1. I decided to bear down on getting the kitchen spruced up and brightened up the food prep surfaces, swept the floor, cleaned the stove top, put away dishes that were out, and washed other ones. I've decided to hold off on using the dishwasher until Tuesday's big plumbing job gets finished.
2. With the kitchen looking better, I made a marinade consisting of soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, cumin, oregano, chili powder, and vegetable oil. I had thawed out shrimp and combined the shrimp and marinade in a zip lock bag to marinate -- I let it sit in the fridge for about 5 hours, turning the bag every once in a while.
I marinated the shrimp to put inside of street taco tortillas as an appetizer for family dinner. Once marinated, I chopped up the shrimp into smaller pieces.
I decided I'd rather assemble the simple tacos at Carol and Paul's, so I packed up the tortillas and marinated shrimp along with chopped cilantro and lime wedges. Over at the Roberts', I used one of their skillets to warm up the marinade and then cook the shrimp at the same time that I put the tortillas in the oven to warm.
All I had to do was fill each tortilla with shrimp and fold it over. I set out these tacos along with the lime wedges and chopped cilantro so Carol, Paul, and Christy could add however much they wanted.
3. Then I mixed us each a Vieux Carre. It's a New Orleans cocktail featuring equal parts of rye whiskey, cognac, and sweet vermouth mixed with a smaller amount of Benedictine liqueur and some splashes of Peychaud and Angostura bitters. What really made this cocktail sing was the garnish: a single Luxardo Maraschino Cherry. What a difference a really tasty cherry makes! I loved how the cherry not only added a light fruitiness to this drink, but its subtle sweetness complemented the spiciness of the rye, helping to make this a smooth, herbal-y, tasty drink.
When Carol gave us our dinner assignments earlier in the week, she revealed that she was making beef stew.
Carol went above and beyond simply making beef stew. She consulted her 2019 edition of the Silver Valley Community Cookbook, found Juli Zook's recipe for Beef Bourguignon, and went to work making this rich and mighty and mighty and labor intensive dish. It was a smashing entree. Carol also made a batch of cheddar cheese biscuits and Christy assembled a delicious and creamy cole slaw. For dessert, we enjoyed Christy's chocolate-y Irish Cream Cookie Bars. I enjoyed mine with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
So, this was, as is often the case, a dinner of new things. I introduced the Vieux Carre. I thought it would be fun to have a fish appetizer before eating a beef dish and thought tiny tacos would be fun. We'd never had them before. The Beef Bourguignon was, of course, a brand new entree and, as best I remember, Christy made us a dessert we’d never had before.
I think Christy, Carol, Paul, and I agree that these Sunday dinners are a fun time to try out new cocktails and new recipes. I don't know what we'd do if one of our forays into different foods turned out lousy -- maybe a call somewhere for some take out food!
* The effort to raise funds for Ken Lilyblad's memorial service has $770.00 to go toward the goal of $4000.00. Want to pitch in? Go here: https://gofund.me/540b3f06
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