dinner review

Last night's dinner was a huge success. By accident (whoops) I put an entire jalapeno in each salsa, making it hot enough to buzz my nose but not so hot that I couldn't taste anything. And tamale pie -- you start with a crude polenta, which is the "crust", then make a filling. In this case, I sauteed the remainder of the purple onion and a small white onion, some kidney beans, sliced olives, and part of a green pepper that I barely cooked. After the sauteeing was done, I tossed in grated mozzrella cheese and covered the whole thing with more polenta. By the way, the crust had lots of cumin and chipotle in it. Then I covered the dish and cooked about half an hour. So good.

We put out chips for more salsa and guac dipping. Our guest had seconds and took home some of the salsa with him. Mr. P forgot to sneer at my attempts, saying that it all tasted far more authentic than northern style tex-mex usually does. (Actually, he doesn't sneer outwardly, but I can tell that he's being slightly dismissive. I usually ask him to make tex-mex because I know that I'm doin' it wrong.)

For dessert, we had cut up watermelon, store-bought carrot cake, and a very cool mixed lemon gelatto and vanilla ice cream.

Definitely a repeat menu, though with less adventuresome friends, maybe I'd back off a little on the hot stuff.