Small group

If you know me, you know I love food.  I once had someone say to me, "you know a lot of people say that they always think about food, but I'm pretty sure you actually do!"  Or as other people have put it, "you are a fat girl stuck in a skinny body."

In recent years, especially since leaving dancing, I've toned down my food voracity, but I still really, really love food.

This past week was my turn to cook for our small group.  I decided on Brazilian Style Seafood Stew from my absolute favorite cookbook ever (really the only one I use, since everything else I find online), The New American Plate.  It's healthy cooking with TONS of flavor.  The health emphasis is on getting as many different phyto-chemicals as possible.  Think "5 a Day the Color Way."

I don't have any pictures of the stew, but I do have a mildly amusing story:  The stew called for one serrano pepper.  The asterisk next to it notes to wear rubber gloves to handle fresh chilies.  I've cut up many a jalapeno before and thought nothing of this suggestion.  Well as a massage therapist I keep my nails very short.  On the day I cooked the stew I had cut my nails exposing the more tender/ thinner skin that is usually covered by nail.  I finished seeding and chopping both peppers (for a double batch) and had moved on to some very pungent garlic (please note my eyes are already watering from an onion), and the tips of my fingers begin to burn, followed by the skin between the bases of my fingers.  I washed my hands several million times, and even put baking soda on them, but nothing but cool water seemed to help.  I sat down on the couch for a while, because I was in sensory overload, and then baby went to town like he was Lars Ulrich during mandatory Metallica.  The kid did not stop kicking for like an hour and a half!

On the drummer note: I bought this super cute shirt at Target thinking Hubs would be so excited about his future potential rock star offspring ...

and the first thing Hubs says is, "yeah, but he better not be a drummer."  When I gave him a "what?" look he said, "all drummers are weird, and it's the drumming that makes them that way."  A simple, "aww, that's so sweet," would have worked for me, but whatever, next time I purchase something music related for our offspring I'll make sure it's a guitar, cello or piano (the approved list of instruments).

BACK TO THE FOOD!

To compliment the seafood stew served over brown rice I made these tasty little fritters!

Brazilian Black-Eyed Pea & Shrimp Fritters

You can find the recipe here.  I wasn't feeling up to a repeat drum session, so I subbed the pepper for 3/4 tsp of cayenne.  This was a little too spicy for my taste, but not too much that I couldn't still enjoy them.  Next time I'll add more flour till the "dough" is REALLY stiff, since mine fell apart in the frying process.

I  also mixed up a side salad with red & green leaf lettuce, arugula, and spinach with matchstick carrots, bell peppers and sweet tomatoes.  Dessert was strawberries and little bowls with broken up pieces of white and dark chocolate: simple, cool, refreshing, buttery and bitter.  I thought it was the perfect end to the meal.

Hubs likes to tell me that small group is not all about food and hanging out with cool people.  And not that I don't really enjoy delving into the Bible, I do.  But good food and good friends are pretty stinkin' awesome too!