Carne Asada

     Continued from yesterday...
     On Saturday we had a carne asada, or Mexican barbecue, at Claire and Miguel's place.
     Carne asada also refers to the meat - carne asada - which is made from skirt steak marinated with spices and olive oil then cut into slices, cooked on a grill, and often served up in tacos.
      The plan was that Miguel's mom, