Dinner with Scott and Matt

Tuesday we had my nephew Scott and his roommate Matt over for dinner. They are both med students: Scott at Northwestern, and Matt at Loyola. They both went to the Air Force Academy. We picked one recipe from the Cosa Nostra, Tunnel of Fudge Cake, and one recipe, African Beef, that we plan to put in the 25th anniversary edition. And we made butternut squash soup, just because we had butternut squash, and the weather's finally turned cold enough that a good butternut squash soup sounded good.

Even though I told Stacey I wasn't going to buy any new stuff while I'm unemploy...I mean tell-Mom-I'm-consulting, I couldn't resist going to William Sonoma to get a new bundt pan that I've been eyeing for like two years. It's got a cathedral/castle shape, and when you top with some powdered sugar it looks fantastic. Presentation counts.

African Beef has become an old favorite: beef marinated in cayenne and lemon juice (very hot), cooked with spinach, and served over rice. Bad news--when we make it for ourselves, we make it REALLY hot, and I backed off too much--it lost its distinctive totally hot flavor, though it was nice to have the lemon flavor coming through. The boys would have like it hot. Oh well.

The Tunnel of Fudge cake was good, but we all thought it was misnamed or mis-made. I vote for mis-made. One issue is that it calls for "a package of chocolate frosting mix." I think times have changed--most of the frosting on the shelves is already made, and there were limited choices for straight dry frosting mix. And also a) our oven runs hot and b) the bundt pan has a dark finish, so I think it was a bit overcooked. It was a good, solid bundt cake, but didn't have any of the gooey, fudgy texture that I thought I would get. Still, it looked great with my new pan and all.

A good time was had by all, great to catch up, and I think I talked Scott into coming over to help when we get to Chicken Kevi (boning a whole chicken without cutting it up). We'll need his surgical skills.