You can dance. You can jive or you can eat... alot

Did you know blogs were around in the 70s? Well we are traveling back to the days of ABBA and Mama Mia...

Robin Sue at the Big Red Kitchen hosted our supper club this time. And our theme was Mama Mia. How cool is that?

Here are the girls.

And here are the guys. Do you dig the 70s tint?

Robin got her recipes for the night from Peter Minakis. Go on and visit his site... beautiful pics and after having several recipes, yummy food.

This is what I made shrimp with capers and dill.
This was so good and it wasn't hard to make.
Do you see this...
This is baked feta and it is pure heaven. Rindy at Kitchen Klique made this.

I could have just eaten this, all night long. And I almost did until Robin called us into the dining room for dinner.

Then during dinner, I had these...

This is green bean & cherry tomato salad. It made me wish no one else was at the table so I could eat them all. But I tried to show some self control and only eat what was put on my plate.
It was really hard. Thank goodness no one noticed how much baked feta I ate.

You can dance.
You can jive.
Having the time of your life.
See that girl
Watch that scene
Dig in the dancing queen.
****or in my case the eating queen****

Thanks Robin for a great meal and a groovy time.

Have a happy and groovin' day.
Sabrina

Luck 'O the Irish Supper Club

A couple of weeks ago, as I was going through all the mail that came while we were on our cruise, I came across a little bag with a lovely green ribbon on it. I was totally (how 80's) thrilled when I realized it was the menu for our supper club. I saw the theme was Irish Saloon. Then I immediately looked for the recipe I was to make. Sweet Rindy assigned me a salad to make. Whew, relief rushed over me. I can handle a salad. Let me just say, this girl knows me. She knows I am no foodie. I have a tough time putting together a can of soup.

But the salad was no ordinary salad.... no, it is some fancy pants salad with beets and fancy lettuce. I as I looked over the recipe to my dismay the beets were not of the canned variety. I had to roast them myself. Never in my lifetime have I had a one on one encounter with beets. Sure, I have seen them at the salad bar. I have even seen them in my sister in law's pantry, but purchase them, handle them... No.

Let's go back a moment in time... here is the recipe
Shamrock Salad
Beets with Watercress and Bibb lettuce
1 bunch of medium red beets, trimmed and scrubbed
3 Tblsp white-wine vinegar
2 tsp whole grain mustard
1 Tblsp finely chopped shallot
3/4 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 Tblsp extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch watercress, tough stems removed
1 medium head Bibb lettuce, leaves torin into 1 inch pieces
freshly ground black pepper

First off, I never knew that beets were really red. I thought they had to sit in dye. I have no clue what watercress is. And is bibb lettuce different than romaine or iceburg? Imagine my dismay when I was at the Food Beast (grocery) and I did not see Bibb lettuce on any of their little signs in script font. I must have stood there at least 3 minutes silently reading over the signs and looking at all the lettuces. Finally, I picked the one with the most ruffly leaves, because nothing says bibb like ruffles.
To my delight, they did have a sign for watercress. Which let me clue you in, this is just one leaf clovers. That's what it looks like. And the beets were close by. The shallots, yes, I know what they are, thank you very much, were a bit harder to find. I figured they would be next to the scallions. But they were hanging out with the onions.
So, off I went to the condiment section to find whole grain mustard, which my man says is not the same as deli mustard. Well, NONE of the jars said 'whole grain'. So, I bought the fancy little jar that looks like upscale deli mustard... it said it was stone ground as opposed to a machine doing it.
Back to the beets, I had to trim the ends of off. As soon as I did this... red was everywhere. Beets literally drip red. Just carrying the stems to the trash I dripped red on the floor. It was like something out of CSI.
I wrapped them in parchment and foil and baked for an hour and half. I assembled the dressing, tore up the ruffly lettuce and picked one leaf clovers. I did forget to peel and slice the beets after they finished cooking. I made my man do that since I was already dressed. I didn't want to look like Lady Macbeth going to supper club.

All that to say that the salad was delicious. I will definitely put beets on my salad again. I made the vinaigrette dressing again last night for my salad.

Thank you Rindy for having pity me and assigning me the salad. I did get to experience something new and enjoyed it. And that my friend is what supper club is all about.

Go check out Rindy and Robin Sue's (there is a link there but for some reason it isn't changing colors) sites for more on the night. Isn't Rindy's house lovely? I think she should do posts on decorating. You only see her dining room but the whole house is gorgeous.

The Cookie Exchange

Last weekend I went to a cookie exchange at my friend Rindy's house. Go over to her site, KitchenKlique, to get a look at her gorgeous house and all the awesome food we had. Rindy's friend Sarah coordinates the exchange with her. Both ladies are wonderful hostesses and amazingly creative. I made chocolate peanut clusters which I will post later. Oh, and check out BigRedKitchen's post on Rindy & Sarah's cookie exchange.

Have a happy day!
Sabrina

Supper Club at the Ranch

This past Saturday my man and I went to the Big Red Kitchen for a hootin' and hollarin' good time. You see about 4 years ago Robin, Rindy and I started a supper club. Each couple takes a turn to host the club. The host chooses the theme, menu and sometimes a guest couple. The host sends out the menu and assigns the other couples a dish or two to make. This time Robin hosted and chose a cowboy ranch theme. Oh my goodness, was it fun. My sister-in-law, Christy, loaned me some chaps and I already had a cowboy hat and boots.

Robin, Rindy and me

My man wore his cowboy hat too.

my man, Big Red Kitchen man, and KitchenKlique man

We had Cowboy caviar and armadillo knuckles for appetizers.
The main meal was T-bone steaks, baked potatoes, Texas toast and salad. For dessert we had peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream.

Check out how cute the place setting is. Robin cut the pockets off of her kids worn out jeans. She is so clever.




We also tried axe throwing. That is harder than it looks, I'll just say that. I am going to share some pictures with you. You can read more and see more pictures at Robin and Rindy's sites.

Robin from BigRedKitchen and Rindy from KitchenKlique blog talkin'

At the end of the night we were all sooo full. Just ready to explode. We really enjoy every moment we have with these other couples. True friends are the ones you can share poop jokes and high school year books with. And they are true friends.

Robin sent us home with leftover steak and potatoes. Sunday morning my man made breakfast of steak, eggs and pan fried potatoes. That steak was still tender and yummy.

I want to share with you the recipe we were assigned...Cowboy Caviar. When I was making this I thought I wouldn't like it. It has red peppers and red onions. I am not a fan of either. However, I try to be polite and try things, plus I had to see if it tasted ok before I served it. Heavens to Betsy, it was so good. Even my man liked it and he can't stand peppers. There was just a little left and I brought it on home. My lunch Sunday was cowboy caviar and chips. So, give it a try.

Cowboy Caviar

1/2 cup prepared Italian Dressing

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. chili powder

2 T. chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 tsp tabasco sauce

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 can shoepeg corn, drained

1 med red onion, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

1 tomato chopped fine

juice of one lime

1 tsp. kosher salt

Mix all together and serve with Tostito chips.

the ingredients

chopping peppers and onions... baby girl took this photo while I chopped.


my baby girl adding the spices.


Here is Sky begging. She'll beg for anything. She even ate a piece of red pepper that fell on the floor. Crazy mutt.

Have a happy day.
Sabrina