I cannot believe it’s Christmas Eve! We are trying to get settled here at home and my parents will be down with our little boy to meet our daughter for the first time. We had always planned on spending Christmas at our house, but we didn’t think our little girl would be joining us (praise!). We have a tentative menu set for at least one of the two days and it’s very non-traditional. We won’t be having ham or turkey or any of the other traditional Christmas foods tonight. Instead, we’ll have shrimp cocktail, Winter squash and Fuji apple soup, spinach and artichoke dip, sourdough bread and some kind of dessert (still thinking about that!).
Both of my parents are Puerto Rican, and while there are definitely foods specific to our culture, my husband and I don’t often get a chance to prepare or eat them. Now you all know how incredibly skilled and savvy I am in the kitchen (ahem, cough), so when I was invited to Sur La Table for a Latin-themed cooking demonstration with Chef Cynthia Perez, I practically jumped up and down with delight. Fresh & Easy sponsored the event which was an amazing night of delicious food, culinary and entertaining tips, and fellowship with other local bloggers. The only slight problem was that the entire event was conducted in Spanish. That should not have been a problem for this Puerto Rican mother, except that I am not fluent in Spanish. I studied the language for 3 years in high school, but that was not enough to get me through the evening. Fortunately, my good friend Aracely gave me a “play by play” throughout the evening.
Each of us were set up at cooking stations and we had all of the ingredients necessary to follow along with Cynthia as she prepared several Latin courses. Each of the courses were prepared using ingredients found at Fresh & Easy. We received all of the recipes which included a price breakdown. Surprisingly, each dish costs $0.35 to $0.85 per person per serving. Holiday entertaining and meal preparation can be stressful, particularly if you’re hosting a large group. One of the things I came away with from the evening is that meals don’t have to be elaborate or expensive to be tasty.
If you’ve never been in a Fresh & Easy, I highly encourage you to venture over to your local store. When we lived overseas, we shopped at the local Tesco. The British-owned market made it’s way to the US approximately two years ago as Fresh & Easy and offers food products and prepared meals that are free from artificial flavors, colors, and trans fats at affordable prices. This holiday season you’ll find a variety of items to help you out with entertaining and meal planning.
Here is my favorite recipe from the night (Homemade Roasted Poblano Guacamole & Grilled Shrimp), along with the other recipes we prepared, courtesy of Fresh & Easy:
Fresh and Easy – Hispanic Holiday Recipes 2010
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yum! Merry Christmas Caryn! I’m in the car driving to CT after out Xmas breakfast. I wanted to take a moment to wish all my favorite bloggy pals a wonderful holiday. Enjoy the time with your family.
Hola Caryn, Chef Cynthia here. I’m glad you had a great time. Sorry about the language breakdown, I totally forgot to include a bit of English in my demo. Hope you had a great holiday. Cheers! cp