We invited some friends over for dinner last night and decided to do a mexican theme night since it was easy to make and fun to eat. Here's the menu...
Home Made Salsa
Home Made Guacamole
Tortilla Chips
Regular, Strawberry or Watermelon Margaritas (plenty!)
Beef Fajitas
Chicken Fajitas
Grilled peppers and onions
fresh tomatoes
fresh onions
shredded lettuce
Refried Beans
Mexican Rice
Corn and flour tortillas
For the salsa I found a collection of salsa recipes that Tony76248 posted in this thread and decided to try this recipe...
Chili Daddy Salsa - 2004 International Chili Society Salsa World Champion
4 to 5 cups diced tomatoes
1 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup diced white onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 green bell pepper, diced
1/2 each of red, yellow, gold, and orange bell peppers, diced
4 to 5 jalapenos, diced
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
juice of 1/2 lime
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1 to 2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce (optional)
salt
[FONT="]In a bowl, combine all ingredients. Serve. Adding the optional tomato sauce tightens the consistency of the salsa -- Decide for yourself if that's the way you prefer it.
I ended up adding about 12 oz of the tomato sauce to pull it all together. I also added about 1/2 cup chopped salad olives (the green ones with pimentos in them) and about two tablespoons of the olive juice. It came out fantastic!
For the guac I use a guac seasoning mix from Rick Bayless and his Fronter Grill restaurant that I buy at Fresh Market. I tried it a few weeks back and it really makes great guac. I didn't use as much as the instruction showed. I used half of the jar for four large avocados and it was also great. For some reason, I never took a pic of the guac, but we served the salsa and guac with some nice, thick corn tortilla chips to munch on with our margaritas.
For the margaritas I had the fixins for regular margs, some strawberry marg mix, and my wife saw Tyler Florence on the Today show making melon margs, so we stole his idea for those. I took a small watermelon and cut an opening in it on an angle and scooped out off the good stuff. Then I pureed the melon insides with some simple syrup and poured it back into the watermelon shell which was in a bowl of ice. I should have either bought a big watermelon and a small one or a couple of smaller ones (and used one of the small ones for the serving dish) because we ran out of watermelon mix about half way through the night)
Tyler's original recipe had you freeze the puree to make a slush and then just add that to a glass with some tequila, but we didn't freeze it since I have a little toy that makes perfect frozen drinks...
For the fajitas I took a couple of chickie chests and marinated them in mojo criollo for a few hours and some strip steak and marinated it in Frontera Grill fajita marinade (also for a few hours even though the bottle says 15 minutes) and grilled them both on the Egg.
I also made individual skewers of white and red onions and multicolored sweet peppers and marinaded them in mojo criollo for a while and grilled them.
The veggies got a little dark on the edges (I really need to install a light that points out towards the new patio), but they were still good.
Our friends brought dessert. They made a great home made mango pudding and served it as Mango Pudding Parfaits.
We had a great evening and we all decided that we're going to do another themed evening when the weather warms up. This one will be based on Pizza on the Egg! I'm thinking about letting everyone make their own individual pizzas. I should be able to cook three at a time if we keep them to about 6" diameter.
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Home Made Salsa
Home Made Guacamole
Tortilla Chips
Regular, Strawberry or Watermelon Margaritas (plenty!)
Beef Fajitas
Chicken Fajitas
Grilled peppers and onions
fresh tomatoes
fresh onions
shredded lettuce
Refried Beans
Mexican Rice
Corn and flour tortillas
For the salsa I found a collection of salsa recipes that Tony76248 posted in this thread and decided to try this recipe...
Chili Daddy Salsa - 2004 International Chili Society Salsa World Champion
4 to 5 cups diced tomatoes
1 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup diced white onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 green bell pepper, diced
1/2 each of red, yellow, gold, and orange bell peppers, diced
4 to 5 jalapenos, diced
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
juice of 1/2 lime
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1 to 2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce (optional)
salt
[FONT="]In a bowl, combine all ingredients. Serve. Adding the optional tomato sauce tightens the consistency of the salsa -- Decide for yourself if that's the way you prefer it.
I ended up adding about 12 oz of the tomato sauce to pull it all together. I also added about 1/2 cup chopped salad olives (the green ones with pimentos in them) and about two tablespoons of the olive juice. It came out fantastic!
For the guac I use a guac seasoning mix from Rick Bayless and his Fronter Grill restaurant that I buy at Fresh Market. I tried it a few weeks back and it really makes great guac. I didn't use as much as the instruction showed. I used half of the jar for four large avocados and it was also great. For some reason, I never took a pic of the guac, but we served the salsa and guac with some nice, thick corn tortilla chips to munch on with our margaritas.
For the margaritas I had the fixins for regular margs, some strawberry marg mix, and my wife saw Tyler Florence on the Today show making melon margs, so we stole his idea for those. I took a small watermelon and cut an opening in it on an angle and scooped out off the good stuff. Then I pureed the melon insides with some simple syrup and poured it back into the watermelon shell which was in a bowl of ice. I should have either bought a big watermelon and a small one or a couple of smaller ones (and used one of the small ones for the serving dish) because we ran out of watermelon mix about half way through the night)
Tyler's original recipe had you freeze the puree to make a slush and then just add that to a glass with some tequila, but we didn't freeze it since I have a little toy that makes perfect frozen drinks...
For the fajitas I took a couple of chickie chests and marinated them in mojo criollo for a few hours and some strip steak and marinated it in Frontera Grill fajita marinade (also for a few hours even though the bottle says 15 minutes) and grilled them both on the Egg.
I also made individual skewers of white and red onions and multicolored sweet peppers and marinaded them in mojo criollo for a while and grilled them.
The veggies got a little dark on the edges (I really need to install a light that points out towards the new patio), but they were still good.
Our friends brought dessert. They made a great home made mango pudding and served it as Mango Pudding Parfaits.
We had a great evening and we all decided that we're going to do another themed evening when the weather warms up. This one will be based on Pizza on the Egg! I'm thinking about letting everyone make their own individual pizzas. I should be able to cook three at a time if we keep them to about 6" diameter.
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