$30 Dinner Party: Autumn Style

October 22, 2009 by M. Cole Chilton

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Place setting

$30 Dinner Party is a Monthly Column that lays out a detailed 3-course meal (appetizer, entree and dessert) for a dinner party of four for under $30. With a detailed listing of ingredients (and their cost) and super easy recipes, along with budget wine pairings, you’ll never have to put off socializing due to budget restrictions again. Recession be damned!

Cucumber, Tomato, and White Bean Salad

Amuse Bouche, or “mouth teaser” when translated from French, is the best way to describe what an appetizer really should be. The first course should make your guests both salivate and gasp. The combination of dill, mint, and garlic serves as a fresh and savory decoration for the stunning gastronomical architecture of the strings of julienned cucumbers tossed with tiny cubes of diced tomatoes. The tiny white Italian beans add a meaty texture, and save you from having to chop an entire bushel of cucumbers just to make sure that your serving dish doesn’t look empty.

A grumpy Israeli man first served this salad to me outside of Milan, where he complained to me, “In Tel Aviv, I would use parsley, but here they grow their parsley too big so I have to use mint.” He then pirouetted on his way back into the kitchen, yelling back at me, “Maybe it’s not so bad a curse- the mint is my daughter’s favorite.”

Wine Pairing under $12: Look to the Loire Valley (northwestern France) if you want white wine; they use mostly Sauvignon Blanc, and they make sure it is crisp, herbal, and citrus-driven, which are aromas that all go well with the light flavors of this first dish. If you want red wine filled with light, tart berry flavors, then ask for something made with Gamay grapes; they grown natively in Beaujolais, and they’ve found a second home in the Loire Valley.

Ingredients
3 cucumbers $2.00
1 can of beans $2.00
2 tomatos $3.00
3 clove of garlic
dill
mint
olive oil
1 lemon (the juice of) $0.50

Recipe: Rub your serving/mixing bowl with the smashed garlic cloves. Julienne the cucumbers if you can. You will need a mandolin to do this, but if you don’t have one, an extremely fine dicing of the cucumbers will work, too. Dice the tomatoes. Rinse and add the can of beans. Drizzle olive oil over the entire bowl, and cover with a generous shake of dried dill. Sprinkle dry, crushed mint until you can just barely smell it through the mint. Toss everything together. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Creamy Crab and Pea Linguini

The hardest part of cooking this dish is the waiting. I suggest you have at least one good friend and one good bottle of wine to split between the two of you while you simmer this dish’s ingredients down into a chewy sauce.

The most important step is adding the frozen peas at the very end of cooking so that they are still a luminescent green when they hit your guests’ bowls. For budget conscious gourmets such as me, it’s the green in the peas more so than the sizzle in the steak that matters most.

Wine Pairing $15 or less: Ask a friend to search out a bottle of Muscadet, and you’ll be able to pair your dish with a wine that tastes like lemons, limes, and green melon sprinkled with salty, crushed seashells. If for some reason you really want to drink red with crab, please, don’t be upset if your local wine merchant gives you a snobby scoff, but do insist that the merchant helps you find a fresh, light Valpolicella so that you can at least brighten up the dish with some tart, cherry-driven acidity and fresh, herbal notes.

Ingredients:
3 cans of crab   $6.00
1 package of linguini   $1.00
1 bag of frozen peas   $2.00
1 small onion   $0.50
¼ cup of olive oil
¼ stick of butter
Dill
Tarragon
2 cups of milk or 1 cup of cream

Recipe: Make the pasta so that it’s just barely done, drain it, and set it off to the side. Dice the onion and sauté it in the butter, olive oil, and (salt & pepper to taste) in a large pot (it can be the same pot you cooked the pasta in). Add the milk or cream and reduce over medium-low heat until it has soft, creamy consistency; this could take up to 30 minutes so be patient, or have a friend, some music, and a bottle of wine on hand. Add the peas and cook just until heated through- the point of adding the peas last is that they turn out a bright green color that wows your guests. Dust the sauce with equal portions dill and tarragon- it should smell both savory and sweet after doing this step, and be generous because, unlike a strong flavor such as basil or paprika, it would be hard to overdo it with delicate herbs like tarragon or dill.

Roasted Acorn Squash Rings filled with Sweet Couscous

It’s amazing how just turning the oven on and waiting an hour can make you look like a superhero. Your oven can make your meals feel like warm hugs from friends where stir frying or sautéing might leave you feeling like you just fumbled through a slick handshake from a new acquaintance.

Sweet, starchy circles of green, brown, and orange serve as brilliant frames for a soft mound of dessert-style couscous. Burning the acorn squash is key. Otherwise, the raisins and brown sugar will swing the dish from wonderfully sweet to jarringly saccharine very quickly.

Also, don’t worry if you don’t end up making this dish after all the cooking from the first two; the uncut acorn squash will stay fresh in your fridge for many weeks to come; there’s a reason why you see these vegetables in every cheesy painting of Pilgrims’ Thanksgivings!

Wine Pairing $15 or less: Ask a friend to bring a dry Viognier if you like white wine better so that you can combine the wilted flowers, tart apricots, and warm nutmeg flavors of the wine with the woodsy toast and sweetness of the dish. If you like red better, then look to an Italian Primitivo for jammy red berries and flowers along with the same warm, brown baking spices of the Viognier would add.

Ingredients:
2 Acorn squashes $3.00
1 small onion $0.50
1 handful of raisins $1.00
2 cups of couscous $2.00
Brown Sugar
Olive Oil
Butter
Salt & Pepper
Allspice
Cinnamon

Recipe: Rub a cookie sheet with butter and olive oil. Use a sharp, serrated knife to cut (start from the pointy ends) the squashes into ½ inch to 1 inch thick rings. Arrange the rings over the cookie sheet and lightly sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and allspice (allspice is a very strong spice so go slowly if you have not used it often in the past). Put the cookie sheet into the oven in the middle rack at 400 degrees for 45min to 1.5hrs. The secret is to cook the squash to a level that may actually seem as if you’ve burned it- you want very dark brown edges on the squash. While it cooks, mince the onion and sauté it in olive oil, butter, a little salt, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil, then stir in the couscous, turn off the heat, and cover for 10 minutes. Stir in a generous sprinkle of brown sugar, and when then squash is ready scoop in a mound of the couscous into the center of the squash rings. Sprinkle the whole dish with brown sugar and place back in the over for 2 minutes to crystallize it. Serve warm.

Total Cost of Meal: $23.50 (excluding wine — the guests can bring that)

M. Cole Chilton makes videos about, teaches classes on, and makes a living from tasting and talking about wine. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, and drinks three cups of coffee a day. You can check out more of his musings at Porter’s Wine.