Entertaining in the time of Covid 19

My pick for this week is The Canadian Living Entertaining Cookbook,  at a time when our ability to entertain outside our own household is non-extent it might seem an odd choice; but it was another one of the books I had used when my cousins and I gathered earlier this year.

Canadian Living was my go to source for recipes for years. The magazines and cookbooks always had good reliable recipes.

The Canadian Living Entertaining Cookbook was published in 1990 and for the most part has stood the test of time.  Certainly there are recipe ingredients that at the time seemed exotic but now are run of the mill, and some "popular" ingredients that are now out of vogue.

One afternoon we had the Red Onion and Black Olive Tart.  Red onions simmered to develop their sweet flavours, combined with tomatoes make a wonderful base for the olives.  The recipe called only for black olives but I mixed it up with both black and green olives.  There is so many wonderful oil cured olives out there why limit yourself! With a crisp white wine it was the right combination of sweet and salty to make an satisfying snack.

The Canadian Living Entertaining Cookbook is broken up into menu for all sorts of occasions and no occasions at all.  For supper one evening I referred to the menu for A Seaside Supper which I almost totally followed. Which is unusual I like to create my own menus.  We had:

Mussels and Scallop Stew

Bibb Lettuce and Avocado Salad

Crusty Bread 

The Mussels and Scallop Stew was that simple, quick dish that means you can have something fun and delicious on the table in no time.  Yummy shellfish in a cream base gives something for the crusty bread to sop up. The salad provides a fresh crisp contrast to the richness of the stew.  ( By the way, the dressing would be great on any salad).  Makes me hungry just thinking about the meal. 😊

Our dessert that evening was also from this cookbook, but another selection.  Three-way Cookies is a great recipe to have a nice selection of cookies without having to make 3 batches. 

One dough, divided and flavoured 3 ways and you are ready to impress company that you slaved all day in the kitchen!

Chocolate Cookies, Ginger Drop Cookies and Sugar Cookies

Things will improve and we will once again be able to entertain - friends, family, neighbours we will eat, drink and be merry and wrap our arms around them and hopefully never let go again!

Checking our cookbooks and planning those menus helps us to look forward to the future when things return to some normalcy.  In the meantime, Stay Safe and wash your hands.