Fish Dinner Party

One of the main reasons to upgrade the camera was to try and do more cooking blog entries.  Sooooo, that has really yet to happen, but then one day my friends and I had a spontaneous dinner party.  It was really great because everyone pitched in and cooked something as opposed to most of my dinner parties where I do all the cooking, which makes picture taking pretty impossible.  

Big Fishy, Fat-Skinny-Fat-Less Fat, and Fairius (previously known as Dairy Queen) woke up at the butt crack of dawn to go fishing at Irvine Lake.  Who knew a man made lake had fish for the catching, let alone the eating?  Contained bodies of water always kinda creep me out and add to that the man made component?  Ugh, what could those fish be eating?  Where is all their waste products going?  Nowhere!  Anyways, no point in contemplating these things since the fish has long since been enjoyed and digested.  So those guys caught some delicious trout which Big Fishy prepared.  Fat-Skinny-Fat-Less Fat manned the potatoes and brought a side of his mother's homemade kimchi.  Fairius roasted the Brussel sprouts, which he never gets to eat in Thailand, his current home, because they are so damn expensive.  I took over the cauliflower.  Sleepy Snoozy and Big Fishy's wifey pitched in and helped clean up.

Garlic Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

Do you ever get small random chunks of butter leftover after cooking or baking something else?  Well I had one of those so I just threw it in to finish the potatoes at the end.  Everyone's eyes bugged out at the amount of butter I just tossed in there, but nobody had a darn complaint about those delicious potatoes.  There's a reason butter and better only different by one letter.  Where is my winky face emoji when I need it?!

The secret to delicious making homemade food look appetizing in pictures is presentation.  Color is key!  I sprinkle green anything over as many finished dishes as I can.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Super simple preparation.  Olive oil, salt, pepper.

Fairius made a point of making sure all the sprouts were roasted flat side down to make sure each guy got some good color.

Fried Cauliflower with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette
Deep frying vegetables just might be the best way to defile a thing that starts out so inherently healthy.  I modeled my dish after David Chang's recipe.

Golden florets!  I really need to buy a deep fryer because frying it stove top like this makes it difficult to maintain the heat and the vegetables spend much more time in the oil than they should.  It gets too oily if you can believe that.

So you're supposed to use mint and/or cilantro to add not just color but brightness to the dish which I did not have on hand.

Mama Fat-Skinny-Fat-Less Fat's Homemade Kimchi 
Fat-Skinny-Fat-Less Fat mentioned that Sleepy Snoozy needs to learn how to make this for their future generation to enjoy.  Sleepy Snoozy does what she does best.  Well, sleeping is what she does best OBVIOUSLY, but she's also REALLY great at rolling her eyes at the stupid sh*t that comes out of Fat-Skinny-Fat-Less Fat's mouth.

Roasted Lemon Garlic Trout 

The fish was cooked to perfection.  It was so moist and tender.  Big Fishy knows how to cook the fishies obviously.  

We Asian, so of course we had to have some rice!

I'm looking forward to having some more dinner parties in the near future so stay tuned.  Unfortunately, Fairius probably won't be making any future appearances since he lives, literally, an ocean away and has zero plans of coming home to be around friends and family like EVER.  But the rest of us will be around for many years to come.  Surely with time, our our culinary creativity will soon outgrow our appetites.  Or not...