Let it be known that I am 100% gourmet. I taste wine for a living and spend my days making videos and writing articles about wine and which foods to pair with it. If you come to my house for a dinner party, it would be embarrassing for me to do anything less than impress you.

Of course, right now, we’re all in a recession, and at any given point – perhaps when you’re counting the days between your rent check being cashed – you might be in a personal depression. However, when I’m fiscally down, I still get a big pick-me-up from being around friends and sharing gourmet food with them.

The secret of creating a gourmet menu for $30 or less is utilizing a small number of simple ingredients and a small number of very aromatic herbs and spices, most of which should already be in your spice rack or be in the spice rack of that beautiful, interesting upstairs neighbor that you’ve been meaning to find an excuse to talk to for the past six months.  Below, you’ll find my go-to dinner party menu.  These dishes are what I break out when I’m trying to show off my culinary skills to new friends, without regretting it when I look at my bank statement.

In the spirit of making friends and making full use of the spices left by previous tenants, the cost of dried herbs, spices, olive oil (or other things someone in your building really should have lying around to borrow if you don’t have them yourself) is not included in the grand total cost for this meal.

The Appetizer

The appetizer should take only 5 to 10 minutes to make, and it should taste great either served at a warm room temperature or served after sitting in an oven for an hour while your less-than-punctual friends commute from Astoria, Williamsburg, or wherever else they can afford to live. Tasting this dish feels like the freedom of having nothing better to do than sit in a café and talk about your first summer fling.

Dilled Summer Squash
2 Zucchini – $2.5
2 Yellow Squashes – $2
Dried Dill
Garlic Olive Oil

Cut two zucchini and two yellow squashes in halve and slice into ¼ of an inch thick half moons. Mince at least 4 cloves of garlic (or more depending on how savory you like your kisses). Sauté the lot in a large drizzle of olive oil until softened (3 minutes on medium high heat) and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a generous portion of dill. If you have extra parmesan lying around, it wouldn’t be wrong to treat yourself and sprinkle a bit on top of the dish once it hits the table.

The Entree

Almost any meat can be substituted for the chicken here, depending on what’s on sale.  Lamb will give the dish a Moorish flair, beef will add a French charm, and sausage will take you on a quick trip to Piedmont. Also, this is a great dish because every ingredient is going in the same pot, so if something is wrong near the end you can always add more of what is needed. When you eat this, remember that life can never be truly all sour, all sweet, or all dull; it will always be a mix of what you make it… and in this dish (and in life) you have the freedom to tinker with how much of each you put into it.

Sage & Mint Chicken Soup
2 lbs of boneless chicken thighs – $8
1 bunch of fresh mint – $2
1 large bunch of broccoli – $3
1 large yellow onion – $0.5
1 large (16oz) can of Garbanzo or white beans – $1.5
1 box of chicken stock – $2
Garlic (8 cloves)
Sage
Cayenne

Dice the chicken into ½-inch cubes, dust them liberally with sage and conservatively with cayenne and salt, toss them in a deep pot, and sauté them with olive oil and over medium heat until golden brown – only stir once the first side turns brown.

Dice the onion, mince the garlic, and chop the broccoli and half the mint. Toss it all into the pot along with beans and sauté along with the chicken until the chicken is cooked through.

Add the chicken stock and cook over medium-low heat until simmering.

Chop the remainder of the mint and add it to the pan. Add the mint to the pot and simmer for 2 minutes. In the meantime, taste the dish to see if it needs more sage, mint, and/or cayenne. The sage and mint should come through most prominently, and the cayenne should be present just strong enough to add a “kick.”

Dessert

Serve cool in the summer, warm in the fall, and piping hot in the winter. Try to serve this dish to a room full of people who don’t know each other well yet. Its flavors are simple enough that you can focus on having a wonderful conversation learning about each other, yet strong enough that you will forget neither the dish, nor the people you shared it with.

Savory Apple & Pear Dessert
3 large red apples – $1.5
2 large green or brown pears (Bosc, Bartlett, etc.) – $1.5
A handful of seasonal nuts – $2
Tarragon
Cinnamon
Brown Sugar
Butter

Core, quarter, and slice the apples and pears. Chop the nuts. Sauté the nuts in a small drizzle of olive oil and a quarter stick of butter (we said it was frugal, not slimming!) for two minutes before adding the fruit, cinnamon, brown sugar, and tarragon. Cook the whole of it until the fruit is soft on the outside but with the tiniest bit of crunchiness left on the inside. Upon smelling, the tarragon should come through strongest and the cinnamon should come through conservatively.

Total Cost of Meal: $26.50

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.

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