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.)

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.

The Best Tomato Sauce I’ve Ever Made

I quartered one zucchini, diced two tomatoes, and diced half an onion. I mixed with olive oil and then added bread crumbs. Sauteed and added paprika, garlic, salt, pepper, and two spoonfuls of pesto. The juice of the tomatoes plus the olive oil formed a sauce, which took 10 minutes to cook in total (though I’m sure if I simmered it longer that would have been wise). Excellent over pasta shells.

Also fun though I should have caramelized the onions more:

Dice an onion and mix with mustard. Add bread crumbs and cook over olive oil.

I guess I’m on a breadcrumbs kick.

Corn Is So Good And So Cheap In The Summer

It was too hot to cook on Saturday so we made this awesomely fresh salad. Corn, green beans, garbanzo beans, white beans, red onion, fresh cilantro, tomatoes, and lemon juice.

Tonight was tomatoes, corn, and eggplant cooked with an explosion of Mrs. Dash (oops, it looks tasty but definitely too much spice) .