4th of July 2010

The peeps and I once again spent another holiday together. The ladies all got together and decided it was to be a paella/sangria worthy celebration. With CHB's folks out of town, and me sitting their house and cats, we had the perfect place to party the night away! (With the parental units blessing of course!)

CHB, Moxie Crimefighter and I headed out the day before to purchase all our ingredients. (Last year I missed out on this so I was SUPER excited to be a part of it). We had already hit Costco the night before.

First stop: Trader Joe's. We needed 10 bottles of  $2 buck Chuck.........We then headed to Mill Creek to go to the Central Market, and enroute decided we HAD to visit Frost Doughnuts. I had tried one of their doughnuts before, but had never been to the store, and CHB and Moxie had yet to experience the true bliss of one. Soooooooo, as we were pulling in to the parking lot of Central Market, what should appear to our right? Why Frost Doughnuts! We made a beeline for the parking spot in front of the door and practically melted once inside the door, it smelled that good!

I ordered the Smokey Bacon Maple Bar and the ladies got an assortment to take home to the family. We decided to eat it right then and there and by the way we were all moaning you would think it was a remake of Harry Met Sally..... seriously!

After we finished our delicious snack we headed across the parking lot to Central Market to find all the essential ingredients to make authentic Spanish Paella. We would our way through the store, eventually ending up at the seafood counter. The very nice fish monger (named Thom) delighted up with samples of this and that. I had never tried seaweed salad and let me tell you, it's good!

We stopped for gas on the way home and I scored a SWEET M&M watch at the gas station........... more on that later. We took all the ingredients to the parents house, less to pack around the next day, and made sure we had all supplies ready to go.



The morning of the 4th comes and we are all prepared to party! First thing on the menu? Make the Sangria! Stat!


All the ingredients get dumped in to a 5 gallon Bubba (thank you Moxie for letting us use your Bubba Keg) snap the lid on and the filling of the cups commences.




Doesn't that look awesome?

After 2 hours of chopping, straining, browning, measuring, swearing, mixing, and laughing, it was time to eat!



And here is the ensalada:



We feasted, laughed, and thouroughly enjoyed ourselves!









The kids had fun too:



Costco: $74
Trader Joe's: $47
Central Market: $100
Paella and Sangria with the peeps: PRICELESS

Comments

Amber said…
I made sangria for the 4th, but not the paella. That sounds delish!!!

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