1. I started preparing for tonight's family dinner on Sunday by making a black bean and rice salad and a red pepper, lentil, and tomato salad. This morning, I made tabbouleh. I decided to build the tabbouleh around farro instead of bulgur and I was very happy with the result. Farro is a chewy, kind of nutty tasting grain. That it worked so well in today's tabbouleh simply reinforced what a versatile salad tabbouleh can be. I've made it with jasmine rice, brown rice, couscous, and bulgur. Each version has been equally delicious.
2. As tonight's family dinner host, I decided to set all the food out on the dining table so we could have a buffet. I put out the three salads I made along with butter crackers, saltines, two kinds of cheddar cheese, champagne cheese, salami disks, almonds, bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, and green and black olives.
I asked Christy if she'd bring a salad that was new to all of us: escabeche salad. "Escabeche" is the Spanish word for marinade. To make this salad, you mix together cooked vegetables, vinegar, olive oil, Dijon mustard, garlic, salt, and pepper and pour it over chicken, beef, fish, or any other protein. This is the escabeche and you refrigerate it overnight -- or for several days if you'd like.
Then, when it's time to have the salad, you simply pour the escabeche over salad greens.
Like tabbouleh, this is a very versatile salad. Christy got sidetracked by a mishap (everything's okay) in her back yard and, instead of cooking vegetables or meat, she bought jars of pickled cauliflower and other vegetables and used canned salmon. It was perfect! I'd even call it fortunate, not that the mishap occurred, but that she had to diverge from her original plan and use these canned/jarred ingredients. They tasted great as a part of the escabeche.
We kicked off our dinner with a cocktail. I'd asked Paul, Carol, and Christy to send me a request so I'd be sure to have the proper ingredients on hand. I had a lot of fun mixing Christy a Dark and Stormy, Paul a Gin and Tonic, Carol a dry Gin Martini, and a quasi-Margarita for myself. I simply poured tequila, Cointreau, and RealLime over ice and enjoyed sipping on that mixture. I was a little short on fresh limes and used them for Christy and Paul's drinks, happily, and RealLime for my concoction.
3. We had plenty to talk about over our food. The new thrift store down the street is closing. Carol and Paul have busy days lying ahead with family visiting from out of town and they are also taking a short vacation to Montana for their 35th wedding anniversary. We celebrate Zoe's birthday this coming Saturday. We spent time sorting all of this out and sharing what we knew or didn't know about other news around the Silver Valley.
Paul is helping supervise the upcoming production at the Sixth Street Melodrama in Wallace and had to leave early.
In his absence, Christy, Carol, and I enjoyed the dessert I asked Carol to make and bring.
My request has a brief history. When Meagan and Patrick were here a couple of weeks ago, one or both of them bought cans of Radio Brewing's Horchata Cream Ale. I'd never heard of horchata before and Meagan explained to me that it's a rice milk flavored with cinnamon. Radio's Horchata Cream Ale is also flavored with vanilla. I loved this beer.
It took me about two seconds of online searching to find a horchata recipe and I passed it on to Carol, wondering if she'd be willing to make it.
She was!
Carol's horchata was out of this world delicious.
The recipe I sent her way called for an overnight soak of white rice and almonds, a rich and very tasty combination. She flavored the rice/almond milk with sugar and cinnamon and served it over ice.
Honestly, had I been left alone with it, I could have drunk the entire pitcher.
At the end of a hot day, the horchata was refreshing. I thought it balanced out the more vinegary, acidic salads we'd eaten for dinner.
The cinnamon and sugar were perfectly balanced. The recipe didn't call for vanilla and that was fine. One day, I might make a batch of horchata and experiment with vanilla simply because I enjoyed that flavor so much in Radio's Horchata Cream Ale.
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