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Yesterday was an afternoon of friends, food and lots of fun. The manservant whipped up some frosty strawberry margarittas which we plied guests with as they arrived (except the two little children – that would've been wrong!).
I cooked spare ribs in the oven while the manservant threw marinated chicken and hotdogs on the barbeque. For sweets we provided gelato and chocolate bites which are rich little bite sized things of chocolate cake (frozen from the supermarket) sort of the equivalent of having cup cakes for birthdays. Oh – did I mention that it was the manservant's birthday?
This is a "salad" of roasted potatoes, onion, red peppers & green beans, roasted pinenuts, fresh thyme, flat leaf parsley, fresh mozzarella and baby cherry tomatoes with lime juice squeezed over.
This is black beans, corn, jalapeno peppers, serrano peppers, shallots, cilantro and basil. I added cubed avocado just before I served it.
Initially entertainment was provided by the guys working across the alley. What a hot day to be labouring! But, don't we love to watch men at work! The roof of this garage had mostly collapsed some time ago but the owners had finally decided to clean it up. 3 guys arrived with a U-Haul, some tools and shovels and got this all cleaned up in about 3 hours. They worked hard enough for me to think I will get their number from the neighbours if I ever need any cleaning up done. The only bit standing now is the brick work. We suspect the next stage of building will be the next time we have a barbeque!
Photo was taken from our deck, after the door and some cross timbers from the roof were removed.
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Aussie Emjay's Blog 
wow – those are some awesome looking salads/side dishes! i'm sure they tasted amazing – i'll have to try it out myself. may come back to bug you for measurements of ingredients (i'm a sad cook – need to know how much of what to use).
Dang, now I'm hungry! The food looks delicious
Yummmmmm!!!
Happy birthday to the astrophysicist! Both salads lool delish.
Happy birthday to your manservant! 😉
The food looks delicious! I especially like the roasted potato dish…I'll have to try that next time we bbq!
Happy B-day Astrodweeb! Woa, yummy stuff!
The close up photos make it look like a mess but also strangely appetizing too! Also define wrong?? Children + alcohol = nap where is the wrong!! So a birthday boy is he just getting older or is he getting a bit better too?? All in All still sounded like a nice time and the dishes look very tasty I am still looking for something to do with chick peas!
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You had me hooked on the black bean salad, till the mention of avocado. barf. so ribs and a hot dog with mustard and onions, please. and don't dare skip the margarita! make it three for the sweat i worked up hearing how hard those guys labored.
The food looks fab! So delicious! Nice your neighbors decided to demolish the building whilst you were cooking. Hopefully they clean up the mess.
Fabulous! Sounds like a good day all around.
Those dishes look delicious! Not to mention festive and colorful. Sounds like a wonderful day, complete with entertainment! Happy Birthday to the better half!
YUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!What a great menu!Happy Birthday to HIM!And wow that building demolition must have been quite a show.
I especially liked the roasted veggie ones – I allowed 2 baby potatoes per person, 2 red peppers (capsicums), one large onion, and about a pound of green beans; one container of fresh mozzarella and then the cherry tomatoes I cut in half until it looked right. Then a whole packet of pine nuts (125gm??). Because I had roasted the veggies in olive oil, salt and pepper I only used lime juice over them when I mixed everything together. The other one was easy – one tin black beans (rinsed), one tin corn, one jalapeno, one serrano, one bunch shallots, half a bunch of cilantro and basil and one avocado. Easy, squeasy! 🙂 (I don't do hard in the kitchen).
Thank you RM – they worked out really well – and were so easy.
He had a good w/end – BBQ on Saturday and more friends on Sunday. Now we get to build up to mine (July) LOL.
The roasted veggie one was the best – it was almost like an antipasto.
I think he had 2 days of happy birthday! It turned out to be a w/end of friends – which is always good fun.
LOL – luckily these 4 year old twins were well enough behaved that we didn't have to put them to sleep with alcohol. 🙂 I think you could use chick peas instead of the black beans – the colours would'nt be as striking though. Perhaps put some red peppers through the chick peas to give a bit of colour.
At least the new neighbours look as though they are going to clean up a few things! My husband had a very nice birthday.
LOL – poor avocado! It doesn't really have much of a flavour – you could leave it out. Without the avocado it is pretty reasonably priced. Three margs coming up for you my lady! 🙂
The workmen totally cleaned out the garage – they worked hard. I assume the next thing they are going to do is put a new roof and door on. It will be much nicer to look at when we have bbqs or dinners on the deck.
Thank you Margy – yes it was a really good day all around (once the noise stopped).
Thank you Gina – all the food tasted great – even the gelato – I'm not a big icecream/gelato fan but we had wildberry and a coffee chip one and they were pretty good.
Everything was double, triple yum indeed! The manservant had a great birthday – he got to play his favourite jazz all day – just a bit louder to cover some of the workers' noise.
Great!
"poor avocado! It doesn't really have much of a flavor" – oh no, i hope there are no avocado fans listening in because the avocado lovers i know *love* it. you can have my lifetime quota of avocado but don't touch my margs!
Suggest them of enjoying together by organizing a cleaning-party-barbecue : you make together the good meal to feast and you share the task of the cleaning… Maybe you will become friends for ever!…
Oh, that's nice. Birthdays can be great……..
Happy (belated) birthday to HIm Indoors
Yay!!!!! Yet another Front Page lady!!!!!!!!! Knowed I had some awesome friends, knowed it 🙂 Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL – thank you Raymond! At first I had no idea what you were talking about because I never log out of vox on my computer. Thank you for letting me know. 🙂
Wow..that sounds like a delightful party, and the food looks scrumptious! I can't believe I haven't visited you for so long..a very Happy Belated Birthday to the man-servant!
I was admiring the beautiful, delicious-looking food photo on the Vox home page when suddenly I noticed the Emjay tag! Congratulations on your "cover photo" — and a fine dinner party, by the way. — JG
Wow. Thanks for the food. I am, as I comment here, in the process of creating this culinary work of art. And I am gong to smack it down on some grilled flatbreads. Mmmwah! Oh even the smell is delectable!
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! The food looks simply delicious. I wish I could have some of the salad right now. We are driving to Vermont for the summer, so right now we are living on hotel microwaved food. 😦
Thank you Purplesque. 🙂
Thank you James! It was a great meal – and a nice surprise to find that photo featured.
Yum! I hope it tasted good enough to make again.
Oh – you must be finding it difficult living on microwaved foods in a hotel when you are used to making such great meals! Hopefully once you get to Vermont you can get back to those fabulous meals.