It's Raining; I'm Cooking

The dog is taking an early morning nap and the cats are both asleep somewhere in the house. It's one of those cold, wet, gray days that I love. It's perfect for staying indoors and making delicious dishes. We have friends coming for dinner this evening so I have another reason to cook all day.

Actually the cooking started yesterday when I made another batch of marinara sauce. A local farm continues to grow tomatoes under a hoop house. Don't know how long this will last but while it does I'll make marinara sauce. These little beauties got cut up and put in my crock pot along with onions, garlic, oregano, basil, olive oil and red wine. After 12 hours in the crock pot the sauce was the perfect consistency to puree in the Cuisinart and then put in jars for freezing. Only thing is I don't have any jars available at the moment. Luckily it's cold outside. I poured the whole mixture into a pot, put a lid on it and placed it outside the front door. I'll get jars later today.

I needed the crock pot because I'm making refried beans from scratch. Never done that before. Our dinner guests are really good friends; the kind that allow you to try new things on them. The other new thing is goat. Yes, goat. I bought it from farmer Dan who also supplied our 10-pound chicken. I found a Cuban recipe for goat that includes lots of spices, tomatillos and tomatoes. I diced the goat meat (it was a de-boned leg of goat) and let it marinate over night. We are also having Mexican rice. I'm hoping Kerry will make some Margaritas; they would go well with the dinner or maybe Mexican beer.

A week from today we will be at sea on the Holland-America ship Oosterdam for a seven day cruise of the Mexican Riviera (Mazatlan, Puerta Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas). It's 83 today in Mazatlan; it will be great to have a few days of warmth. There will be nine of us on the cruise. Instead of going to Washington to be with Kerry's family (it's 8 F. there) we decided to all cruise together for a late Christmas celebration and a wonderful at-sea New Year's celebration.

Well, I still have to get some meat off the chicken legs so I'd better get going. I'll let you know how the goat turns out.