April Supper Club

A long time ago I was looking to join a supper club/cooking club and was very fortunate to have someone reply to my post on Cooking Light and she said ‘we have dinner on Sunday, this is the theme, feel free to come.’ Almost a decade has passed since then. It’s been amazing!

In the club I am part of, we try to meet about once a month. The host picks the theme, obviously provides the venue, the drinks (wine, beer, soda, etc), and everyone brings a dish. We try to use Cooking Light recipes but it can vary a bit. I tend to use others because Cooking Light isn’t always the lightest. And since I’m lactose intolerant, I can’t find the best ones there. What I laugh at a lot is our ‘cooking light’ idea — yeah, everybody eats what everybody brings — we eat so light by the time we consider portions. It’s awesome! It’s homemade, it has no calories. Just like birthday cake, right?

I was the host for this month and the theme I chose was April Observances — it is crazy how many things are observed. From the ‘normal’ ones like major holidays, to significant ones like Breast Cancer Awareness Month (yes I know it’s not in April). But, did you know that April is Tomatillo and Asian Pear Month, and it also has International Macaroni Day in the calendar on the 23rd. Where do these come from?

Well, I opted for that tomatillo and pear observance that I mentioned. I found a Charred Tomatillo Guacamole recipe to try, as well as a Crunchy Pear Salsa.

To the kitchen I go…

In the guacamole, I had some decent size tomatillos so roasted them for about 20 minutes, vs. about 12-15. Then when mixing everything together, carefully picked out the tomatillo skin because it just sort of sat in the bowl.

In the pear salsa, I was going to substitute Asian pears for the Bosc, because of the observance, but had no luck finding them. Had to stick to the darn recipe!! I didn’t use too much of the (hot) pepper because it can get supper spicy.

I served both of them with lime tortilla chips and baked tortilla chips.