la.foodblogging

(Both recipes found on Epicurious.com, provided below.)

Recently, we invited friends over for a barbecue and margaritas. As much as I love to cook, I prefer to socialize with people when they’re visiting than be sequestered in the kitchen. So I’ve learned over the years to find recipes that can be made ahead of time so that I’m free to sip margaritas and enjoy myself just like everyone else.

That night I made grilled spicy-sweet shrimp with a mint sauce, one of my new favorite recipes, along with chicken sate and peanut sauce, accompanied by a simple cucumber and red onion salad in rice vinegar and Trader Joe’s potstickers. Everything was prepared earlier in the day: the salad, the sauces and the marinades for the shrimp and chicken, so that they could soak up the flavors all day.

While my friends were over that evening, the only food preparation needed was to put the shrimp and chicken on skewers, hand them to my husband for grilling, put the salad and sauces on the table and toss the potstickers around in an oiled pan for a few minutes.

The shrimp were sweet with a bite, which cooled when dipped in the mint sauce - tasting of Indian and Thai influences. I made so many of these skewers, I seriously thought we’d never finish them all, but we did! The shrimp went well with the chicken sate - intensely flavored with the teriyaki-ginger marinade, which were even more flavorful when dipped in the peanut sauce.

Though the preparation (making the sauces) earlier in the day did take a while, I highly recommend my new favorite recipe, the grilled spicy-sweet shrimp and mint sauce - especially for people who enjoy Indian and Thai food, and are more into spending time with friends than cooking alone in the kitchen.