Bikinis and Margaritas
You are truly blessed if you have someone in your life that will virtually guarantee a fabulous time if you are invited to their home. My friend Laura and her husband Allan are such people. And knowing that they love hosting as much as their friends benefit from their hospitality, is like a double blessing. Their comfortable home is perfect for entertaining, especially when the guest of honour, whose upcoming nuptials we were celebrating, requests a Bikinis and Margaritas evening.
Allan had the blender and freshly cut strawberries set up when we arrived. He was offering Pink Bikini Margaritas or traditional lime versions. Seeing as though a cocktail is the closest way I am going to be a associated with a pink bikini, I opted for the former-a delicious way to start the evening.
Laura’s Shrimp Cocktail
We were an assembly of old friends and were comfortable to perch on the stools in front of their cooking island. I don’t know whether we started with the Sopa de Lima or Mexican Shrimp Cocktail and my photos do not give me any hints as to the order. (Good thing I stopped with a single margarita). Let’s say it was the shrimp.
Shrimp Ceviche at the Fisherman’s Cop-op on Isla Mujeres
Laura’s version is the closest thing that I have tasted to the ones that we dream about from the little seafood restaurants lined up on the sandy beach of Isla Mujeres.
Picus Shrimp Cocktail on Isla Mujeres
I am rambling on about Isla because only Laura knows how to make the Yucatan dishes that I long for. Someone in Winnipeg should seriously hire this talented woman to fashion their Mexican menu for them…..but I digress.
Here is Laura’s Mexican Shrimp Cocktail recipe:
- lbs. cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 T crushed garlic
- ½ c finely chopped red onion
- ¼ c fresh cilantro,chopped
- 1½c tomato and clam juice cocktail
- ¼ c ketchup
- ¼ c fresh lime juice
- 1 t hot pepper sauce sauce, or to taste
- ¼ c prepared horseradish
- salt to taste
- 1 ripe avocado-peeled, pitted and chopped
- Place shrimp in a large bowl.
- Stir in garlic, red onion and cilantro.
- Mix in clamato juice, ketchup, lime juice, hot pepper sauce and horseradish.
- Season with salt.
- Gently stir in avocado.
- Cover and refrigerate 2 to 3 hrs.
- Serve in one large bowl or ladle into individual bowls.
Everything about this recipe was so delicious that I poured the nectar onto taco chips, so as not to miss a single taste.
Kath’s quote: “To make people who have no appetite eat, to make the wit of those who have it sparkle, to enable those who want these qualities to find them — this is the supreme science of a gastronome-host.”-Lucien Tendret
Love-that is all.
