We had a dinner party for 8 over the weekend and served pork as the main course with a very cool eggplant Parmesan and a fennel and grape bread that I’ll give you the recipe for now and the others later this week.

Oh, I did start them off with the little appetizer stimulator we had at Solas’ the night before. All I did was cut a fig in half, top it with a little blue cheese and drizzled a little Pomegranate Merlot that I got at ClubSauce.com. I’m not sure if they are even make it any more but you could use any brand of Pomegranate drizzle or even try an aged balsamic vinegar.

I went to ClubSauce and didn’t see the Pomegranate Merlot but they do have an interesting Saba that would work. Saba was popular with the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks over 5,000 years ago so this stuff has staying power.

Fennel and Grape Harvest Bread
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients:

1-½ cups warm water (105°F to 115°F)
2 envelops active dry yeast
3-½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 cups red seedless grapes, stemmed, rinsed
10 tablespoons sugar
1-teaspoon fennel seeds

Prep the Ingredients

Since you are making 2 separate loafs, you will want to divide the ingredients into two except for the water, yeast and olive oil.

How to Make at Home

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I love soup so I am looking for some interesting cold soups that I can serve on these hot summer days that are both filling and refreshing. I found a great recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Williams-Sonoma’s New Orleans.

What I like about this cookbook besides the wonderful collection of recipes is the photographs and the descriptions of Old New Orleans. It is a mini history book as well as an inspiration for cooking. And a portion of the profits go to help the victims of hurricane.

I wanted to adapt the recipe to make it vegetarian but I didn’t have any Veggie Stock Gold on hand and didn’t have the time or the inclination to make a vegetarian stock on short notice. Veggie Stock Gold is a 20 to 1 classic vegetarian stock made by the same folks who make some of my other favorite stock reductions and demi-glace for sauces. You can learn more about these products and how to use them at www.gatewaygourmet.com.

The recipe calls for using chicken stock but I had some duck stock reduction from these same guys called Glace de Canard Gold also a 20 to 1 reduction but of classic duck stock. It is very similar to chicken stock but has a bit more flavor to it so why not give it a try. I also increased the ingredient amounts to make a little more but I have to warn you, I did not increase the cayenne pepper and everyone thought it was a little to spicy. I liked the extra kick but be careful. I would opt to use less and add more after tasting.

Classic vichyssoise is not made with sweet potatoes (sometimes called yams) but with regular potatoes. I like what they did with this recipe by adding extra color and flavor from the sweet potatoes and ginger. It can be served as a starter but I like it on a hot night with a side of salad for a light refreshing meal. I even had it for breakfast one morning and it was great.

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How to Make Chinese Dumplings at Home

I recently wrote about a couple of cookbooks I borrowed from our local library. One of them was Suzanna Foo’s Chinese Cuisine and last night we thought it would be a fun family project to try her Pork Dumplings with Soy-Ginger Sauce. And it turned out to be great fun.

One of the reasons we chose this recipe is it looked easy enough for all of us to get involved in preparing and my youngest daughter loves dumplings. She lives on those Pot Stickers you can find in the frozen section at Costco. We thought this might be a nice change of pace and if she helped make them, she might even trying eating some. We were right again.

This recipe should be listed under “Shortcut Meals” because we didn’t make the dumpling wrappers from scratch.  Instead we purchased square wontons that my oldest daughter transformed into round wontons with a cookie cutter.

After transformation, the wrapper went to my youngest daughter in charge of filling the dumpling with the pork mixture. She stood there with her spoon and proudly added a dollop of ingredients to each one asking, “Daddy, is this the right amount?”

I then sealed them up and did my best to add a little pleat to the sides and turned them over to my wife who was in charge of boiling some and frying the rest. When done I thought there would be no way we were going to eat all these dumplings. We went through two packages of wonton wrappers but in the end there were only a few left for someone’s lunch the next day.

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