welcome back to part 2
The salad recipe is on my website!
Welcome back to dinner with Friends galentine’s Day part two if you haven’t seen part one yet I recommend watching that first before you watch this video in part one I did all of the prep work for our galentine’s Day lunch I made the pasta sauce for our zii I made some
Homemade pest show and I set the table so in this episode I kind of try to get my together um again it’s a galentine’s Day lunch so my friends are coming over at 1:00 and a lot of stuff needs to get done before 1: so let the games
Begin okay we seriously looked out at Trader Joe’s I got all these rocus and these beautiful garden roses so I’m just going to trim them now now I am not a florist by any means but I do know a few tricks now with flowers like roulis or
Any flowers that come with leaves or secondary buds like these little guys here you’re you’re going to want to trim those off and that is because since these flowers are no longer connected to the original plant buds this size will literally never Bloom so they’re really
Just dead weight on your flow and if you want the main flow to live as long as possible and get big and beautiful you need to trim off the extra stems okay let’s see how these guys are doing they’re fine it’s fine everything is fine but we could give them a little
Boost with with these rocus wow that’s that’s compelling no because this is literally my favorite floral arrangement I’ve ever done and it’s funny because I almost backed out of using the disco balls I was like oh it’s just going to be too stressful I’m going to be too worried about them
Falling over but I’m so glad I did it looks so fun wow obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed I think I have to go back to the kitchen which is sad because I wish I could play with flowers in here for forever and just like not make any food that would
Be so fun for me I really don’t know what to do with these roses but I’m hoping I can just put them in here oh I hate it oops I hate it okay well I can’t spend too much time on this I’ve got work to do all okay I actually think this is
Really adorable I can’t lie oh my God it’s perfect wow okay I’m going to put him on the coffee table now time for the binoculus is I’m going to use this vase but just give these a trim all right V RB there she is stunning beautiful
Gorgeous um all right now I’m going to get ready to start cooking yay it’s 9:45 whenever I’m starting a big to-do list whether it’s a cooking to-do list or a life to-do list A good rule of thumb is to always do the task you’re dreading the most first and get that out
Of the way so then you don’t have it in the back of your head like stressing you out something that’s been stressing me out is transferring this cake to a cake stand and so I’m going to just knock that out now so we can go on living our life
Again this cake was sent to me by goldbelly from the Martha Stewart team it’s her strawberry rose cake so you’ll see it looks like a rose on top perfect for Valentine’s Day perfect for galentine’s day so obviously I couldn’t pass this up if you tuned in to our last episode
You know that baking cakes is something I’m retiring from for the foreseeable future ooh yeah maybe I should have not taken her out of the fridge before doing this I probably should have read the directions but that’s okay it’s fine everything is fine so here I’m just smoothing out the
Frosting with a bench scraper okay she looks great yum okay make room Martha’s cake coming through we are going to make a pomodoro sauce for our baked nooki I’m doing baked nooki alas Santina which is essentially a fresh tomato sauce in this case I’m doing a pomodoro sauce with
Cherry tomatoes um and it’s just the nooi suspended in that fresh tomato sauce with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil it’s kind of like if you combined Nei with a margarita pizza it’s my favorite way to eat nooi nooi allosaur antina um and I think it’s going to be perfect for the party
Okay we have our peeled garlic and now I’m going to microplan the garlic we get thinly sliced garlic chips you could use a knife but this just makes it easier and faster just go slow and then also if you go like this you’re not going to get a finger
Okay we are going to start off our sauce with lots of olive oil we have our super thinly sliced garlic literally like paper thin going to throw that in here we don’t want the oil to be too hot when we add the garlic because it’ll burn so you
Almost want to add it in while the oil is still cold the garlic is super sticky so it’s all sticking together but you want to like spread it around get it all nice and coated in that olive oil want to keep a close eye on it got some red pepper
Flakes just a little you don’t want the sauce to be spicy but you want to add a little bit of heat some salt then I have three cans of cherry tomatoes they’re all different brands cuz I just like rated my pantry but this is my favorite brand of canned cherry tomatoes so
