A friend of ours recently had another birthday; last year, we themed the “color” referenced in her name: red. This year, the theme was less specific, but centered around the bounty of fruit. I hope you enjoy these Messy Chef creations—whether it’s your birthday, or not!

Salad with Blueberries

This salad was simple, yet delicious. Rich, strong flavors complimented one another.

• Mâche lettuce leaves
• Radicchio leaves
• Blueberries
• Shaved Parmesan Cheese
• Toasted Pine Nuts
• Pomegranate Dressing

This one’s pretty simple: mix everything together, except the cheese; put the cheese on top as a garnish (but don’t hold back, it’s an important flavor), and top with crunchy sea salt.

For the dressing, I combined a small splash of industrial-grade balsamic vinegar with a pomegranate syrup. To make the syrup, reduce a bottle of pure pomegranate juice until it’s thick and syrupy. Make the dressing when the syrup has cooled, by adding garlic powder, copious amounts of fresh cracked black pepper, EVOO, and more vegetable oil. The dressing is at once both tart and sweet. A perfect compliment to the blueberries!

Sea Bass with Orange Buerre and Vegetables

Sea Bass is expensive, but then again, it is because it tastes so good. At once firm, flavorful, and silky with fat, it makes for an elegant, simple presentation. For my sides, I combined sweet corn, fresh asparagus, and a crispy potato cake scented with purple onion.

• Sea Bass Filet
• Blood Orange Juice Reduction, Butter
• Red onion, garlic; chopped
• Asparagus
• Baking potato, shredded
• Red onion, shredded
• Sweet corn

Start the chopped onion and garlic in EVOO, and then add the corn. Sauté over high heat, then add the asparagus. As the vegetables cook, season with S/P and add a little bit of water to steam the asparagus as it cooks down.

For the fish, season with S/P, and brown in butter with more red onion. Finish off in a 400-degree oven until cooked through.

For the sauce, reduce 3/4 liter of blood-orange juice to a thick syrup; combine this with butter and a touch of cream for a delicious sauce. On the plate, coat each piece of fish with this sauce. Drizzle more on the vegetables.

For the potato cake, I used a typical latke method. I shredded two large potatoes, and dried the slivers in a kitchen towel by squeezing. I added one egg, S/P, and shredded red onion. I fried the potatoes into huge, giant crispy potato cakes in butter, one by one, and heated them through later in the oven.

Rice Pudding with Caramelized Pear

Rice pudding can be a very satisfying, comforting dessert. We made ours with sweet rice, heavy cream, and milk. Boil the rice in water, then when it’s near done, add in the dairy alongside cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar. Keep the pudding light on sweetness since we’ll also be using a caramel.

While the pudding cooks over low heat, butter-sauté quartered pears that have been dusted with sugar. This helps give them the brown color. Cook them well, but before they’re mushy. It helps to start with a ripe but firm pear.

Plate the pudding in bowls, and mount the top of each with pears. To finish it off, we used my homemade fleur de sel caramel with rum and vanilla.

To make the caramel we melted both brown and white sugars, then boiled off the dark mixture with heavy cream, sea salt, golden rum, and at the end, vanilla. The warm sauce tops-off each bowl. Heaven.

You can pear pair the dessert with a caramel-toned dessert wine; we opted for a lighter touch with some strong tea.