Cook-A-Palooza at the Spadea household with Eric Scott

It was a great Saturday night at the house after a productive day of events including stops in Hunterdon and Somerset counties. As planned on the show last week, our morning news anchor, Eric Scott, and his better half Sandra joined me and Jodi at our house on Saturday night.

Of course, the night was originally planned to start at 5 p.m., but as our day started running behind, we pushed it to 6 p.m.

The night started with the Spadea side offering a charcuterie board with Jodi's homemade sourdough from the starter she and Charlie the butcher started two years ago. (Yes, it's lives in our fridge).

Caviar with Jodi's traditional pairing of a cracked pepper cracker (Mary's Gone Crackers) cream cheese and a spritz of lemon.

Eric started the small plate feast off with a corn chowder from the corn saved from our friends at Village Farm in Lawrenceville. The chowder was creamy and chocked full of vegetables, potatoes, onions, and red peppers.

The chowder was followed by steamed mussels in a white wine and saffron broth. Then the stars of the show made an entrance, seared scallops on a corn relish and rare filet mignon on a roasted garlic crostini.

Delicious, filling, and nothing left over.

Dinner was accompanied by Jodi's green salad and citrus side with grapefruit, orange and pomegranate.

Cook-a-palooza wrapped up with Jodi's "safe" olive oil chocolate cake. No seed oil!

We ended with an after-dinner "digestive", my go-to is Averna and a combo we got from our friend Pete of Montenegro and Mezcal.

Here are Eric Scott's recipes:

For corn chowder, click HERE.

For steamed saffron mussels, click HERE.

We're always cooking up something in the Spadea household.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.

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