Labor Day

I'd been planning to bake a cake for Dorothy's barbecue, but Barbara wanted to bring lemon cake with raspberry sauce, so I said I'd bring appetizers instead. I made a roasted vegetable spread I'd copied out of a Barefoot Contessa cookbook. It involved roasting eggplant, red bell peppers, red onion, and garlic that had been tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper, then pulsing the mixture a few times in a food processor. Of course, I roast eggplant all the time, and often include onions and bell peppers, so except that I usually don't bother to peel the eggplant, this was pretty much my usual roasted veggies, but with smaller bits of vegetable. It was good, though.

Yesterday after mass we ate bagels and cream cheese with red onions, cucumbers, and the smoked salmon my mom bought at the smoked salmon factory we visited in Anacortes. I took the remains of the salmon home, flaked it, and combined it with a mixture of cream cheese, sour cream, lemon juice, chives, and horseradish. I put it in the foreground of the top picture, hoping that if it were closer it wouldn't just look like a blob of white, but the pink of the fish and the green of the chives can't be seen very well in the post-mixing picture.

Having fed my sourdough starter two days ago, I finally tried making extra-tangy sourdough bread, bread that gets all its leavening from the sourdough and rises slowly over a couple of days. (In the past I'd only made the kind helped along with packaged yeast.) I was afraid it would be too sour, but the taste and texture were both very good though the loaves were a bit flat. Unfortunately, I forgot to slash the tops of the loaves before baking, and I think that kept them from expanding properly. I turned one loaf upside down for the picture so you can see where the surface tore apart on the bottom. But by halving the loaves lengthwise before cutting them in thin slices, I had pretty little pieces perfect for spreading with the toppings, so the flatness was a blessing in disguise.

Dorothy and Brian made garlic dip (Ratner dip?) with potato chips, pina coladas, and (inspired by hearing about Nick and Maggie's dinner party) a topping bar for burgers and hot dogs. Along with mustard, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle, there was cheddar cheese, blue cheese, bacon, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, and sriracha mayonnaise. My mom brought potato salad and lettuce salad, and Barbara brought beet salad and cucumber-tomato salad as well as dessert. It was a beautiful day and everything was delicious (including the perfect peach I had for breakfast).

I love Mondays off: another weekend in only four days!