Mexican Fiesta (Or, Yes, You May Watch The Giants Game And Eat My Food)

This was fun, and thanks to the help of my lovely sous chefs, a success!   I have thus decided that Mexican food is a good genre to work with when feeding about 15 friends–the cooking is easy enough and the result is positive (seriously, who doesn’t like Mexican food!?)

Shrimp with chives, lemon juice, lime juice. I deveined every single one of those 60+ suckers because I didn’t want to pay extra for the already deveined ones. Luckily, the poop-free shrimp was probably the crowd favorite.

Chicken with what I attempted to be a taco seasoning (chili pepper, garlic, red pepper flakes, whatever else looked good in the spice counter).

Jon’s ground beef concoction.  There’s way too many ingredients in here to list. But it was tasty and kind of sweet.

Pepperjack fondue with more peppers.

Rice with black beans and tomato puree. Needed more tomatoes. Also could have made about a quarter of what I did (3 cups is WAY too much!).

Mexican Wedding Cookies, a la Cecily. Pshaw, and she thought she couldn’t cook. These were phenomenal. Then again, how can cookies with 2 sticks of butter not be good?

Sangria with lots of citrus.

Most of the table.

Also present: goat cheese, mushroom, pesto quesadillas (they went too fast for me to take a picture!).

A Quick Dinner Party

Trader Joe’s definitely helps when you have a 6-person impromptu dinner gathering.

The line up:

Salmon (paprika, garlic powder, oregano, basil, salt, pepper)

Pasta and pesto (thanks Fairway–your pesto is really good)

Birdseye Steamfresh broccoli (it’s a good idea to create a product that you just have to microwave, but the broccoli is mushy and definitely does not taste fresh)

Eggplant (cooked with olive oil)

Trader Joe’s raspeberry & brie phyllo rolls (also so good, but make sure the brie doesn’t escape/explode onto your pan. In other words, don’t over cook)

Trader Joe’s spanikopita (this is a staple in my freezer. Always good.)

Crazy Japanese Food Sculptures

Check it out.

A Saturday Of Major Eating

After devouring a lot of 5-layer dip and leftover lasagna in the wee Saturday post-bar hours (3am?), it was obvious that this was a weekend to go big or go home.

I woke up late Saturday morning, starving like always, and dragged Jon to Yonah Shimmel’s in the Lower East Side because I wanted a real knish, not those really disgustingly gross imitations that appear in those equally disgustingly soup/sandwich/salad places that litter the store fronts of New York.

We settled on a blueberry cheese blintz and a potato knish (somehow the Jalapeno Cheddar Knish Special just didn’t sound appetizing that early in the day).

The blintz was really superb. The blueberry was evident in every bite, but wasn’t runny or too sweet. It tasted good with the cheese and the light dough. But, it was definitely a good thing to share–those blintzes are stuffed with a lot of cheese!

The potato knish was quite the massive heap–also a good thing to share. It was the perfect temperature (warm but not too warm) and a bit peppery. I really wanted it to be the best knish I ever had, because the store itself was just so darn cute, but alas, it was simply better than average.

Still, I would definitely return to Yonah Shimmel’s. It feels like I stepped back in time to the old (more Jewish) Lower East Side, cranky yentas and all. And, they even used a dumbwaiter to bring foodstuff up and down.

After Yonah’s, we walked to the Essex Street Market. I tried an amazing blue cheese, Stichelton from Formaggio Kitchen. I’m only recently beginning to like blue cheeses, and this cheese is an excellent introduction to the blues. It is mild (well, for blue cheese at least), yet offers a sweet and complex flavor.

Then, I purchased some Twig Farm Square Cheese from Saxelby Cheesemongers. They do a better job describing it than I can do:

Twig Farm Square Cheese (raw goats’ milk) West Cornwall, VT
A beautiful raw goats’ milk cheese with a velveteen gray rind from the cellars of Twig Farm. Square cheese is a semi-firm cheese that is savory and rustic with twinges of green onions and damp earth. A truly beautiful cheese hand formed in a cheese cloth and tied up with a knot to give it a distinctive ‘belly button’ in the center of each wheel.

Look at that crazy rind!

Finally, we got some fresh-squeezed apple and orange juice from Tra La La Juice Bar. I so need a juicer in my kitchen, and that way I wouldn’t be willing to pay $2.50 for a cup of juice. At least it was better than the bottled stuff!

Jon and I spent the afternoon walking around different neighborhoods, which was definitely needed given that I then went to meet some friends at Hill Country.

Now that place is a good time. Who wouldn’t want a delicious feast of Texas barbecue?

Above: Brisket, Chicken, Pork Ribs, Beef Ribs, Corn Bread, Chili, Red Beans, Mac N Cheese, Corn Pudding.

The meat: up close and personal.

Hill Country is a lot of fun. One merely approaches different counters (i.e. meat or sides) and chooses what you want. Then, you go back to your table and feast. We had wayyy more than we needed, but everything was really good–though certain foods definitely stood out. The brisket was melt-in-your-mouth tender, the cornbread was the right amount of sweetness, and the chicken was really tasty. My friends all really loved the barbecue sauce, though I found it a bit too sweet. All of the meats have no sauce added–just a really great dry rub.  We certainly were thankful for the large mason jars of water we were given to wash everything down with.

After dinner, once the food coma subsided, I found room for a Buttercup cupcake (chocolate cake, vanilla icing) hanging out in our kitchen. Oof.

Sunday Dinner

Mushrooms and onions with red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, olive oil. Never disappoints.

Pomegranate arils taste good with everything, including tilapia with orange and Meyer lemon. I want to start eating them all the time.

Baked Pita and Sea Salt.

Prixe Fixe Lunch at Jean Georges

Inspired by this blog post, among others, I was pretty psyched to try lunch at Jean Georges. Embarrassingly enough, I have yet to eat at any of the many JG restaurants. I felt like one of those ladies who lunch, especially because the diners were significantly older than myself and my fellow 22 year old friends. Nonetheless, a good time was had by all:

Lentil soup with cream fraiche.

Crispy Chicken. It could have used some more “crisp”, but nice flavor (a bit of cinnamon?) and tasty spinach.

Cod with sweet potato fries and tapioca pearls. I thought the pearls were really flavorful and actually enjoyed their gelatinous texture. My dining companions disagreed.

Buches de Noel, chocolate-espresso and pistachio-raspberry. Note: if you eat the green Christmas tree in one bite, your mouth will turn green and you will feel stupid.

All in all, a success. Plus, we almost saw Hannah Montana, who was staying at the Trump International, but I flat-out refused to wait behind a police line for some 15 year old. A guy walking by told us to eat at Jean Georges if we really wanted to see some celebrities. Yep, he thought we were tourists. Blech.