Gourmet Group

17 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Jessica in Baking, Cooking, Dessert, Entertaining, Gourmet Group, Living Room, Recipes, Recipes, Table Design

Tags

Entertaining, Gourmet Group, La Duni, Mexico: The Cookbook, Pamela Straub Interior Design

After a 6 month break, I’m back to blogging with Gourmet Group!

I hosted the dinner with a Mexican Theme.

I wanted the night to feel casual and laid back, with really delicious food – and still some elegance. One of the guys makes yummy guacamole, so we started with chips & guac, and my Dad’s famous margaritas.

The main dish was a barbacoa recipe that I have made for years. It is so flavorful. (I usually make extra so we eat it for several nights – the first night over rice, and then next over a big green salad with simple lemon vinaigrette.) All of the sides: citrus salad, re-fried beans, and saffron rice with peas, are all from the beautiful Mexico: The Cookbook. To keep it casual we served them all together on piled-high plates.

GG2

GG4

My husband added a sipping tequilla served with homemade Sangrita as a digestif.

And then, my favorite part of all…Cuatro Leches cake with arequipe sauce!!! Our wedding cake was a cuatro leches cake and and the recipe from La Duni in Dallas seemed similar, so I put it on the menu. My friend did an amazing job on this masterpiece and it tasted even better than it looked!

009

It was a wonderful evening with great friends and great food.

Small Change, Big Difference

18 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by Jessica in House, Kitchen

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Pamela Straub Interior Design

Here’s another example of how making one simple change can have a huge impact on the feel of a room. When we moved in, there was a light fixture over the kitchen dining area that didn’t work with my vision. Regardless of what furniture we added, the light stood out. Finally, we found the perfect fixture to replace it, which has made all the difference. Unfortunately for this post, I intentionally cropped the old light out of all pictures and only have one photo from move-in. Still, you can see how much the new light fixture adds to the space.