Yesterday Ginger, Tammy and I hosted a little dinner BBQ for some friends. Tammy's Indian dance teacher, her husband, and A Japanese classmate of Ginger's and her husband. Everything went well I think. I made a few different dishes for the occasion. Since Tammy's dance teacher and husband were vegetarians, I had to be careful when cooking. I made sure to use part of the barbeque for vegetables only, while the rest for the meat. We moved our dinner table out onto the porch and added a metal leaf bowl with floating candles as the centerpiece. I figured being outdoors would be better since it's a little cooler outside than inside during the balmy end of summer season. I tried to make a centerpiece with the mortar and pestle...we tried putting some dried, red-dyed sunflowers in it, but it just came out wrong...maybe if they were fresh flowers it would have been nicer.

We started with a salad of iceberg lettuce, thin sliced vine-ripened hothouse tomatoes, julienned carrots, diced yellow onion, honey roasted pecans, feta cheese, julienned Fuji apples with a dressing made from mayonaise, miso soup base, honey, sesame oil, and a splash of lemon juice. Yum yum.

The chicken breast were marinated in curry powder, crushed garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little lemon juice to help the flavors seep into the chicken a little bit. Also yum yum.

I also made portabello mushroom sandwiches. I made it with Indian naan flatbread instead of American style bread. The portabellos were covered in a soy sauce, chopped garlic, and pinch of ginger mixture then roasted on the barbeque. To add to the sandwich, I barbequed zuccini in sesame oil. I added fresh tomato slices, iceberg lettuce, ketchup, and sweet hot (Beaver brand) mustard. The sandwich came out really great, but messy since the portabellos start releasing a lot of liquid after they come off the grill. I'm going to have to note this and let them "rest" before serving next time.

There was also a large, large roast of beef. I just salted and peppered it and let her sit on low heat for most a long long time. I served that with a simple tomato salad made with diced hothouse tomatoes, chopped yellow onions, a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

We asked everyone to bring some desserts to share since I knew we'd be pooped out with preparing the barbeque. Our Indian guests brought a vermicelli and milk dessert. With lots of nuts and spices, I thought it was quite delicious. It reminded me of an Iced Chai Latte at Starbucks. Our Japanese friends brought over raspberry jam filled scones. They learned to make these on a recent trip to London. I thought both desserts were great. We rounded the dessert out with our store bought apple pie and limited edition mint chocolate chip powerpuff ice cream.

As the evening came and the sun set, we lit the floating candles. We also turned on the old christmas icicle lights hanging over the dining room as well as our little yellow lamp and the torchiere light on very low. This created a nice glowing effect. If you were to look at our apartment from the pool, you would have seen the porch filled with our dinner table, floating & scented candles, and guests, and the living & dining rooms dimly lit behind us.

I was suprised it came out so well since I just made it up as I went along. I mean I knew about some stuff like the portabello mushroom sandwich since I've made it before. The tomato salad thing has been known to me for quite sometime because my roommate's mother taught it to us. But the chicken marinade and the salad were done in the "hmmm, I wonder if this will be good..ok let's try it" fashion. I guess all of those hours of Food TV playing at low volume while I worked away on my computer has payed off.

Now I gotta start figuring out what we're going to do for our next BBQ. I'd like to have one more before the summer is over, but I'm not sure if that's going to be possible.