Monsoon Madness – oh my!

This weekend we are having some friends for dinner who requested to bring the main dish – burgers. So I’m in charge of appetizers, side dishes and desserts. I started this morning by flipping through cookbooks for recipes while the girls were lounging out watching cartoons,  and landed on several from the same cookbook – Gourmet Made Simple by Gena Knox http://genaknox.com/. It was a cookbook I found at Whole Foods and was on sale for $5, which I admit, worried me a first, I mean maybe it was on sale because it was no good, but it turned out to be a great find!

So here’s what I’m making:

Appetizers: Smoked Strawberry Mozzarella Crostini and an Herbed Goat Cheese roll with crackers.

Salad: Watermelon, Feta and Arugula Salad

Side Dish: Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Dessert: Simple Fudge Cakes

Yes, I go overboard, and yes, there was too much food. However I find it so therapeutic to be in the kitchen with a glass of wine, listening to some Joni Mitchell (unless the kids come in for an impromptu kitchen dance party and we rock out to some Katy Perry) or chatting with friends and cooking away.

We started the afternoon with some pool fun and the men got the barbeque fired up. Well, about fifteen minutes after we got out of the pool and five minutes after the burgers went on the grill down came the monsoon! The fellas got the burgers safely inside – but unfortunately I hadn’t picked all the herbs yet for dinner, so Jacob braved the downpour to pick my mint for me.

So how was dinner? Well, the burgers were great as were the appetizers. The only thing I would change is to mix the herbs in the goat cheese and then re-roll. The salad was good, nothing super memorable, not an “I have to make this again” kind of recipe. Sweet potatoes were delicious – now I’m a wimp when it comes to spicy food, but I found the potatoes bland with the called for chipotle and added more.

Now, the fudge cakes, those are definitely a MAKE AGAIN, and soon recipe! Topped with some vanilla ice cream, and they were simply amazing – this coming from a super picky dessert family (my kids won’t eat cookies that aren’t straight out of the oven, spoiled, no way, just good taste!)