Actually, to be precise, I cofounded a club. Due to the lack of better name I call it the Sunday Gourmet Club. The story behind it is that one sunday evening we had a dinner at our friends, a little pre-christmas thing with typical Estonian christmas-new year food and somehow we came to an idea that it would be fun to have a dinner together every sunday. As to make the experience as well educating as tasty we decided to choose a different country cuisine each time.
So the first one was Georgia.
As appetisers we had khachapuri - breads filled with suluguni cheese. I quite liked them. http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/hatsapuri.html
The main course was Chakhokhbili - a chicken with herbs in tomato-onion sauce. Served with rice. Well I adore tomatos and the onions are my friends as well, so that was definitely a good choice from my point of view: http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/kana-tsahhobili.html
As dessert we had georgian nutcake :) I don't know the fancy name for that one. The recipe was found in a blog of a georgian girl. http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/gruusia-pahklikook.html The cake seemed to be ok at the dinner but it was really superb next day.
Of course we had georgian wine and music. The only thing we did not prepare, I'm deeply ashamed to say, were the famous georgian toasts. I hope the gods of wine forgive us. There's always room for improvement...
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Today was the second gathering and the theme was Mexico.
Appetizer: nachos with cheese dip, salsa and guacamole, the latter prepared by me (it's the proud moment now). And chili-lime potato chips. And of course Corona beer. I must admit, all that was a bit boring and predictable choice. But we all loved it, so there!
The main course was mexican baked salmon with taco seasoning, accompanied by the pico de gallo salad. Hot, hot, hot! So good! Even Tristan cleared his plate without any grumble. And that's a real compliment. http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/mehhikoparane-lohefilee.html
The dessert was flan - very big thing in Mexico. Basically it's baked custard with caramel topping. It looks really good and sunny. Taste is ok too, but nothing too special. Even a bit boring. I personally liked the georgian cake better. http://bitter-sweet-salty-sour.blogspot.com/2011/12/flan.html
And mojitos, original or virgin (there were children in our little company... and myself providing fresh gourmet milkdinner for my baby girl).
We also drew the lots for the next time. The system namely is that everybody at the table names a country or two who's dishes she or he would like to eat. All of those are written on scraps of papers and then somebody draws one from the bowl. Today little Luna did the honors and Russian kitchen was chosen. Not particularly exiting as this theme is a little too familiar for us here in Estonia, but as it will also be our christmas party I'm sure we'll come up with something interesting. At least usually the russian dishes fit one of the christmas dinner conditions - you cannot move yourself after eating them for a good while. And I can sing at least one russian christmas song :) Be afraid, be very afraid!