Delicious so sweet and I love the texture you get from the little pops of tomato and I kind of want to get a close up I’m going to add basil stems cuz that’s going to perfume the sauce with the flavor of basil and then we’ll pull them out before we add the
Mioi all right just as our garlic is starting to turn golden brown we’re going to add our cherry tomatoes since these are three different brands the cherry tomatoes are probably going to be a few different sizes but that’s okay wow Gorge while our sauce is reducing I’m
Going to make a quick little marinade for some little balls of mozzarella to go on our antipasto board I just have some garlic and finely chopped chives in here but you can use any fresh herb I just had some tribes that needed to be used up and I’m doing some olive
Oil some delicious beautiful partana olive oil oregano Crush that up in my hands make a mess yum some black pepper salt and that’s it I mean I could go crazy but I don’t feel like it you want to stir this as it reduces and make sure it’s not scorching at the
Bottom I have a little bit of stickage here but just scrape it up let that keep doing its thing so these are literally just little balls of mozzarella that I got from Whole Foods cuz they were on sale two containers of those little mozzarella balls are Marin
Now we have marinated mozzarella now I’m going to keep these out at room temperature actually so that they’re nice and soft and tender by the time we’re setting up our anap pasta board but yeah you want to get them all nice and coated in that delicious olive oil
Give it a little Shake every now and then but I’m just going to let this sit over there on the counter are we done how long have we been cooking this for like 15 minutes I’m like kind of over this and it’s getting all over the kitchen I literally just cleaned this
Whole kitchen and now it’s covered in splatters of tomato I think we’re like ready to rock and roll with this I get these from Italy they’re little potato nois now the old me would have insisted on making homemade Mii but I’m mature enough to realize that that would make my life
Worse and none of my guests would notice I’m going to remove the basil stems don’t worry we’re going to add more basil I love basil if I could use one herb for the rest of my life it would be parsley if I was being practical but if I was being indulgent
And selfish I would do basil I also love Teragon I’m really resisting the urge to put butter in this sauce but I know it doesn’t need butter but I know if I added butter it would taste pretty good we’re going to drop our noi I’m going to
Cook them for like probably like a minute and then we’ll transfer them directly into the sauce no since we’re baking this I don’t really have to worry too much if the noi is 100% fully cooked because it’s going to continue to cook in the oven I really
Just want to give them a head start all right they’re starting to float to the top Mii is going in you don’t want them to be overcooked cuz then they’ll like fall apart in the sauce Gorge Gorge Gorge I am scraping the sides to get that tomato sauce sauce
Off the sides right I’m going to throw in some parm I actually might add a cup of pasta water just so this doesn’t get too tight in the oven you want it to be like a little Saucy we don’t want to serve some dry ass
Noi there nice and Saucy and now I have fresh mozzarella that I’m going to scatter over top lots of Ms if I wasn’t filming a cooking show I would leave this like this on the countertop and then bake it right before serving but since I’m filming a cooking show I’m
Going to throw it in the oven now so then we can get some photos of the finished dish before people get here um and then I’ll just reheat it when it comes time to sit down to eat I’m going to go ahead and drizzle her with some
Olive oil cabaran chili olive oil I think yeah cuz why not there she is I’m going to throw her in the oven at 400 and bake just until the cheese is Melted something that I mentioned during part one that I would like to elaborate on is my disdain for pregrated or pre-shredded cheeses this is not because I’m pretentious this is truly science so let me explain pregrated shelf stable cheese is typically coated in starches to prevent it from clumping up in the
Bag it also helps prevent molding from occurring and prolongs the shelf life however these starches then prevent the cheese from melting properly so I always recommend grating your cheese yourself especially when you are melting cheese into a sauce like catchy Pepe or in this case are zi alota using pregrated parm
Will give you a lumpy clumpy weird texture in your sauce it won’t melt like it won’t fully melt all the way so you need to use the freshly grated stuff now you can buy pregrated parm from the cheese counter at your grocery store usually they freshly grade it in house
