Dinner Party

Hey All,

Tonight we had a bunch of people over for dinner and hence cooked quite a bit. From what I heard it was quite enjoyable (yay). Anyways - here was the menu:

Orange Soy Pork Ribs:
Slightly modified a recipe online (1) to be slow cooked and made a glaze out of the marinade. I like slow cooking as it lets the meat become extra tender and lets it fall right off the bones. (On the other hand, the melting fat can cause a problem if it falls to the bottom of the oven. Along with being a mess to clean, it may cause the oven to produce smoke from the burning oils, so use a baking sheet!) Since the ribs were bought on sale, the end product was pretty cheap for 13 college students worth of food (yay $2/lb). All together it probably ended up at $28. This was the recipe as performed.

• 3 racks (~12 lbs) Pork Spare Ribs
• 2 cups Orange Juice
• 2 cups Soy Sauce
• 9 cloves Garlic (minced)
• 4 Green Onions (finely chopped)
• Cumin
• Corn Starch
• Extra 1 cup Orange Juice

Mix the marinade (all but the corn starch and ribs) in a small bowl. Cut the racks of ribs in half and place into a ziplock bag with 1/6 (as there were 6 half slabs) of the marinade in each. Refrigerate for 3 hours (flip the bags halfway through). Preheat the oven to 225 F. Remove the ribs from the plastic bags (keeping the marinade) and wrap the ribs in foil and place in the oven on a baking sheet. Cook until serving (in this case 3-4 hours). Place the marinade in a saucepan and bring to boil. Add extra 1 cup Orange Juice (I also added a little bit of lemon juice to finish off a bottle of it in the fridge). Add cornstarch to thicken and cool. Coat the ribs with the sauce when serving.

Mixed Slaw with Orange and Cilantro Dressing:
I mostly followed a recipe I found (2). It may have come out a little on the sour side but it went well with the sweet orange ribs (I hope at least). Veggies were bought on sale (yay!). Totalled around $5 for everything. Here's how it was done.

• 3/4 large head Cabbage (it was bigger than I thought ><)
• 2/3 large Cucumber (accidently lost the other 1/3)
• 3 Japanese Cucumbers
• 1 large Carrot
• 4 Green Onions
• Handful Cilantro
• 3 ears Corn (steamed)
• 2/3 cup Orange Juice
• 2/3 cup Rice Vinegar
• 2/3 cup Vegetable Oil

Cut the cabbage into short, thin strips. Peel and grate the cucumber (I would actually chop into thin strips if I had to do it again). Cut the Japanese cucumber into thin strips. Peel and grate the carrot. Thinly slice the green onions and mince the cilantro. Place the veggies in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients and toss over salad. Cut the kernals off the corn and toss again after letting the slaw sit for a while (~15 mins).

Potatoes au Gratin:
This one was a tasty recipe which was based strongly off this recipe (3). It worked out really well, except for the fact that we over made this dish by quite a bit. I guess I need to learn how to gauge how much potatoes people eat XP. Anyways, this dish was slightly more expensive due to the cheeses and cream needed, amounting probably to around $15. Anyways, here's the dish as it was done.

• 12 Russett Potatoes
• 1 package Gruyere (block)
• 1 package Parmesean (grated)
• 1 pint Heavy Whipping Cream
• Salt and Pepper
• Red Pepper Powder
• Margarine

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Margarine the baking pan (we used a pie pan and a bread pan). Peel the potatoes and chop into thin pieces. Grate the gruyere and mix with the parmesian. Organize potatoes as a layer and place a layer of mixed cheese over it. Interchange layers until running out of room. On the top layer pour whipping cream mixed with salt and pepper. Sprinkle red pepper powder on top. Bake for 75 minutes (when top begins to brown). Turn off oven and keep sealed within until ready to serve (sat for an hour inside before eating and it was still good!).

Steamed Sponge Cake:
In late celebration of my friends birthday, we had a cake. Based off this recipe (4), it was surprising light and not too sweet, a nice outcome as I hadn't actually made steamed cake before ><. Served with strawberries and cream. Don't know how much the entire dish costs as I used a lot of ingredients we already had (ie sugar, flour, etc). Anyways - here's the recipe as I ended up doing it (misread the recipe and ended up doing it in a different order ><).

• 8 Large Eggs
• 2 cup Flour
• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 2+ tsp Almond Extract
• 1 cup 2% Milk
• 8 tbsp Margarine (melted)

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat eggs in electric mixer. After eggs are well beaten, add melted margarine, milk, and almond extract (eye balled almond extract, was probably around 2 tsp though.) until combined. Add dry ingredients in thirds until well combined. Pour into a margarined baking pan and place into steamer. Steam for 45 minutes (until toothpick/chopstick comes out clean). Serve with strawberries, chocolate sauce, and cream (1 pint Heavy Whipping Cream, ~1/2 cup Powdered Sugar, and ~1 tbsp Almond Extract whipped until hard peaks. I accidentally missed soft peaks as I was doing the dishes ><).

That's all we had for dinner tonight. Fed 9 people present with 4 take servings being taken out for around $50-60. Finished everything but potatoes and slaw (not much of each left), and cream.

I know that today's post was really long, but that's cause of the party. Usually only 1 or 2 dishes are cooked along with rice so it shouldn't be this long again for a while. Hope you enjoy trying any of these dishes!

Cheers,
---Chris

Cites:
(1) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Orange-Soy-Baby-Back-Ribs-231986
(2) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cabbage-and-Corn-Slaw-with-Cilantro-and-Orange-Dressing-238803
(3) http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/b.-smith/potatoes-au-gratin-recipe/index.html
(4) http://chowtimes.com/2006/02/17/chinese-sponge-cake/