I’ve been so busy since my friend Pam and company left a couple of weeks ago, I’m just now getting around to showing you the gorgeous food she cooked. We spent a whole Saturday in June cooking with Pam when she was here, and it was such a treat. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to proclaim it from the rooftops: Pam Anderson is a beautiful cook. Her recipes are the perfect mix of easy and elegant, and she teaches cooking in such a way that everyone feels like they can do it.
Pam has generously shared her recipes here so all of you can give ’em a whirl. All of the recipes come from two of her cookbooks: Perfect Recipes for Having People Over…
…And Perfect One Dish Dinners. I highly recommend both cookbooks (the recipes simply work), but Perfect One Dish Dinners is particularly glorious.
I’ll briefly describe all the gorgeous things Pam cooked for us here. All the printable recipes will be listed below.
Thank you, Pam and Maggy, for gracing us with your presence!
For lunch, Pam started with a deviled egg salad–scrumptious deviled eggs served on leaves of butter lettuce and drizzled with the same dressing used to mix up the deviled eggs! Out of this world.
She also mixed sliced strawberries with a good amount of white wine and sugar. If you haven’t tried this miraculous combination, you must. It was so refreshing, so lovely and sweet…but the white wine really balanced the sweetness and took it over the top.
Then she grabbed a beautiful salmon…
Which she drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.
And here’s how she cooked it: put it in a cold oven, then turned on the heat to 400 degrees. Twenty-five minutes later, the salmon was absolutely perfect. Tender, moist, flaky. A no-fail method!
Pam also made this lemon-caper relish, which she spooned over the top of the salmon. It took seconds to throw together and was so fresh and green and flavorful.
While the salmon was roasting (and for a little time afterward) Pam also roasted fingerling potatoes and (not shown) asparagus. And this one of the many things I love about Pam’s cooking: you can do so many things at once. When she thinks about a meal, she really has a knack for figuring out ways to do things at the same time in order not to waste time. It makes mealtime so much more effortless.
To serve, everything went on one big platter together.
It was splendid. I couldn’t believe how quick and easy it was, too; the whole meal was done, start to finish, within about 45 minutes.
And the meal ended with these delightful lemon coolers. They’re very similar to Mexican wedding cookies, but with a lovely lemon flavor. I might have had seven of them.
Okay, eight.
After an afternoon of relaxation in the countryside, we started in on dinner. First up was this criminally delicious ceviche dip: chopped shrimp, avocado, scallions, cilantro, and other yummy ingredients.
The reason you don’t see the finished, mixed-together, dip is that I was too busy scarfing it down. It was absolutely splendid.
The main course was carnitas: ultra-flavorful shredded chuck roast…
And gorgeous roasted veggies.
For a side dish, Pam whipped up this beautiful slaw, packed with radishes and crunch.
We all couldn’t believe we were actually still hungry after the beautiful lunch we’d had…but this meal really knocked our socks off. The meat was so, so good.
To top off the day of deliciousness, Pam made flan. Caramel in the bottom of a baking pan…
And a creamy custard made extra special by the addition of…cream cheese!
Please take my advice: You must, absolutely must, make this flan. The cream cheese gives it such a fabulous texture. And a tip: a few days after Pam and all my guests left, I went up to the Lodge to finish cleaning up. There was leftover flan in the fridge, and I made the mistake of giving it a taste.
It was even more delicious than the day Pam made it. The texture was cold and perfect, and the caramel flavor has sort of oozed into the top layer or so of the custard. A treat of epic proportions.
Thank you to my beautiful friend Pam for sharing your gifts with all of us!
Here are all the printable recipes, guys! I highly recommend them all. I tasted them and then some…and then some…
