Sunday Suppers at Lucques - Dessert

I have to look up the exact names of the dessert (maybe some of my fellow C3 sisters can add them in the comment section). The first dessert was a tart and instead of berries, the recipe called for apricots, which were unavailable at the time. The substitution ended up working out great. The second dessert was a chocolate cake. It was a perfectly moist cake, not too sweet and not too rich, which was the perfect ending to a perfect meal!

Sunday Suppers at Lucques - Entrée

Braised Beef Stew with Red Wine, Tomato, Olives and Buttered Noodles

The meat turned out amazing. It was incredibly tender and really rich in flavor. I used fresh noodles, which I think made a big difference. It has inspired me to use fresh noodles more often in dishes. The recipe called for papperdelle noodles, which I couldn’t find anywhere so I substituted linguine noodles and it worked great. I followed the recipe almost to a tee and would recommend doing the same on the first try. The only thing I might mix up a little bit the next time I cook this is the olives. The recipe called for Nicoise olives and I didn’t feel it contributed much to the dish. I think I will try a different olive next time and see if that makes a difference. Overall, however, this was definitely a five star dish.

Sunday Suppers at Lucques - Entrée

Ricotta Gnocci with Chanterelles, Sweet Corn, and Sage Brown Butter

I loved the richness and originality of this dish with the corn and mushrooms. I couldn't find chanterelle mushrooms, so I opted for a wild mushroom blend including white mushrooms, oyster mushrooms and scrumptious morels and it turned out great. This gnocchi is not made with potatoes, so the dough recipe is fairly easy, however transforming the dough into the actual gnocchi was fairly laborious. If I wanted to make this a 30 minute dish, I would skip making it from scratch and buy some fresh gnocchi instead. The breadcrumbs added a little texture, but overall unnecessary, as the fresh corn creates enough texture.

Seabass: This was a really easy recipe. I was a little skeptical about the hazelnut and butter sauce. I thought it could taste very dry and may even overpower the fresh taste of the fish. I was still not sure even after I finished it, so I wascareful not to serve too much of it. Turns out people like it and thought I could have poured on some more. The fish was the easiest thing to make from the recipe. I had to let it marinate overnight and just sautéed it in olive oil the next day. Done. I can highly recommend this dish.

Sunday Suppers at Lucques - Salads

We made two salads, Dungeness crab Salad with Avcado, Beets, Crème Fraiche, and Lime

and the Lobster Chopped Salad with Fava Beans, Cherry Tomatoes, Avocado, Corn, and Applewood-Smoked Bacon.

Sunday Suppers at Lucques

We absolutely loved this cookbook! Some of the recipes were a bit more cha

llenging than others and some of the ingredients were not available even though they should have beenin season,so we had to find substitutes. All 8 recipes that we made looked and tasted amazing!

We started of with two appetizers. The "Applewood Smoked Bacon, and Herb Salad Tart" and the "Swiss Chard, with Goat Cheese, Currants and Pine Nuts Tart".

Applewood Smoked Bacon, and Herb Salad Tart

The tart was tasty and rich in texture – from the creamy crème fraiche and ricotta cheese to the salty and crispy applewood-smoked bacon.

I enjoyed making this dish, as it included several components to build the tart but was not complicted. I followed 90% of the recipe instructions in making the dish. Not knowing what ‘young onions’ are and

having no success coming across them at the market, I used regular red and yellow onions. In addition, I skipped using the food processor to blend the wet ingredients, as I found it

sufficient to mix by hand. One issue I dealt with was the cheese and crème fraiche running over the edges of the tarts while baking, but I simply trimmed the edges when

the tarts finished cooking.

Finally, instead of using the oven, I opted to use a temperature-controlled grill, since the oven was busy cooking another dish, which only added to the overall rustic nature of the tart. I think this dish allows for creativity and variation, such as adding other vegetables for different flavors. I give this dish five stars.

Swiss Chard, with Goat Cheese, Currants and Pine Nuts Tart

The biggest challenge was finding the correct ingredients.

There were two sets of ingredients that required cooking for: T

he first being the actual tart and the second being the pine nut relish. Certain things required further prodding from store workers and investigating such as "semi-aged" goat cheese (to which I settled with a "Bucheron") and "arbol chiles" which are stewed along with rosemary and finely diced red onions in olive oil to produce the base of the relish. In the end, I never found "arbo l chiles" so I ended up using a dash of korean red pepper flakes that I had at home for taste. I also added finely sliced squash, more for aesthetics. The relish is what I was most impressed with - that stuff I can eat with anything (the sweet currants and toasted pine nuts along with the sweet balsamic reduction made this a great topping). This was also the first time I've really had Swiss Chard, which had a pleasantly heartier texture and taste than spinach. The Bucheron was not too pungent or strong /sharp in taste and had a nice balanced taste along with the other ingredients on the tart. I definitely loved this dish and would make it again. A great appetizer.

