Troops Amass at South America!

In keeping with my little "conquering" theme, we docked our ships on the coast of Argentina yesterday and planted our flag in the middle of the Pampas where the beef do roam. I think the weather has the troops at a disadvantage since it seems the Argentinians are making 'stews' to weigh us down and slow us up in the current heat wave melting San Francisco. If it doesn't get below 75 soon I'll succumb.

Mission accomplished. I guess the South Americans eat herds of beef as the main staple in their diet. I don't. We've had a stew made with a handful of different meats and then again today as we duck-walked into Brazil. Yet another stew to face and overcome. I could not make my play-date today to play ping-pong as I've been so overwhelmed with beef that I can't move. I'm sluggish and don't want to face another stew tomorrow. I refuse to eat it!! Are they good, you ask? Yes! They are delicious and I've saved the recipes for WINTER when they should be eaten. I'll have to move to Alaska or Canada to enjoy them properly, but yes, quite tasty.

Our Chef is from Chile and I guess this stuff is fine with him since he told me today that he's been teaching this class for the last 5 years and has had the same food cycle EVERY 3 WEEKS!! Now that's someone who is either stuck in a rut or just plain loves beef! Five years. I can't believe it. I asked him if it always tastes the same and he said yes. But he did offer that one class could NOT seem to cook except to make rice so he did all the cooking for that class. There is precious little salads in this class. No raw foods but hecka beef, pork, bacon, lamb, more beef and then some shrimp and lobsters. I hate lobsters. Big bugs basically. So are shrimp and crabs but somehow Lobsters ruin it for me. Cheap date. (not, huh Joey?) [crab can be mighty 'spensive]

Its 8pm. I must retire to my nighttime post. Back to the wars tomorrow. Going to bed early cuza beef! blech. I'm tired.

Weekend wit Da Goils!

Me and my girls had a LOT of fun in Porto Nuevo, Mexico. Drove down on Saturday morning and lunched at a fantastic rustic restaurant on lobster, shrimp, fried fish, and buckets of Mexican Beer, hand made tortillas, rice and beans, chips and salsa....what more could you want?

Then we did the street (dirt road) tour of all the shops and had even more fun clowning around. It was a great day. We stayed in Rosarito and spent the evening at Papas and Beer dancing and listening to all the music under the stars. We drove home at 8am the next day with a lot of memories to send me off to Culinary School happy. I love my girls. Mariah can BURP, Gaby cheats at table games, Michele is ALWAYS in charge and I was the tag along. Kinda.

I bought a couple of very colorful serving dishes for catering with color Mexican style. It was a fun weekend for all of us.

Got Shrimp?

Oh Boy! I tried this recipe from Bon Appetit magazine that I found on Epicurious that is Really Good!! It has all my favorite ingredients and is EAZY to make ahead and serve later or the next day. I bought a bag of frozen uncooked-deveined shrimp with tails on at Costco or Trader Joes and my sweetpea daughter cooked some for herself and boyfriend when I was out of town. I had a few left and wanted something different than tossing them with pasta so I ran across this recipe. I used a lot less olive oil than they suggested and it helped for me. (plus cuts the calories) The best thing is NO BUTTER!

I bought some Garlic French Bread and toasted it with butter and parmesan cheese as something crunchy to eat it with. That and a cool glass of Savignon Blanc was a perfect dinner!

Here's the Link for you shrimp lovers http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/102468

When I marinated it overnight the oil gets sort of congealed so I heated the bowl with shrimp in the microwave for about 30 seconds, stir and add more seconds as you need. You don't want to reheat too much or the shrimp get hard and overcooked.