spanish-inspired dinner party

last weekend we invited my brothers & sister-in-law over for dinner to thank them for tirelessly looking at house after house for us while we were in dc.  (searching for a home remotely is not easy, and we were lucky to have some serious real estate help.)  it was exciting to use the dining room for the first time, and we had fun on saturday visiting the local urban harvest farmers market & beautiful new neighborhood h-e-b. cooking together, and all the shopping and prepping that comes with it, is one of our favorite things to do together. and it's much more fun now that we aren't bumping into and falling over each other in an isty-bisty kitchen.


MENU: 
starters:
-spanish tomato toast
-roasted olives a la 2 amys 
-aged manchego with prosciutto & dry coppa

main course:
-shrimp & chorizo paella
-arugula & tomato salad

dessert: 
-arroz con leche 

beverages:
-homemade red wine sangria
-spanish tempranillo wine


i decided to go with a spanish theme mainly because i have always wanted to make paella.  we have a cast-iron dutch oven that ww got for christmas a few years ago.  there was never any room to store it in our tiny kitchens in dc, so it never got used.  now, with an abundance of kitchen storage space, it was the perfect time to pull it out.  the barefoot contessa (my go-to lady) has a great recipe for lobster paella made in the dutch oven. i tweaked it just a bit, substituting fresh gulf shrimp for the lobster, and spicy chorizo for the kielbasa.

this recipe is delicious.  the saffron and pernod give it so much flavor, and it makes your whole house smell amazing.  it is a definite crowd pleaser, and you can put whatever meat/seafood combination you want in it.

the first thing we did was make the sangria, from a bobby flay recipe, on friday night so that it could sit and absorb in the fridge over night.  (and also so we could sneak sips here and there throughout the day.)

on saturday, we peeled the shrimps & ww cooked them in garlic and butter, and then cooked the chorizo right after.  we used the leftover juices from the chorizo to cook in the rice.


next, i arranged a bunch of mixed green and black spanish olives (from the central market olive bar) in an 8-inch pie pan with sliced garlic pieces, slices of lemon, and fennel seeds.  i drizzled it all in olive oil, and sprinkled crushed red pepper on the top.  then put it in the oven for 45 minutes, stirring them around about every 10 minutes.  and viola, we had roasted olives just like my favorite appetizer at 2 amys!


to make the spanish tomato toast, we toasted sliced country bread in the oven until it was crisp, and then rubbed sliced garlic onto the toast while still warm. next, we pressed sliced tomatoes into the bread so that it would absorb the juices.  then, drizzled all the toasts with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.  we put them back in the oven for a few minutes, and then they were ready to be served with our sliced manchego & cured meats.


we cooked the paella while our guests were here, and it was very simple and easy to make. i would definitely reccomend it for feeding a group of people!  for dessert, we made spanish rice pudding, or arroz con leche, from this recipe - which was also delicious! 


this was so much fun, and we had a great time entertaining in the new house and utilizing the new kitchen & dining room.  a very special thanks to brian & samantha for helping us to find this adorable house and with all their help in moving in.  we couldn't have done it without you.

a few recipes that we worked from: