Thursday, August 23, 2007

visions of sugarplums

starting my list of prep for tomorrow's dinner. mom, dad, shannon, gram, and gramps are coming over for a farewell dinner party before shannon leaves for school next weekend.

planning a menu with shannon in mind is tougher than one may think. she doesn't eat anything with sugar or carbs. she also won't eat anything with fat, visible or not (not to mention imagined or not). so that leaves out most steaks, the good kinds of pork, anything fried, anything with bacon, anything with cream... just about anything we would normally eat.

so i've planned to make leonora's chicken tostadas. shh we won't tell her that the tostadas are fried corn tortillas. if she doesn't see me fry em, she won't even know. these tostadas are replicas of ones we had in mexico from leonora's loncheria on isla mujeres. it's a fresh fried corn tortilla slathered with sour cream, and layered with avocado, tomato, lettuce, chicken, queso fresco, and the coup d'état (in my heart) - pickled red onions. it's what makes the dish. we'll serve the tostadas with some pinto beans on the side.

i plan on making my own rennet free queso freso. i've been having a hard time finding it in a store nearby, and i refuse to have to drive far for something so simple as queso fresco. so i'll try to whip up a batch of my own, and the grocery store can suck it. we'll see how it goes. i plan on having a back up of some kind on hand, however, just in case!

for dessert, i picked up a fresh pineapple, since shannon will pretty much only eat fruit for dessert. not satisfied to serve that plain, i started thinking about carmelizing the pineapple. which is good with chocolate. then i found a recipe for a cognac sabayon. oh yes, you heard me, cognac sabayon. so i'm going to whip that up tonight, and serve it on the carmelized pineapple tomorrow, possibly with a chocolate shaving or two. shannon will get plain pineapple. she's crazy. more sabayon for me.

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