Cookin' and Brewin'

We've had a couple of busy weekends that have involved brewing and lots of cooking and eating. Last weekend Troy and I brewed a hefeweizen in anticipation of our friend Aaron's visit this month. Brewing takes a decent amount of time, and unfortunately we haven't done much of it in the past 3 years that we have lived in Virginia. But it's such a fulfilling process, especially now that we have a keg and don't have to wait as long for it to be ready as we did when we had to bottle it all. Here's a pic of Troy stirring the brew.
Also last weekend, our friend Dave had us over to make and eat pasta again. This time there was a huge group of people participating, making it even more fun. We drank a ridiculous number of bottles of wine and ate gigantic portions of tasty pasta and 4 different desserts. I didn't help much with the cooking, as there were already a number of cooks in the kitchen, but I did get to play with our friends Peter and Jaimee's incredibly cute little boy, Ian.

Here's Sarah and Ian.
Nick, Alli, Aurie and Peter - hard at work on the pasta.
Nick displaying the goods.
Dave and Jaimee - overseeing the pasta cooking.
Troy and Steve - standing around drinking beer.
Mmmmmm.....the reward.

This weekend I've been busy harvesting our garden. Our tomatoes didn't do well at all but we have had a number of beautiful and tasty peppers: serranos, poblanos, sweet Italian reds, and regular bell peppers too. The basil has done pretty well too.
Last night we prepared a Mexican feast with the help of Peter and Jaimee. Here they are with Ian, who kept coming into the kitchen while I was cooking and saying "HI Yissa!!" It was adorable.
Peter and Jaimee brought yummy shrimp ceviche for an appetizer.

Here's the ceviche. It was so pretty--hard to take a pic that does it justice.

It's a good thing we had an appetizer, because it took a very long time to make the chile rellenos and get all the other fixings together too. Troy made fancy blue margaritas with salty foam on top--they were fabulous. I have to admit, it was an outstanding dinner--worth the wait. I was so anxious to eat that I forgot to take a picture of the full spread!