Thank you, Glad and Ziploc

... and all the various folks who showed up on Saturday night.



I awoke early on Saturday because I had a lot of stuff to do in the kitchen since I ended up doing nothing on Friday night. So there I found myself at 6:30 a.m. shelling shrimp. And then I remembered that the tapenade needed some time to marinate in the fridge.


Fig walnut tapenade with goat cheese.

And will someone please slap me if I ever utter "stuffed cherry tomatoes" again in my life?


Front: Cherry tomatoes stuffed with crab salad and Back: with black olives and capers.

Then it was time to really get cooking. The first item out of the oven gave me a bit of difficulty. I kept rolling the dough out and cutting it but every time I tired to insert in the cups, it would break. Then I remembered that my favorite tart dough does not require rolling. You just press the dough into the pan. Problem solved.


Crab tartlets

Normally when I make empanadas, I make the dough as well. This time I cheated by using frozen puff pastry dough. I would have gone nuts if I hadn't.


Empanadas filled with chicken


... and with beef.

I had planned on making two other dishes but then time started running out. And then there's the dish I made and completely forgot to put out -- a Spanish tortilla. *smacking head* Oh, and then there's the buorek that I prepped and put in the fridge but never cooked. (Yes, my fridge is overflowing currently. Feel free to stop by for leftovers. One of my friends did on Sunday.) To wash this all down, I made my usual white wine sangria.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Fluffycat and another chance to see Buzzgirl. About half of the folks who said that they would show didn't. That's cool with me though. I'm not going to hold it against someone for not showing. Especially since some of them are former co-workers and so there is a good chance I may never see them again anyway.

And there were cool gifts as well. Buzzgirl gave me a bottle of pomegranate liqueur that had Emerald drooling. There was also some candy and the gift cards/certificates for AMC, Starbuck's, and Cesar. Boris and Natasha say that their favorite gift is the one from Fluffycat.


Boris busy checking out his new toy

Natasha was not too much of a fan of my other gift. Now I feel just like the Commander.


See how they match my top perfectly?


Natasha may not have liked the bangles, but she does love roses.

And thanks to the folks from Glad and Ziploc, clean up was pretty painless. Although I did put off the actual dishwashing until Sunday.




Even though she was not at the party, Natasha found the whole thing rather tiring.

Yesterday I realized that I had quite a few leftovers. Some will be going to my aunt today, some into the freezer. And then there were those other leftovers -- the extra fillings. I had crab, chicken and beef left. I think yesterday I must have been channeling Cookiecrumb when starting this process.


Here's what became of the beef.

Later I'm sure I'll be showing what will happen to the crab, chicken, and perhaps one other item. All in all, it was a pretty good birthday.