Spice Sisters Society: September Recap! Ina Garten's "Barefoot in Paris" Take 2

The Book:

Ina Garten’s Barefoot in Paris

The Sisters:

Megan, Desiree, Sabina, Andrea

The Dishes lovingly prepared:

Salad with Warm Goat Cheese

Zucchini Gratin

Coconut Madeleines

Spinach in Puff Pastry

The Details:

Thank you Megan for welcoming us into your beautiful home. It was warmly and perfectly decorated for fall and smelled delicious like pumpkin spice. It was the perfect space to spend the afternoon together enjoying great conversation and delicious food. The strawberry basil margaritas were perfect for our fall meeting on a 90 degree day!

We enjoyed a completely vegetarian meal for the second time in a row and it was delicious. Each meeting we manage to choose things that complement each other perfectly. It is fun to choose the favorite dish which is really just the dish most likely to be made again. This time we couldn’t decide! We all agreed that we would make each dish again.

The salad was a simple salad but what made it unique was the homemade dressing and the toast with goat cheese. The dressing had an egg in the recipe that really added a richness that we all really enjoyed. The zucchini gratin was great. It had a tons of onions which we all loved. “What’s not to love!?” It could definitely stand on its own with a salad and be the main dish. The spinach in puff pastry really had a nice presentation for something so simple. Using puff pastry in this dish was a nice variation verses phyllo dough which is used in spanakopita, a very similar Greek dish. The Madeleines are a very simple but very impressive dessert. Investing in the Madeleine pan is definitely worth it.

Megan waited to bake these so that we could enjoy them warm, straight from the oven. Delicious!

Looking ahead…

We discussed the topic of attendees and members. This month we had 4 members for the third meeting in a row. We all decided that we enjoy the intimacy! We are getting to know each other and it's very easy to keep the conversation flowing. We have a total of 13 members now, with 3 new ladies recently invited to join the group, so the potential for a large meeting every so often is still a possibility. But the consensus is that the meetings of 4 are equally enjoyable as the larger meetings. So we'll keep it like it is! We all will make some and miss some.

Spice Sister’s Society’s First Annual “Husbands Too Holiday Party”

Megan had the great idea to include the husbands once a year. We thought what better time than for a holiday party. It will be held on November 19th to avoid December holiday madness. We will also take December off. We can thank them all for the past months of helping to clean for a party they are not invited to, mixing delicious cocktails they do not get to enjoy and getting lost with the kids! We’ll make this kid free and later in the day so we can all have a relaxing evening. Thank you Desiree for offering to host this one! We’ll decide on a book at the meeting on October 8^th.

Recipes: