Steve and Ana, Pastors at CCNS and Harry, Deacon at CCL

We haven't seen Steve and Ana in over a year and they graciously agreed to come over for dinner tonight. Steve is a surfer and likes a meaty dish so the theme will be meats cooked over an open fire, well depending on the rain, most of them will be meats cooked over an open fire. We will serve water and also rooibos tea along with the food.

Fire roasted chicken

Started with a corn tortilla as the base, sprinkled it with Mexican blend cheese.
Spooned on the rice cooked in fennel and the juice the Costco organic chicken thighs brined in. (Chose to use thighs because they will not dry out)
Put the fire roasted chicken on top, made this the night before, wrapped it up on the serving plate.

This will be accompanied by nopales from our own cactus.

Spicy fire roasted pork loin

Brined half of a Costco two pack pork loin in a zip lock bag for two days, cooked over a chimera fueled with rosemary, (we have a huge rosemary right next to our chimera). Brought it upstairs and checked the temp with a digital meat thermometer, 150 degrees.

This will be accompanied by a mix of fire smoked potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Thyme smoked pork loin

Here goes the other half of the Costco pack, this has brined for four days. I will cook it the day we serve. If I get a break in the weather, I will smoke it fueled with rosemary sear the outside and we will cook it to safe temperature in the oven. This is a slightly more delicate flavor, but it has brined longer, everything is a tradeoff.

This will be accompanied by butternut squash cubes, cooked in a nonstick Tramontina skillet with no oil so they develop a lovely brown color. I am still working out the spicing, but a bit of red pepper and alaea sea salt is a good bet.

Dessert GF ginger almond blueberry giant cookie with cherry and chocolate topping

We make our own ginger juice and what is left after extracting the juice is the cake, (which still has a lot of ginger taste). I dry the cake and grind it again to get rid of the "hairs". The recipe is simple, 1/3 ginger flour, 1/3 almond flour, 1/3 GF pancake mix, sugar to taste, a big spoonful of blueberries, egg white till it is between cookie dough and pancake mix in consistency, 1 tsp olive oil, salt to taste, 1/2 tsp baking powder and voila. ( if you want to treat it like a bread, add more baking powder, but remember, with no gluten it can break apart easily, I go for cookie).

Topping, chop some dried tart cherries, a box of Sweet Palace chocolates, (a gift from Jon Ham and Sherri Davidoff and the LMG team), and a half a stick of butter. I left the butter out to reach room temperature. Just before serving I melted the butter, threw in the cherry bits and chocolate and as soon as the chocolate started to melt attempted to artfully pour the topping over the cookie and serve immediately.

The food was fun, but we really enjoyed the conversation afterwards.  We got to know Steve and Ana just a bit better and it was great to see them after over a year. We know how busy pastors are and didn't want to impose, but this was really a blessing.