Either that day or whatever just be sure to check the label for any additives and make sure that it’s literally just cheese now I’m not a monster I’m not saying that you can never buy pregrated cheese ever again for the rest of your life I still sometimes buy pregrated
Cheese when we can use it is if we’re just sprinkling it on top of stuff yes it’ll have that chalky consistency and kind of a weird flavor but it’s not going to make or break your dish like in the video you’ll see I use pregrated mozzarella now the reason I’m using
Pregrated mozzarella is because I ordered a block of mozzarella on instacart and the guy brought me a bag of pregrated mozzarella moella and I didn’t want to waste it so I used it it worked out fine like it’s really not that big of a deal you can use pregrated
Cheese in quesadillas like it’s it’s not like black and white it’s a there’s a very large gray area but when it comes to parmesan cheese specifically always great your own however sometimes I like to indulge in one of those like plastic canisters of Parmesan cheese in the non-refrigerated aisle that you keep in
The door of your fridge for like years and years and years I still love that stuff I put it on my pizza I put it on my Buttered Noodles don’t throw her out but like just know when she’s appropriate and when she’s not appropriate all right we’re going to talk about the Ziti
Now we made our tomato sauce yesterday but we need to do our egg yolk Emulsion I am using these tubular noodles but very key they are bronze cut so they’re textured on the outside and they’re also like rigged they have The Ridges um to catch all that sauce my pet
Peeve is a ziti noodle that’s like flat on the outside smooth a smooth ziti noodle should be illegal we’re pacing a little bit behind where I want it to be at this moment but it’s going to be fine my goal for the zi is to put it in this massive tray
So we have maximum surface area maximum crispy bits I’m going to now crack some egg yolks into a bowl oh my God it’s so hot over here six egg yolks and 2/3 cup of peino and then I’m going to throw in lots of black pepper whiska doodle so technically this
Bag is 2 lb of pasta I just dumped it out to see if this is enough pasta to cover the entire tray and it kind of is all right this is going in the salted water all right timer 10 minutes maybe okay like the nyoi we want to undercook this
Ziti I also want tons of pasta water now I’m also going to temper these eggs this is going to prevent the eggs from scrambling when I add them later okay I need to strain this add our sauce oh my gosh pasta pasta water oh my God I don’t even
Know if you can see what I’m doing I’m just like trying to go as quickly as possible pasta water in coat the nudes I’m going to add our egg mixture the heat is off the residual heat from the pan is going to continue to cook those eggs
Into like a custard diluted enough we’re not going to scram sorry I’m talking to myself can you even see I’m so sorry it’s really Saucy which is what we want because that sauce is going to tighten up a lot when we bake it you want to make sure every single noodle is
Individually coated with that sauce time to do the transfer holy moly more peino and then I’m going to do some whole milk mozzarella and do a nice light even layer that looks great I think we’re going to throw her in now just long enough to get it melted and
Picture perfect so I can take pictures of her going in don’t Rec recomend throwing a red lip into the mix when you’re already stressed for time and you haven’t done one in maybe 3 years uh not really sure what these B bangs are doing but do we hate them kind
Of time to pull the Z all right let’s get a closeup wow the key to assembling a good grazing board is contrast you want various flavors textures colors shapes sizes temperatures it doesn’t matter what kind of grazing board you’re making like whether it’s a cheese board
That’s like French and has a bunch of cheeses and jams and Pates and spreads or in this case an Italian grazing board I hate like using the word grazing board like this so flippantly because it’s like it’s antipasto but they all kind of fall in the same category of like PL
Of little snacks that all kind of go together and that you can pick at and all of the different cuisines in the globe have some variation of this like snack grazing situation and these rules apply to all of those these rules apply low-key to like food in general but
Specifically in grazing boards because it’s a bit more obvious let me explain in my grazing board my antipasto grazing board I did some contrasting cheeses I did a mozzarella which is a fresh soft cheese and then I did an aged firm salty cheese I forget the name you see the
Contrast there then for a fresh vegetal component I did fire roasted tomatoes and grilled artichokes for a crunchy component I did bread sticks Olive crackers and cornnuts and then for a Savory salty component I did Pudo and then for a sweet component I did calabrian chili jam so not only do we