Williams-Sonama Essentials of Italian Cooking

This month’s cooking club was a great success. We made 6 recipes out of Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Italian Cooking and all of them were outstanding. We gave this cookbook an overall rating of 4.5 stars (out of 5), and compared to the last cookbook, everyone was more impressed with the overall outcome and the user-friendly layout.

This month’s starters included a delicious artichoke appetizer, a tomato soup and a field salad. Main courses were Spaghetti di Pomodoro and Fettucini with clams, and our sweet ending was Tiramisu. Here are some pictures from the night.

We gave the Fried Artichokes with Lemons 3.5 out of 5 stars. Personally, I loved this appetizer. I thought it would be a lot heavier since it was fried but it was relatively light and juicy inside.

This is what the chef had to say:

I could not find baby artichokes at the Whole Foods, so I had to use artichoke hearts jarred in water. It made the recipe much easier, though it might have been better with fresh ones. Overall the recipe was very easy. I thought it turned out well, very moist and flavorful, but could have used a light sauce, perhaps a subtle aioli.

The next course was the Pappa al Pomodoro (Soup). The chef of this dish added some cucumbers to make the soup a bit fresher (it was a warm weekend) and she didn’t over-blend it. There was still such crunchiness to the soup, which we all really liked. We gave this soup 3.5 stars.

The Field Salad with Pancetta and Walnuts was served with the pasta. It was average, neither remarkable nor poor. I roasted the walnuts in a pan instead of in the oven and the pancetta was pan-fried and served on top of the salad instead of cut into pieces. The flavors went well together, so we gave it 3 stars.

The main courses of the night were the Spaghetti with Salsa di Pomodoro and the Fettuccine with clams. The Spaghetti was voted as our favorite dish of the night and got 4 stars.

This is what our chef had to say about this recipe:

The Spaghetti with Salsa di Pomodoro was a fairly easy dish to make. The most difficult part was dicing all of the veggies because they need to be cut into very small pieces. After that, it's a breeze, you just need time to let the sauce cook. I thought there was an excessive amount of butter though and I cut it in half, but it still had a very rich taste for a tomato-based sauce.

As you can tell, we enjoy our comfort food at C3 J

The Fettucini with clams really had wow factor. We were all a bit unnerved when we realized that the clams were still alive and moving, but in the end it was well worth it. We had a vegetarian and non-seafood eater amongst us, but this still got a 4.5 star rating.

Last but not least came the Tiramisu. I love Tiramisu and have tried lots of different recipes before. This one was a bit more involved than the others but it’s well worth it. This dessert got 5 stars. Definitely a dish to impress guests.

As a regular feature of each post, we've posted the recipe of our favorite dish below.

Until the next C3…Bon Appétit!

Spaghetti with salsa di pomodoro

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 carrots, finely chopped

1 small celery stalk, finely chopped

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

2 lb fresh plum (Roma) tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, or 1 can plum (Roma) tomatoes, drained and chopped

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 lb spaghetti

10 fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces

1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for serving

In a large frying pan over medium heat, melt 4 tablespoon of the butter. Add the carrots, celery, and onion and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion has softened and the carrots and celery are tender, about 15 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper and cook until the sauce begins to bubble. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened, about 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

While the sauce simmers, bring a large pot three-fourths full of water to a rolling boil and add about 2 tablespoons salt. Add the spaghetti, stir well, and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente, according to the package directions. Scoop out and reserve about 2 ladlefuls of cooking water, then drain the pasta.

Add the drained pasta to the sauce in the pan and stir and toss over low heat until well coated with the sauce, adjusting the consistency with some of the cooking water if needed. Add the basil and the remaining 1 tablespoon butter and toss to distribute evenly. Remove from the heat, add the 1/2 cup cheese, and toss again. Transfer to a warmed serving bowl and serve at once, passing additional cheese at the table.

This is the official launch of our blog for the fabulous Cookbook Cooking Club - C3. In case you weren't there for the inaugural gathering, here is the concept (and I'm quoting Carolyn, our founding mother):

"We have received a TON of beautiful and deliciously sounding cookbooks as wedding gifts, out of which I REALLY want to make some scrumptious meals. Once a month - we choose a cookbook out of which we all make a dish and have ourselves a little cooking club."

Our first get together was back in October 2009 and we made some delicious meals from Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. Dinner featured some remarkable offerings and starting with our next meeting, we'll have pictures accompanying our blog entries :-)

Next get together is this Saturday and the cookbook is Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Italian Cooking.

Happy Cooking Everyone!