March: Slow-Roasted Salmon — The Dinner Party Resolution

When I heard that in March Nick would be going on his third (THIRD?!) international bachelor party, I decided it would be the perfect time to host a ladies-only dinner party. Since Nick is legitimately afraid of cooked salmon, although he'll eat raw salmon and arctic char (which is truly the same fish), and it's one of my favorite foods, I knew I was going to center things around salmon. Despite my challenges with the famous Alison Roman cookies in January, I chose her recipe for slow-roasted salmon with citrus, and went from there. The menu really planned itself after that. I decided to kick things off with a green goddess dressing and crudite — I mean, how could you not for an all-female soiree? I picked up on the citrus from the salmon, and went with a citrus salad that I cobbled together from two recipes (making a last minute switch day of), and this miso pesto ramen that I had made before and loved (the greenest pasta there is). AND...I baked again. Two postscripts…I froze the cake leftovers so Nick could try it when he was bake and it was still unbelievably moist after a month in the freezer, and I ate the leftover pesto as dip for the rest of the week and it was insane. Make this pesto — it is super healthy and tastes incredible!

Having learned my baking lesson the very hard way in January, I decided I would get up early yesterday and get the baking out of the way first thing, just in case it didn't turn out well. I chose an olive oil cake from Maialino (by way of Food52), thinking it matched the healthy fat theme of the evening, and it was honestly the easiest recipe of all time. I think it took less than 15 minutes to get it in the oven and that included cutting a piece of parchment paper into a circle to go into the pan.

Riding high on my win, the incredible smell of a cake in the oven, and the cake batter that I'd eaten while "cleaning" the bowl, I started on the green goddess dressing. I guess March was the month for me to give everyone a second chance, because after Samin's not-so-hot garlic bread in January, I went with her goddess dressing recipe from the Times. In my now sort of classic poor Fresh Directing fashion, I had about 3 sprigs of parsley when I needed several cups, but I subbed in cilantro (of which I had waaaay more than I needed), and it came out really well. I also added some avocado because it just felt sort of wrong not to? With the food processor already out, I started on the pesto. It's times like these when I think of the Barefoot Contessa's tip to have a few extra food processor bowls, so you aren't having to constantly clean them while cooking. If only Ina could see my poor food processor shoved under the sink, squished between paper towel rolls and extra paper bags. I quadrupled this recipe, and probably should have made it in smaller batches, but I was somehow able to fit 16 cups of spinach into the food processor without getting pesto all over me and the kitchen.

Fresh Direct really outdid themselves on this farmhouse crudite situation.

With a bunch of key items done, I decided to walk to the fish store and back, hitting a casual three grocery stores on the way home. It was during this outing that I really overcompen-shopped (I think this is a thing). With Nick away, I realized that if I didn't have something I needed later in the day, there wasn't going to be anyone to pick it up for me. So I ended up buying extra bottles of olive oil and fish sauce, only to find out when I got home that I already had fish sauce and I had two full bottles of olive oil. Better safe than sorry, I guess?

The fish sauce was for the citrus salad. I hadn't planned to make this recent recipe from the Times, but it was sort of stuck in my head, and I switched to it last minute — subbing the peanuts for endive (which was in the recipe I originally planned to make). I made this as a composed salad, but if I did it again, I'd toss it all in a bowl so the flavors could meld better. Also, I ended up using a serrated knife to take the peels off all of that citrus, and I thought it was way easier than using a regular knife — although admittedly, serrated or not, it is my best knife.

Alison Roman also triumphed from January's let-down. Her salmon recipe was insanely easy (put citrus in pan, put salmon in pan, add oil, put in oven) and was probably the biggest hit of the night — everyone got up for seconds, and one guest even called it aspirational!

Just before my guests started to arrive, I got ready to take on Nick's other job when we have people over, which is to pick and play the music, but he'd switched some of our speaker cords, and I couldn't figure it out. Despite having 6 incredibly brilliant women over, none of us could make it work, and I ended up just playing music from my phone — which was completely fine.

With music going, we drank pink, orange, and white wine, talked about serums (a little), emotions in the workplace, the things no one will tell you about giving birth (you'll probably poop and it will be hard to poop after), wedding planning, and whether or not to hold a stranger's baby. We capped the night off with olive oil cake, grapes, and gummy worms, and I wasn't jealous at all to be missing out on Nick's trip.