It's my birthday party and I can project-manage it if I want to

Lasagna!!!

I hope my spotty presence on Home Food can be forgiven—we had a very busy May, a two-week honeymoon in Italy, and consecutive out-of-town house guests. I have a few thousand words on everything we did and ate in Italy (!) to finish editing, but I thought I’d pop in to share the menu for my 32nd birthday party we hosted on Saturday.

I love to host parties, but surprisingly, I have never hosted at home for my birthday! Inspired by our trip to Italy and summer produce, I crafted the menu around from-scratch lasagna and whatever local produce was available this week.

The Menu

Cheese lasagna

I followed a lasagna recipe from the pasta-making class at Home Cooking New York. The recipe is classic—a mozzarella, ricotta, and parmigiana reggiano cheese mixture and a simple tomato sauce. I made sure to buy the good ingredients—local mozzarella and ricotta from Farm to People and real San Marzono canned tomatoes from Faicco’s Italian Specialties in the West Village.

I hadn’t made pasta dough on my own since the class, and I was admittingly a little nervous. (I had a backup box of lasagna noodles in the pantry in the event of a catastrophe.) Home Cooking’s recipe uses a food processor rather than the well method, and the dough came together instantly after a short spin in the processor and a few minutes of kneading. The longest part of the process was rolling out the pasta dough in the machine. The lasagna was a hit, and the homemade noodles absolutely made it, IMO!

Focaccia

I followed Erin McDowell’s Weeknight Focaccia recipe from Savory Baking and topped it with pitted olives from Saraghina Bakery. I made the focaccia dough (and lasagna tomato sauce!) on Thursday night, which made the final prep work on Saturday a cinch.

The focaccia cake stand made me laugh.

Peach, tomato, and burrata salad

The yellow peaches from the Toigo Orchards stand at the Fort Greene farmers market were exceptional. I had already picked up burrata from Farm to People and decided to grab a few heirloom tomatoes, too, for a quick and easy salad. Skylar prepped this while I very quickly did my hair and makeup.

Blanched and dressed snow peas

Skylar’s brother and his girlfriend were in town, and I tasked them with making this dish. I sent them this recipe and asked them to make up their own Italian dressing. The snow peas were from Farm To People, and this light and simple preparation really allowed them to sing.

Pre-made breadsticks

From Faicco’s!

Olives

From Saraghina Bakery!

Potato chips

Cherries

Currants

Wine

I asked my friends to each bring a bottle. 🍒