Have contrasting flavors like sweet and salty we also have contrasting textures like soft and crunchy you see what I’m saying and then often times when I have a grazing board situation I’ll also do what I call a crowd pleaser and that’s usually a snack item that sometimes has
Nothing to do with the grazing board itself but I know that people are going to eat it in this case I did a bowl of popcorn popcorn has nothing to do with an aposto but I know my friends love popcorn and I know that they’re going to
Eat it um sometimes I’ll do potato chips sometimes I’ll do Cheetos we love junk food here in this house it’s not that serious you don’t have to like be so strict with it but just keep in mind contrast okay hi my friends are going to
Be here any minute I have not set up the anasto yet but we’re going to do that now okay first things first our marinated mozzarella balls y gorgeous and then I also have some marinated roasted fire roasted tomatoes and roasted garlic o yeah oh I forgot I have these beautiful
Artichokes yum and I’m going to save all these containers in case we don’t eat everything corn nuts oh and then I have that hard cheese and then the meats and then that’s it I also put some popcorn out in case people arrived before I had time to do
This um what did I just say I was going to do cheese this is a cow’s milk cheese that’s aged in Mero which is a sweet red wine I think that’ll be a nice addition to the board so I have a really big family and we have like 30 to 50 people
At Thanksgiving every year and everyone has their own little task that they’re responsible for and my family has been responsible for doing the cheeseboard for the past like decade so my parents are very knowledgeable in cheese and and I have gotten that Knowledge from them I actually don’t know a ton about this
Particular cheese that I’m cutting up right now but I wanted to try something new oh it’s a little sharp too there’s some like crystallized little crystals in there like you’d get in a parm I’m going to assemble it on this table so that I don’t have to carry it and potentially spill everything
Everywhere it’s 12:50 people are supposed to come over at one should I put a movie on don’t try that at home I’ve had the Pudo sitting out at room temp for 30 minutes or so so that it’s not all stuck together you want Pudo to be nice and
Room temp cuz it’s all that beautiful pork fat that you want like not ice cold okay whoever slices Pudo l butchered it and I’m like a little pissed about it but I’ll forgive them I used to have to slice the cured meats at the restaurant
I used to work at I would have to go all the way upstairs into the attic with the meat slicer that literally weighed like 200 lb and it’s like one of those things where if you use it incorrectly you will lose an entire arm like it’s so powerful
And so sharp and I would be up there by myself slicing and if I sliced my finger like no one would find me for days Gorge oh I also totally forgot to tell you after I finished filming last night I made the salad dressing it’s just a balsamic vret okay so this salad was inspired by the beautiful assortment of rikio that I found at the store if you’re unfamiliar rikio is a leafy
Vegetable its peak season is right about now so like end of fall through the winter you can eat it raw like you would any other leafy vegetable but it’s also sturdy enough for cooked preparations that you might do with like a cabbage its flavor profile is similar to arugula
In that it’s slightly bitter and peppery but it has a great crunch to it like you would get in a Roma which honestly is like the best of both worlds in my opinion I used three varieties of rikio in this salad I’m going to list them here because I cannot pronounce them
Correctly since Pio is slightly bitter I like to balance it out with a vinegret that leans on the sweet side so here I did a balsamic vinegret that has sweetness naturally from that balsamic vinegar and then also the addition of honey and then I added some fresh figs
For extra sweetness now whenever I do a sweet and salty salad like this I love to add a nice savory salty cheese it adds a ton of umami and I think it just really ties the salad together in this case I used blue cheese primarily
Because I had a ton of blue cheese in my fridge and I wanted to use it up and blue cheese does go really well in this salad however in this particular menu I don’t think I would have used blue cheese had I not already had it on hand
And this is my reasoning I was serving the salad as a side salad not as a starter salad so since it’s a side salad we’re going to be eating it along with all of the other dishes and we already have a ton of flavors going on with all those different pastas that throwing
