Menu
- Caramelized Apple and Blue Cheese Crostini
- Asparagus and Jamon with sous vide fried egg. Roughly based on a recipe from Modernist Vegetarian
- Vegetarian Four Cheese Lasagna
- Banana Cream Cheesecakes
- Mojito Spheres
After a 6 course dinner for my birthday I realized maybe 6 dishes for 5 people was a bit more than I could handle so I decided to go simpler for Esther’s birthday, but things got crazy and I started adding stuff to the menu. At least I had the lasagna as the main course (to make sure nobody left hungry) and had more room to experiment –and potentially fail.
The banana cheesecakes called for some coconut milk, and the can included a recipe for Piña Colada, so I added the crostini as an appetizer while we enjoyed them and finished cooking the rest.
I still can’t believe I got the spheres right on my first try ever, we’ll see if next attempts go as smoothly as this one.
Taking pictures was an afterthought and by the time the food was ready we were all pretty hungry, so there aren’t pictures of everything and what I got is not exactly the best in terms of food photography. I’ll have to plan for that on the next one.
As you can imagine, this took a bit of planning, so I created a Numbers spreadsheet and started calculating backwards from dinner time. I’d love to hear suggestions on planning if you have them.
Sounds great! I’ve done as much as 6 courses for 16, but with about 3 or so helpers. I use a similar spreadsheet for planning. I put the times vertically like you did, but I do the dishes horizontally. It makes it easier to enter the menu and to change the timing of things. I have to check on each horizontal line (i.e. time slot) to see whether I’m not doing too much prep at the same time or using the oven or the sous-vide twice.
This looks amazing! I may just use this post for cooking inspiration myself.