Saturday Night: Italian Dinner Party

We had a big group over for dinner on Saturday for an approximation to an Italian seven-course meal.

The full menu was:

1. Antipasti: Jolie did a beautiful combination of things, including some fabulous fava beans and roasted peppers with capers.
2. Soup: Minestrone from Cati, I need to get this recipe (from the Biba Tratorria book) from her.
3. Pasta: Cannelloni filled with mixed greens (using the FStoS recipe).
   
4. Secondi: Stracotto (from A Tuscan in the Kitchen) , gratineed asperagus (from Marcella Hazan), sauteed mushrooms (also from Hazan).
   
5. Salad: Steve and Dianna brought mixed greens
6. Cheese: a nice selection also brought by Steve and Dianna
7. Fruit: Karen and Jamshid brought strawberries and blood oranges from their CSA program. We tossed the strawberries with a bit of balsamico and black pepper. The oranges were beautiful on their own.
   

I don't have the whole list of wines we did, and I stupidly took out the recycling this morning without writing stuff down. What I know: Nerello del Bastardo, two kinds of prosecco (one we got at AG Ferrari, one Aaron and Jolie brought), a couple other Italian reds, a California red (Beaulieu Tapestry) from Karen and Jamshid, an alto adigo that Jon and Cati brought, the muscat that I bought at Costco a couple months ago.

Random notes:

• We picked up some par-baked italian bread from Il Fornaio at TJs. I was very surprised by how good this stuff is.
  
• Six pounds of uncooked greens takes up a LOT of space. I took before/after pictures, I just need to remember to grab them and put them online.
• I need to make lists when I cook as part of a dinner party. I have a strong tendency to forget final steps after I start talking/eating. So I forgot to add finely chopped parsely to the mushrooms. I also forgot to pour some truffle oil over them before serving. Dumbass. Luckily, they were still good, but still...
• The alto adigo was interesting. I'm not good enough to decouple wines from each other/food when I have them in close proximity, but this seemed to be a relatively low-acidity white with a bit of body. Of course, I tasted it after a glass of prosecco, so that may not be the best assessment.
  

Despite my forgetfulness, I'm really happy with how the food turned out. [I'm also glad to have a group of friends willing to play along with these crazy ideas. :-)]