4th Dinner Club Meeting – Mexican

August 2003

K was the host for our 4th meeting.  The theme for the meeting was "Mexican".  It was a perfect choice for a beautiful summer day!  We started with appetizers and cocktails out on the patio and then moved inside for the main meal. 

Here was the menu:

• Appetizer:  Ceviche
• Cocktail:  Margaritas
• Salad:  Sweet and Spicy Black Bean Salad
• Main:  Chicken in Green Pumpkin-Seed Sauce & Pork Tenderloin with Orange Chipotle Sauce
• Side:  Flour Tortillas, Blue Corn Tortillas, Avocado Salsa, Charred Tomato Mint Salsa, Orange Butter (recipe below)
• Dessert:  Coffee Ice Cream and Mexican Chocolate Sundaes with Cinnamon-Sugar Tortilla Crisps

This meal was completely successful on all accounts!  The ceviche and margaritas got it off to a great start.  M had used a combination of scallops, shrimp and salmon in the ceviche which was a great combination of flavors.  For the Margaritas she used the fresh Sweet and Sour recipe from Kathy Casey.  I can’t tell you how much difference this makes in your drinks!  We’ve all been using it since I took a couple of cocktail classes from Kathy and Ryan Margarian.  (If you are in the Seattle area, I highly recommend these classes.  You learn a ton and they are really fun!)

As K and V were putting the mains and salad on serving plates I was busy grilling the tortillas and brought them warm from the grill to the table.  Before coming to K’s I had rolled out the tortillas and stacked them between wax paper.  This worked fine for the flour tortillas but not as well for the blue corn.  The batter is so soft it was hard to remove the paper from the tortillas.  I recommend patting/rolling them out as you are putting them on the grill.  The salsas were both good but everyone really loved the orange butter, which was something I remembered once having at some restaurant.  The recipe is at the end of this entry. 

Both mains were good but I especially liked the chicken.  What was really nice was the way the black beans, chicken, pork, and salsas all really blended well. 

We finished with the decadent and beautiful sundaes!  Perfect!

Orange Butter

This is really a recipe that should be customized to your own taste – it can be made sweeter or with more orange, depending on your preferences. 

• 4 Tbsp butter, softened
• 2 – 3 tsp. grated orange peel
• 2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice
• 1 – 2 tsp. honey*

Beat until thoroughly mixed and butter is light and fluffy. 

As you may be aware you can get honey from different types of plants/flowers.  One of my favorites, and the one I used in this particular version of this recipe, was Wild Huckleberry Honey.  It has just a slight, slight hint of berry.  But any honey will work – just use whatever you have around.