Tout de Suite

Hello long lost readers. It’s hot as hell in Washington, DC, so when it came to making a French-themed fete for Bastille Day, Coq au Vin was out of the question. Essentially anything Julia Child would make was out of the question. We needed light, refreshing, and fresh. So the dinner I ended up making was more of a French-inspired dinner, but with lots of good stuff from all over.

It began in the early afternoon with some prep. Pate Brisee in a food processor, i.e. the best kind:

I also made some basil sweet syrup (more on that later…)

And of course, very slowly caramelized onions

The meal commenced with this plate of goodies (with Manchego, Havarti, Jarlsberg and Feta)

It continued with a little appetizer of stuffed fried zucchini blossoms  (I stuffed them with red onion instead of shallots)

It went on to this onion tart

But we couldn’t help and have a drink before digging into the tart. My sous-chef/best-friend/cocktail-master/benetton-twin made this gorgeous Blackberry Caipirinha

Which was a perfect summer drink

And then proceeded to pull the tart out of the oven, burn my arm really badly, drop the tart face down, which meant we ate this instead. It was still delicious but a bit on the salty side.

Luckily, the faux Niçoise was still real pretty

Dinner ended with delicious grilled peaches, honeyed mascarpone, and the delicious basil syrup (an amalgamation of three recipes which worked real well)

And to all, bon nuit!

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