Tapas Night

Last Thursday was tapas night. I love tapas. I love the flavors. I love all the different tastes. It's fun to make - even more fun to eat, and it allows me to experiment with different foods and food combinations.

When I'm in the grocery store shopping for tapas it's rare that I bring a list with me, rather I'm flying by the seat of my pants and picking the foods that look fresh and/or interesting. I make up the dishes as I go in the store grouping the ingredients in the shopping cart that I'll later combine into a recipe. I'll start in the produce section; my train of thought goes something like this: "Oh, arugula is good. I like arugula it's kinda bitter so to make a salad with it maybe I'll do some tomatoes with it. Oh look cherry tomatoes!"


That's the first tapa. Thinly sliced avocado, roasted cherry tomatoes, and arugula. I whipped up a paprika vinaigrette to top it off. The result was pretty good. Roasting the cherry tomatoes took out the "spontaneous burst" of tomato you normally get when biting into these little guys and brought out the natural sweetness. The paprika vinaigrette was the bombdiggity.


The next tapa was a little more hearty. If you're looking for a rice/pasta/potato substitute try polenta, it's corn meal based and can be prepared the same way you would any of the above. I bought the pre-made polenta stuff that comes in a tube. This stuff is pre-cooked so all you have to do is heat it up. I cut it into 1/4" slices and pan fry in olive oil until I get a golden brown crust on both sides. I then topped it with garlic, baby bellas and fresh jalapeno. The combo was awesome.


This one is more finger food. It's a recipe my mom makes. Blue cheese and black olive paste. I found this roquefort style blue cheese made with goat milk (instead of sheep milk), so it's a bit softer - less crumbly, and I thought it spreaded nicely. For the olives I threw some pitted black olives I got from the olive bar at Whole Foods in the food processor and combined it with a bit of olive oil to make a paste. My mom puts pine nuts in her's - that is the way to go but I didn't have any, and didn't have the foresight during my seat of the pants grocery run to pick up any nuts. Oh well, still not bad.

Not pictured, I also made a small batch of cauliflower with white cheese sauce. Typical Belgian food. Consistently awesome.