Sunday Night Dinner

Had friends over for a casual dinner, but was in the mood for cooking - so I made the following menu

• Hors d'oeuvres: Spicy-sweet bacon (made with thick farmers' market bacon), Red seedless grapes, Fresh Ricotta (with a bit of oil, salt and pepper) and pita chips
• Twice-Baked Goat Cheese Souffle with Micro-greens with a sherry vinaigrette
• Dill Bread
• Roast Leg of Lamb with carrots and mashed potatoes
• Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd and whipped cream

A bunch of these (bacon and souffle are recipes I've used before, though I did make some changes to all of the epicurious recipes)

• Bacon - I substituted maple-sugar sugar for brown sugar - for next time I think upping the sugar portion a very small amount is a good idea (it was a bit spicy for some people); I also used thick farmers market bacon, but maybe prefer the crunch stuff
• Souffle - I somehow thought that i was supposed to add 4oz of Gruyere to this recipe - I have NO idea how I got that in my head. But I didn't realize until it was already in and melting - so I cut the goat cheese down (to ~6oz). It was okay, but could have used more of the mustard and thyme (I also had to sub dried ground mustard as somehow the lid on the dijon wasn't closed and it was not usable)
• Dill Bread - got rave reviews, not really surpising as it is my favorite too
• The lamb was okay - I thought the rub worked well, but had issues with the timing and the temp (it said til 130 and I lost track of time and it went to 140, but was still a little rare even for me) - I also had no luck with the sauce (probably because there was very little in the way of drippings) - not sure what I would change (other than cooking it longer) though
• Lemon cake&curd - the curd was (again) phenomenal - it was so very good. The cake is almost more of a base (I think the last recipe may have been a teensy bit better, but can't find it) - plus I served whipped cream, so how bad can that be

Dill Bread
This is one of my mom's standards - I think it's from a random Bread book

1 package yeast
¼ cup water
1 cup cottage cheese
2Tbsp sugar
¼ cup fresh dill (or 2T dill seed)
1Tbsp butter
2Tbsp onion
1tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
1 egg
2 ½ - 3 cups flour

1. Heat cottage cheese to lukewarm. Add butter, sugar, salt, onion, dill and egg (beaten) in a saucepan. Pour into large bowl when warmed
2. Add yeast/water mixture
3. Beat in flour
4. Add flour until dough is stiff. Knead for a few minutes
5. Cover. Let rise until double (about 1 hour)
6. Stir down a bit. Place in a greased bread pan and let rise again
7. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes


Lemon Cake (i.e., Sweet Lemon Bread)
This is a recipe from my mom – I think she got it from her mom

½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
1 tsp salt
1 lemon – juice and zest

For glaze:
1 lemon – juice
½ cup sugar

1. Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs
2. Alternate milk and flour (plus baking soda and salt)
3. Add lemon
4. Butter and flour the pan. Bake at 300 for 1 hour 10 minutes
5. Immediately remove from pan. Puncture the top (with a fork) and pour glaze over. Let cool