Forgetting It's Winter w/ Pron

[Aawa]

Of course everybody knows about the cold weather that is overcome the U.S. A member from another site inspired me to take a trip to the Caribbean for a couple of hours tonight with her Jerked Chicken Kabobs pron.

I invited some friends over for dinner and this is the spread that I put out. (Sorry no prep shots just finished and plated shots)  Foodie shots taken from a couple phone camera's and my point and shoot.


First up was some smoked mozeralla that I had in my fridge vacuum sucked for freshness.


Fried plantains and baked sweet potato fries.  Plantains were cooked in canola oil at 325 and dusted with ground ginger, cinnamon and fluer de sel.  Sweet potatos were tossed with olive oil, ground cinnamon, ground all spice, salt and pepper and baked at 400 degrees, then tossed with fluer de sel.




A tropical slaw that I whipped up.  1 head of cabbage shredded, 1/2 thin sliced red onion, 1 mango diced. 3 Tbsp olive oil, 3 tbsp vinegar, 1 Tbsp mayo, 2 tbsp yellow mustard, salt and pepper to taste.



Black beans and rice.  1lb black beans (soaked overnight in water)  1 green bell pepper, 1 medium red onion diced, 8 cloves of garlic, 4 sprigs fresh cilantro.  Sautee them up throw in crock pot.  Add in 1 tbsp cumin, 3 bay leaves, 1 tbsp dried oregano water to cover beans.  Salt and pepper to taste once cooked through.  I also added some of cumin again but not sure how much.  Plate it up and add some fresh chopped cilantro over the top.


Phrasty's Jerked Chicken.  I doubled up on the recipe I'm going to give (except kept it at 1 habanero for the whole thing)  6 green onions, 2 tsp allspice berries, 1tbsp fresh thyme, 2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp grated nutmeg, 1tsp brown sugar, 1.5tsp salt, 1 tsp ground black bepper.  Pureed it up in a food processor.  Add 1/4 cup malt vinegar, 1 tbsp olive oil and pulsed till combined.  I doubled up on the recipe because I did 2 whole chickens which I processed into pieces and let marinade over night.  I cooked on my kettle at 300 degrees with peach wood.


A couple plated shots from my friends




My plate.


It was good food with great friends.  All of them agreed it made us think about the warm Caribbean weather.  All of the happy thoughts were ruined when they opened the front door to leave and there was the snow still on the ground and the below freezing weather.

Thanks for looking!

[MacEggs]

That all looks delicious! 

[Jeff]

Definitely looks very good.  Excellent photos, that only thing I wanted to see was the palm trees waving in the background!

[Aawa]

Definitely looks very good.  Excellent photos, that only thing I wanted to see was the palm trees waving in the background!

I wish I could of had that in the background.  If I took a picture of the trees in my backyard it would be bare oak trees covered in ice.  I settled and decided to put one of my buddies in the background of the plated picture :p

[HankB]

Looks like a nice escape! I just picked up a bunch-O-leg quarters. I should have a go at making jerk chicken with them.

Edit: 7 lb leg quarters in the jerk marinade. Looking forward to a sub-zero grill tomorrow.