Luck of the Pot

Last post I promised to write about Salt Spring holiday feasts. I didn’t get enough feedback to do this, so I’ve decided to talk about Salt Spring’s most cherished feast tradition instead – the potluck dinner. I’ll get to it soon, but I’m warning you that you might be disappointed by the outcome.

This is officially the time of year when we enter the dog days of winter. It will likely rain almost every day now until that one random sparkly sunny day in February that makes you do a little dance and skip out of work. Then it will rain again every day after that for another month.

Winter is boring on Salt Spring for the very few of us who are not crafty, arty or musical. The novelty of local faces you missed during the tourist season, and loved reconnecting with in October, has worn off. The coffee shop chatter seems repetitive, inane and less quaint then in April. There is no scene in the bar scene unless you’re an avid Texas Holdem fan.

A great way to break the tedium is to invite your friends over for dinner. It’s trendy right now in urban locales to throw extravagant dinner parties with carefully decorated tables and difficult to execute menus. However, unless you’re a superhero, I would advise a less epic approach. If you keep it simple you may feel compelled to invite the people you like over to your house more often. This brings me to the potluck.

Unlike the big city it’s always been trendy on Salt Spring to do very little preparation for dinner parties. Often all we do is invite our friends, advise them to bring food, and then open the front door.  Although I’ve come to appreciate this during my decade of residence here, I still believe that if you invite people for a meal you have a social obligation to do some minimal preparation. First you need to neaten your house. No need for days of deep cleaning, just clear away the excess clutter and rid your bathroom of counter scum and dirty underwear. Second you need to prepare a meal.

I’ve come to adore many quirky island social customs but I remain disdainful of potlucks. I realize many of you are outraged by this statement but controversy is entertaining in the winter months right? Maybe more entertaining then potlucks.

Potluck meals are like badly planned buffets serving food that doesn’t belong together. One of your guests will go to great effort only to have their dish ignored because some renegade brought a bucket of KFC from the big island. The biggest perk of being invited to someone else’s house for dinner is the joy of not cooking.

So after you clean your bathroom cook something easy. Choose something you cook often. You can cook the same thing every time you entertain. Your friends won’t get sick of your vegetable stew unless you invite them over more then once a week. They will appreciate a simple meal more then six kinds of tabouli salad and some vegetarian baked beans. Cook it the day before if you can.

Chilli, stews, curries and baked pasta make wonderful cheap and simple to prepare meals for winter dinner parties because they taste even better the second day and all you need is salad and bread to round out the meal.

I understand that some of my favourite friends might be offended by me dissing potlucks. I apologize and sincerely hope that you continue to invite me to your potlucks. I’ll bring the fried chicken from Duncan. I have really great recipes for Irish beef stew, red, green and yellow curries that can be made with fish, tofu or chicken.  If you want these recipes go to Island Chef.ca and ask.  In the meantime, I’ve shared my famous lasagne recipe. This a personal recipe that I only eat with friends. It is a great thing to bring to a potluck.

Make Ragu Bolognese:
In heavy bottom stock pot heat until onions are translucent:
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 onion (fine dice)
3 celery stocks (fine dice)
2 carrots (fine dice)
½ cup garlic (minced)
1 Tablespoon nutmeg
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon fennel
1 Tablespoon dried chillies
lots of fresh ground pepper

Then add 2 packs ground beef & 2 packs ground pork. Toss until meat is brown.

Then add 2 cups milk. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat.
Simmer until milk evaporates (about 20 minutes).
Then add 2 cups red wine.
Simmer until liquid reduced by half.
Then add 3 cups chicken stock and simmer for another 30 minutes until liquid reduced by half.
The add 1 large can of plum tomatoes with juice.
Let simmer for 1 ½ hours or more if you want.

Make tomato sauce:
Heat 4 Tablespoons butter, ½ cup garlic slivered (blending so do not need to dice it), 1 Tablespoon oregano, 1 Tablespoons basil, 1 teaspoon salt, fresh ground pepper. Cook until garlic is browning.
Then add 2 large cans of diced tomatoes.
Simmer, stirring often for ½ hour.
Blend until smooth.

Combine in bowl:
3 cups ricotta cheese
2 cups mozza cheese
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup Salt Spring goat cheese
2 cups spinach
1 cup fine dice fresh basil
1 TBS nutmeg

Make Bechamel Sauce:
Get all the ingredients ready because it happens fast, once you start never stop whisking:

Melt on fairly high heat
7 Tablespoons butter

When butter is melted add:
6 Tablespoons flour

Keep mixing and let flour and butter cook for a few minutes.
Then add 2 Tablespoons warm milk (warm in micro)
Then gradually add 3 ¼ cups more milk
Then add
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspooon pepper
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 Tablespoon minced fresh basil
¼ cup parmesan
Whisk until thick and smooth.

Build lasagna:
You can add sautéed sliced mushrooms to one layer to make it yummy.
The order doesn’t matter. I do it different all the time.
Grate and add some more cheese to each layer (monteray jack or mozza is best).
I push down each noodle layer hard to get as much in the pan as possible.  It should be really heavy when it is done. Mine is actually hard to carry to the oven. It took two people to carry it up Suzanne Little’s stairs last month. She didn’t have a potluck I was catering – just for the record.

Here is the basic idea how to build it:
spray pan
two cups tomato sauce
layer noodles
1/2 the ragout
1/2 the ricotta mix
noodles
2 cups tomato sauce
rest of ragout
rest of ricotta mix
2 cups tomato sauce
noodles
all béchamel
1 cup parmesan

Bake for 1 hour covered and 15 minutes uncovered on 350.
Let sit then cut and serve. It needs to sit or it will be mush. This is awesome the second day and goes really well with caesar salad and garlic bread.

I like to add lots of cheddar cheese to various layers and extra tomato sauce. However this is not traditional.