Adventures in Cooking

On Saturday morning, I had a moment of inspiration and decided to do tapas for dinner that night. We were planning to do something with Mary Katherine and Gardner, but I was trying to come up with something different and fun. It is important to note 3 things in regards to this brainchild of a meal:

1. Charlie hates tapas restaurants
2. I am not the cook in this family and Charlie wouldn't be home until 6:30 because he was working on Saturday
3. My goal was to make the meal using MOSTLY stuff we had at home: i.e. meat we already had, pantry items, and any available produce we had

So, from the start, I had kind of set myself up for failure: I had decided to make not one meal but FOUR tiny meals (way to start out slow, Virginia). Luckily, Charlie wasn't home. I get very nervous when he's around and I'm cooking for some reason. On our 6-month anniversary, I made him leave the house while I was making dinner (when he came back, he had to cook the pork anyways....). Long story short, I decided to run with it and thought it might be fun and if it didn't work out, I'd order pizza. Here's the menu (no pictures, sorry, food photographer was otherwise occupied, ACTUALLY cooking, ahem):

• Heirloom Stuffed Tomatoes and Stuffed Mushrooms (courtesy of Mary Katherine and Gardner -- see 2frugalfoodies for the stuffed tomates recipe -- they were super cute and good!)
• Roasted Red Pepper Hummus with Pita Chips
• Cucumber Dill Salad (like tzaziki sauce basically)
• Corn and Black Bean Quesadillas
• Beef Satay with a Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce
• Caprese Sandwiches
• Double Peanut Butter Cups with Granola
• Oatmeal & Coconut Cookies
• White Wine Sangria (I've never had Sangria before but it felt tapas-appropriate, mainly because it seems to be a popular beverage at tapas restaurants): I picked white wine because it felt summery though I know that red wine is traditional
  

If you haven't guessed already, I'm extremely proud of this meal. I tried to make bigger portions so that Charlie wouldn't feel cheated out of food (he hates tapas because they give you less than an appetizer amount on each plate and you pay more than appetizer price) and I think the food turned out okay. Courtesy of my Aunt Lisa who was champion quesadilla maker at the beach, I know I can make a mean quesadilla, but I was nervous about the other stuff. Everybody said it tasted good so it either actually was edible or they were lying, either of which I greatly appreciate. The Sangria was different than what I thought it would be but I liked it. It makes me curious to try the traditional red wine variety. Charlie now has a renewed faith in my cooking, which puts me in charge of dinner tonight. On the plus side, maybe I'll attempt some spaghetti meals since Charlie is not a big spaghetti person and I really miss it.

We leave Wednesday after work for Atlanta because we're spending the Fourth with my parents at home. We're looking forward to golf, relaxing by the pool and a mini-vacation :)

PS -- yes, there is a "Ratatouille"-themed blogging going on in this post (haven't seen this movie but really want to)