Everything Ready for a Downton Dinner

So back to the party:

As I mentioned initially, we did receive a hand written response which was quite fun.

We had our menu and needed to set the table. There are several sites which address the proper table setting. I did not measure to be exact but it seems that no one thought to notice. Lucky this time!!

For a proper place setting one must have a white wine stem, claret stem and water glass. Then for the 9 course meal one needs a soup bowl, a plate for the fish, plate for the beef, glass for the punch or bowl for the gelatin, plate for the chicken, salad plate, desert plate and cheese plate. Flatware includes a salad fork, dinner fork, dinner knife, cutting knife, tea spoon, and soup spoon. Each place setting must also have a name card and a menu card.

Because we have a miss-mash of stems, china and flatware we had to scramble again for place settings. I went to the antique stores on Sat but only found 4 stems, 2 of which matched. Since there were to be only 8 of us the three new stems would be enough. We did have enough flatware using our 2 sets, but only for dinner. There were not enough desert spoons for everyone. We have ½ of a set of china, several place settings of Corning in the RV and then some from a friend which gave us enough. Fortunately, the rich would use several different styles of china in order to show that they had so much money they could use which ever setting they wanted. We took comfort in that.

The table is ready. Note the silver bell in front of the Lord Grantham's seat

We have porcelain place cards that are easy to clean for reuse but we had no menu cards. Very tacky for sure. But again no one called us on it. Maybe our guests were just trying to be polite.

A Vegetable Pie

One of our guests is vegan and in the interest of her enjoyment we had to have alternative dishes for our dinner. The Fish Vegan alternative dish was quite fun. 

I found a recipe for a Vegetable Pie and then made some changes. We thought we'd better try this dish a couple of days before the party just to make sure that it was tasty. In the interest of time I did not make the crust but rather made it more like a Shepherd’s Pie using a mashed potato top.

 Filling

2 Onions chopped

2 Carrots chopped

3 sticks of celery chopped

1 6-oz jar or can artichoke hearts

1 C. lentils soaked for about 4 hours

2 C. vegetable stock

Salt and pepper

4-6 potatoes

Sautee onions, carrots, celery and artichokes in olive oil until browned.

Drain lentils then add the lentils, stock and the sautéed veges into a casserole dish.

Cut potatoes into pieces then cook in the microwave or steamer until soft. Mash with vegetable broth to make them fluffy.  Cover the top of the veges with the mashed potatoes.

Bake at 350 for 45 min.

I baked the veges without a crust, then put some into a smaller dish and added the hot mashed potatoes to the smaller dish for dinner.

For our party I put a serving of the vegetables in a small single-serving Pyrex dish and heated it in the microwave. I cooked 2 potatoes separately with a little broth then mashed them. I then put the mashed potatoes on the hot vege mixture and served as a single serving.

I think that the veges without the crust could be cooked on top of the stove using a little more broth and used as a yummy soup.

Here is the original recipe:

http://downtonabbeycooks.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/welcome-to-the-new-world-doubting-thomas-eats-humble-pie/

Downton Viewing Party Time Again

So I’ve actually cooked plenty of meals and even made some and took photos of some meals for this blog but who knows what happened? Life happened I guess.  And now we’ve had another Downton dinner, our 2^nd annual Viewing Party and there is so much to write about. This party occurred on the night of the finale, Feb 23^rd.

This year was like last year, I was busy working in Northern CA, finishing up a couple of weeks before the dinner. I thought that Dale and I would have plenty of time to get everything ready, 2 weeks off is like a year to me! Or so I wanted to think.

Last year we didn’t have time to eat our desert course and cheese course before the Downton episode started. This year we were determined to not repeat that, but rather have all courses finished before Downton started. We set the time to arrive at 6pm. I wanted for us to sit down at 6:45pm.

To get started I read the article on how to throw the perfect Downton party by Jessica Fellowes. The article advised to send a hand written invitation before the party. The invite had to say that we would be “at home” and ask them “to arrive at”. I found some nice plain cards that I could use. Unfortunately we were out of our monogrammed cards and there was no time to order more. I sent the cards to the Lord and Lady’s to be invited. I'll attach a photo of one response when I find it.

Selecting the wine

Dale and I sat down and made a master plan, unfortunately on Saturday before the party on Sunday, way too late. Then the master plan was not really a good working plan as I needed one that would have actual flow of the food. My master plan is a list of what food goes on the stove and when, when each dish gets served and when with which wine.

By Sunday morning, in addition to cleaning the house I made my master plan and we chose the wine. I was already on a really late start.

This year our menu contained both gluten free courses with a vegan alternative.

Here is the menu we made:

1. Appetizer: Smoked Oysters, Bruschetta, Baguette,    Iron Horse Chinese Cuvee, Pimm’s

2. Soup:  Cream of Potato Soup     Navarro Gewurztraminer 2012                      vegan alternative: soup with no cream

3. Fish: Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce   Armida Chardonnay 2010

 vegan- Vegetable Pie

4. Meat: Boeuf Bourguignon     Downton Abbey Claret 2012

vegan- Mushroom Loaf with Red wine sauce

5. Palate Cleanser: Punch Romaine

6. Fowl: Chicken Lyonnaise      Pipestone Grenache Rose                                 

vegan- Vegan Chicken Strips sautéed with a vegan Lyonnaise sauce

7. Salad: Fig Salad  Champagne

8. Desert: Triffle with a Gluten Free Version, Vegan Ginger Cookies

9. Cheese: Cheese, Fig Compote, Baguette