LJ-Picturing Food, 5.07.06: tamales, spring rolls, etc. (pre-p.s.--I meant summer rolls! ;D )

Justin's Going-Away Party.

Our friend Justin moved away, but before he left, he requested a Mario party. I helped Mario prep (always an honor!), and I got a lot of slicing and dicing practice in. I also got to learn how to make tamales, which was awesome. Violet took most of these photos because she's a wicked awesome photographer.

The spread! We ate on the floor in Mario's house.


Tamales, before and after. The hardest part was getting them wrapped in corn husk.


Caramelized pearl onions.


Marinated roasted green chiles.


Grilled and sauced squash.


Challah bread and blue corn bread.


Justin's favorite mango salsa.


Fry bread! This is where a lot of the stuff above went, along with beans (Mario made veg and meat).


Lamb stew. I love lamb.



Random foodie-ness.

I'm not a huge carnivore, but ... Lamb chops, purple rice, and spinach--how to get your sweets without eating dessert.


Turkey sausage breakfast. Breakfast is one of my favorite foods.


I can hear Donkey now: Everybody likes parfait!


Spinach before and after. I meant it when I said I'd be eating a lot of spinach, and nothing's easier than nuking a tupperware of it for 90 seconds in the breakroom microwave if you get tired of crunching the raw! (I love the raw.)



Spring roll night!
The theme--spring rolls. Everyone was supposed to bring a type, but there were a couple misunderstandings. It was going to be an open bar where everyone just loaded up their own rice papers. Then Violet made Mexican-inspired spring rolls, and Nathan brought leeks (it was bok choy--he was confused), and I was in charge of dessert spring rolls, but I stir-fried the bok choy with some tofu and made a second savory. Violet took all these photos because I baked my camera into a pie. Just kidding. I just forgot it.

The two spring rolls.


I made a spongey butter cake, mixed some peach and strawberry yogurt with honey and lemon juice, and sliced up some fruit for the dessert spring rolls.


And Wendy brought a second dessert that weren't spring rolls but reminded us of spring, anyway. She doesn't cook much, so she just went to AJ's. We let her in, of course. These were filled with little rounds of chocolate and/or butter cake, strawberry mousse, and the stuff you see on top. Yummy!



Pavlova Revisited

I killed the first one pretty well, so I made a second attempt. Still a bit overcooked, but salvageable ...


... and delicious! Sweet, tart, crunchy, chewy, soft, poofy, creamy, fruity, marshmallowy ... layers rock. I'm glad I found the recipe for this! Maybe eventually, I'll get it closer to right. ;D