On Monday, Martha displayed dishes from the Inaugural luncheon menu (below the menu there is a link to the recipes if you want to see them), spoke with the head chef, and made the duck breast and whipped sweet potatoes on her show. I was excited about the Inauguration and decided to make some of the luncheon menu for dinner last night. It was fun to share in the festivities. I don’t know how the luncheon guests managed to eat that many courses for lunch!

I made the seafood stew, molasses whipped sweet potatoes, asparagus and apple cinnamon sponge cake. This was plenty for dinner.

Apple filling

However, I spent most of the day in the kitchen to get it done! First I made the apple filling for the dessert. This entailed chopping up apples, caramelizing them and then adding some water and cooking them down. Once they’ve cooked down, you add nutmeg, applesauce, sugar, salt and lemon zest. I added some cinnamon as well.  I sliced bread (I used challah) and cut it out in circles to fit the ramekins.

Then I cooked the seafood in water, removed it, added vegetables, and then cooked the remaining broth down. This took a loooong time. Once it was cooked down, I added cream and white wine and had to cook it down again.  I cut up the seafood and prepared the ramekins (which I had to go out and buy for this since I didn’t have any!).

I baked the yams (no sweet potatoes to be found at my store) and mashed them with molasses, maple syrup, butter, cumin, and salt and pepper.

I prepared the asparagus for steaming.

I had to get everything assembled before blowing out the door for hockey practice, so I assembled both the seafood and dessert dishes (which meant dipping the bread in butter for the dessert and cutting out the puff pastry circles for the seafood stew) and left detailed instructions with my teenager about when to put them in the oven.

Our Inaugural Plate

Everything turned out really well. The seafood stew was fabulous – no doubt because it took so much time and care to make. It was really wonderful. I would have preferred the cream sauce to be just a bit thicker. I confess I did add a little Wondra to mine and next time would add more. The molasses whipped sweet potatoes were good. The asparagus was regular asparagus – no big deal there. The dessert was good, but I felt as though the slices of bread were too thick and too buttery. I would slice them thinner and use less butter and

The Sweet Taste of a New Era

more apple filling. The caramel sauce that went on top was delicious (as you will see if you read the recipes in the link I provided, that at least was easy to make!).

It was exciting to feel as though we were participating in this historical event in a small way, and it was a very tasty meal. Cheers to the new president!