous Duck Ragu, a Bolognese, Venison Stroganoff, Homemade Chili, and a Port Red Wine Reduction sauce. There are certain dishes you can freeze and they lose absolutely none of their flavor and no one will ever know! Sauces, ragus, soups and stews are especially good to do.
Perfect for impromtu dinner guests or TV dinner!
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