Thursday: of the food contributions I had (I won't count the cheese plate or helping to tie the pork loin) which were the salad (making the ricotta and picking out the garden grape tomatoes) and stuffed squash, I think the ricotta was my favorite of what I made. I think the stuffed squash dried out a little as it was waiting for the pork loin to finish, as it took longer then anticipated.
Friday: of the food contributions, I really liked the gougeres I made: unlike my trial bake at home I kept a much closer eye on them and was able to pull them out before they were dried out. I should have been patient and let them cool 10 more minutes, as they get much fluffier after that, but even after 5 minutes I still liked their very light cheesy puffiness. And, it made the house smell wonderful.
I made the sausage apple stuffing with vegetarian apple sage sausage… and I really missed that I didn't get to use real meat. I used the vegetarian sausage because of one person (even though I had real sweet Italian sausage for the next morning for the hash brown with egg whites and cheddar casserole). If I had used real sausage it would have stood up to the rye bread I decided to use and spiced it up- the vegetarian sausage just couldn't. Stupid vegetarian only had a spoonful of it too.
The corn pudding was also a disappointment- it wasn't tall enough because I didn't have a 2 qt dish- only 1.5 and 2.5- and in choosing the 2.5 it spread it out too thin and did not have the right texture. Next year, I plan to try another take on corn but this time making spoonbread, which I first had at Poppy in Seattle last month.
Saturday = Beer Day, thanks to visits to Fort George and Astoria Brewing (at Wet Dog Cafe).
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