Blue cheese into the mix just like feels like it’s working against those flavors rather than supporting them it’s really not that big of a deal these are things that only I am going to be thinking about but I just wanted to say typically I wouldn’t recommend doing blue cheese
In a side salad unless you’re doing something like steak where can really stand up to that funky blue cheese flavor or even like complement each other like steak and blue cheese yum delicious nooi Santina and blue cheese no baked ziti and blue cheese no like typically in a perfect world I wouldn’t
Have used blue cheese but it tastes good in the salad I’m not cooking for a food critic here I just wanted to specify in a perfect world I would have just topped this salad with Parmesan or pecorino or meno something that would support the rest of the meal rather than distract
From it for the record I don’t know why pause I realized that I sprained my wrist the day before when I was opening a jar of collabor and chilies oh my God I’m going to sprain my wrist I did not know that that was why my wrist was hurting until I was editing
The footage and I see like me struggling with the jar and I’m like oh my God that’s why my wrist has been hurting so much and it’s now been almost a month later and my wrist is still killing me so if I have any physical therapists in
The audience that want to like give me some exercises to do let me know it hurts HS like right down here like when I do that so that’s fun okay for the pesto pasta we made the pesto the day before obviously but when I make pesto pasta this is how I do it
Boil your pasta until Al Dente save a bunch of pasta water put the noodles back into the pot have the pasta water on the side in this video I did about a pound of pasta and so I did two cups of pesto mix that in add some pasta water
Keep mixing and then once you get to a good consistency with your pasta turn off the heat add three tablespoons of butter trust and then some extra parmesan cheese if you want more pasta water mix that until the Butter’s melted the cheese is melted and everything’s emulsified melty combined delicious
Saucy Saucy sauce and that’s how you make the best pesto pasta far too often I see people put pesto on dry noodles mix it to death until finally all the noodles are coated and then serve this dry ass pesto pasta you need pasta water you don’t need
Butter but you need pasta water like seriously I’m so serious with most of the dinner parties I’ve ever catered I almost always do a buffet I don’t know why people are so like averse to a buffet style of serving I think people think of it as cheap and
Not elevated sure I hear you obviously a plated dinner service is much more fancy than a buffet style dinner service but like when it’s just you and your friends like who literally cares also trying to put all of those platters of food on the table and do like family style pasted
Around is so stressful I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had people insist on doing family style rather than buffet style just to have all of their guests like struggling to like hold all the serving dishes and having nowhere in the center of the table to put said serving
Dishes like when I would do a catering job where they’re really persistent about wanting family style instead of buffet style I’ll say okay we can do that but there has to be S sufficient room on the dining table for us to put the serving platters I cannot tell you how many
Times I would show up to an event and see the tablescape and there be like flowers and candles and all of this all up in the center of the table and also the table will be like this wide and there would be literally not a
Single inch of extra room to even put a a plate for like a side salad and you want us to have platters of food on the table like people don’t think that is my issue with party planners who don’t do the cooking and just like hire out
Someone who does the catering if they don’t think about the logistics of serving and eating food they just think about how the table’s going to look and it’s so frustrating and so annoying so that’s why I always say be style is better that way if you want more food
You can go and get more food you don’t have to like pester so and so across the table and say can you pass down the potatoes just go and grab some more potatoes but yeah I did buffet style okay that brings us to the end of the
Episode sad for the next episode of dinner with friends I’m going to be taking us on the road I’m going to keep it a surprise for now but a little hint we are going down south y’all I know it’s going to be crazy it’s going to be
Fun in the meantime I’d love to do a YouTube video where I talk about my experience in culinary school my career Journey as well as my cookbook that I’m currently writing that isn’t going to be be out for another year sorry sorry sorry um so if you have any questions
Comments concerns about those topics please drop them in my comments here okay thank you so much for watching love you literally so much and I’ll see you soon
