Before my next house guests get into town, I better hurry up and put up this posting, showing off some of the good food we made when Hil was in town. I was actually able to stave off my ravenous gobbling long enough to take photos of these dishes, so I figured I might as well display them here, they're so beautiful. I'll refrain from posting recipes, but everything, sauces included, was made from scratch. Need a recipe? Email me!
1. Shrimp tacos. Oh boy, every time Taylor, of berry-gallette fame, comes to town he graces us with his Chipotle-Cilantro taco sauce. While he's busy putting that together, Hil gets some shrimp marinating. This time was extra special because we had a campfire to cook the shrimp on (we got creative with little foil trays). Flour tortilla, shrimp, chopped tomatoes and cabbage, as much sauce as the thing will hold.
2. Summer Salmon dinner. First night after camping we went a little over the top with our return to society. Salmon baked with soy sauce and brown sugar in foil packets, roasted summer corn, roasted summer squash, and this fabulous Columbian rice recipe where you cook the rice in butter, onions, garlic and veg broth instead of water (hello?! Why did I not think of this before?)
3. Mole Enchiladas. Mole sauce has always struck me as an exotic mystery when I get it at restaurants. Well, I found a terrific recipe in Vegetarian Magazine, and I'll never be afraid of this sauce again. It's creamy, chocolatey, spicy, earthy. Cheese enchiladas with our homemade cows milk cheese, boiled and salted to resemble crumbly Mexican cheese, and mole sauce; Calabacitas with squash foisted on us (it's that time of year) and corn; yogurt and cilantro for garnish.
4. Stuffed eggplant. We found some huge, gorgeous eggplants at a country farm on our way home from camping, so we stuffed them with (you guessed it) more zucchini, bread crumbs, onion, garlic, pine nuts, parmesan, herbs, and laid them on a bed of Hil's tomato sauce. Garnished with crostini, a dollop of homemade goat cheese, and chopped basil.
If you can believe it, none of these dinners took longer than an hour to prepare, and much of the stuff you can do in advance. If you're looking for dinner ideas, think of this posting...
