Beehive Behavior

The kitchen is a beehive of activity this weekend, with almost everyone getting in on the action. My busy bees include Brilliant Daughter who slaved over a hot barbecue, roasting tomatoes, jalapenos and onions for her homemade salsa. While she was out there, she threw on a couple of our homemade chaurice sausage for us to nosh on as we worked. Busy Bee #2, Butcher Son, came over to cut up the pork shoulder roast so that I could make carnitas for our Sunday dinner (build-your-own-taco night). And I would be Busy Bee #3, spending Saturday making the black beans for dinner, simmering the carnitas, and putting to good use the lugs of strawberries I bought over in Half Moon Bay. In the last few days we have enjoyed roasted strawberries with mint chantilly cream, roasted strawberries with dark chocolate (both of which only took 15 minutes, start to finish), and one batch each of sam and jam. Sam, you ask? Well, the first batch of strawberry jam turned out a bit soupy, more like sauce, so husband named it Sam.

Today I will cook some chicken for taco night, make some Mexican rice and guacamole, and grill some skirt steak. Am I feeding an army? Well, one never knows around here. We could have 5 or 15 people for dinner, which is the fun of it. Five means we have leftovers to eat all week long, fifteen means we have a great time and fill a lot of bellies. And that leftover liquor from last weekend’s Jen and John party…it will be put to good use today I am sure.

The strawberry results are below: Sam on the left, Jam on the right.