Camacho Watcho

A little over a year ago Kyle and I were invited to join a newly formed cooking club with three other couples. The idea, thought up by Chad and Vickie, was to bring four couples together every two to three months to try new recipes, eat dinner, and get to know each other better. Needless to say, I was pretty excited! The way it works is the hosting responsibility rotates each time and the hosting couple chooses the theme and recipes and then emails them out to the group a week or two ahead of time. Recipes are assigned to couples and the idea is to make that exact recipe in order to try new things. Since the beginning of the club, Kyle and I have made fudge, stuffed mushroom caps, peperoni imbottiti, and Italian love cake.

This past Saturday night marked the official beginning of “Season Two”, as we are calling it. We have made it through all the couples hosting, although it did take us over a year to do so. Saturday was Chad and Vickie’s turn to host again and they chose a barbecue theme: bbq shrimp, corn bread, potato salad, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, baby back ribs, and keylime pie. And to wash it all down, Tennessee Tea, a concoction of several hard alcohols and coke. Yes, it was a lot of food…cooking club generally does leave you overly full and begging for mercy, but it’s a really fun all-out smorgasbord of guilty-pleasure eating.

Kyle and I were in charge of the bbq shrimp and the potato salad. All in all, we really didn’t like the shrimp. As Kyle said, “I think someone mistook heavy seasoning for good flavor.” It’s true, the shrimp were dry-rubbed with two rubs and then smothered in a really sweet bbq sauce. It just really wasn’t our thing. The potato salad was pretty good, considering it called for Italian parsley and I am not a parsley fan. I strayed just a bit from the recipe and used about 2/3 of the mayo sauce and only half a bunch of parsley. The flavor was good, although I do wonder if I could get a tangier taste by adding the cider vinegar directly into the mayo…I’ll have to try that next time.

Of all the recipes, my favorites were the cornbread and the ribs. The cornbread, a recipe from Red Stone Restaurant, has pieces of real corn to add texture and is baked in a cast iron skillet. Topped with maple butter, it simply melts in your mouth. Second to the cornbread, was the dry rub on the ribs. It is thick and spicy and, when topped with a sweet and tangy bbq sauce, is a wonderful complement to the tender pork ribs.

Another successful cooking club night. Good food, good conversation…good times.