tony curtis blessed my little pea-pickin' heart.

yesterday our pal mikey and his friend jill came over for an afternoon grill, and we made SUCH good stuff! i wanted to do a mexican cookout theme, so i read through a few bobby flay recipes to get some ideas and then just bought a bunch of fresh ingredients like tomatillos (which are kind of like green tomatoes), cilantro, avocados, etc: we basically all just played around with the ingredients, and it was so much fun. mikey made a KILLER sauce and manned the veggies and tortillas on the grill, pants grilled up the chicken, jill made like, the best guacamole i ever ate, and i cooked up some rice and bossed everyone around like i usually do. the combo of everything was sooo good! this was one of my favorite meals i've had in a LONG time, and one you should definitely try for summer!

here's the official menu:
DINNER
grilled chicken tacos with honey lime tomatillo salsa (recipe below) and quesa fresco cheese in grilled corn and flour tortillas (we actually forgot to put the cheese out, but the tacos were so yummy they didn't even need it!)
guacamole (recipe below) and chips
cilantro lime rice (recipe below)

DESSERT
super adorable waffle cones filled with vanilla ice cream, homemade caramel sauce, sugared strawberries, and topped with cinnamon-sugar crisps (recipe below)
(the caramel sauce i make is pants' absolute fave - i don't measure anything when i make it, so i need to figure out the exact ingredients and then i'll post the recipe in a few days.)

DRINKS
mikey's margaritas
lemonade for the kiddoshoney lime tomatillo corn salsa
mix together:
2-4 grilled tomatillos, chopped
half of a grilled red onion, chopped
1/4 cup corn salsa OR a handful of plain corn plus 1/4 cup regular chunky salsa (we used the corn chili salsa trader joe's makes, which i love)
1/4 cup tomatillo salsa (again, from trader joe's)
2 cloves of garlic
3/4 cup cilantro
a few drizzles of honey (to taste - depends how sweet you want it)
juice of half a lime

my new favorite guacamole
gently fold together:
3-4 super ripe avocados, mushed with a fork
half a red onion, minced
juice of half a lime
1/2 cup cilantro
1 clove garlic (optional)
2 tablespoons sour cream (optional)
salt, to taste

cilantro lime rice
mix together:
2 cups white rice, cooked (i just made this in my rice cooker)
juice of 1 lime
handful of cilantro, chopped
1/2 tomato, chopped
salt, to taste

cinnamon-sugar crisps
preheat your oven to 400 degrees. cut a few flour tortillas into triangles, brush with melted butter, and sprinkle on some mixed sugar and cinnamon. pop them in the oven for a few minutes until crisp. we stuck these cute little triangles on our ice cream cones and they looked sooo cute! (although of course i totally forgot to take pictures! oh well!)