The past few weeks we’ve had the opportunity to cook at other people’s houses, which is always a fun change of pace.  I find cooking outside my own kitchen to sometimes be a challenge – What do you mean you don’t have a potato ricer!? – but also fun because many friends have kitchens larger and more geared to socializing than mine.

Over Songkran we went to Ko and Per’s house.  Ko was Tawn’s university classmate and her husband, Per, is from Sweden and moved here late last year.  We decided it would be fun to try and make Swedish meatballs although we didn’t have a specific recipe and I’m not sure any of us knew what we were doing. 

Nonetheless, we intuited our way through it, and wound up with something that despite looking kind of gloppy, tasted good and seemed close to the real deal.  At least that’s what Per said.  Maybe he was just being polite.

Ko takes pictures of the meal: Swedish meatballs, roast potatoes, mixed green salad, and I think we made spaghetti with meat sauce, too.  It was tasty and, more importantly, the company was wonderful.

Tawn and me after a dinner of Swedish meatballs.  Compare that to our picture on the beach after the rough 30-minute ride on an unpaved road on Kauai!

The following week I went to cook at another friend’s house.  Chow, who is the author of the must-buy and use guide Bangkok’s Top 50 Street Food Stalls, invited friends over to cook Mexican food in honor (kind of) of the upcoming Cinco de Mayo holiday.  Never mind that we were a bit early.  Unfortunately, Tawn was not able to make it.  That didn’t stop us from having fun, though, and making too much good food.

Enchiladas stuffed with avocado and smothered in red sauce and cheese sauce.  Tasty!

Chicken enchiladas baked in a homemade mole poblano sauce.  Pronounced “mo-lay”, this sauce has cocoa powder in it, lending an unexpected flavor to its spiciness.

For my contribution, I resurrected a recipe for fish tacos from Michael’s blog, using his avocado cilantro lime sauce.  This sauce just goes perfectly on fish tacos!

And finally, a random picture not related to cooking with friends.  We had a visit from Ty, someone who was a very active member of the Xanga community under the username Just2Tyght when I first started almost six years ago.  We met in person several years back in SF and while Ty has gone AWOL from Xanga, we’ve stayed in touch through other channels.  Glad we had the opportunity to meet here in Bangkok.

Coming up soon… caramel rice flan.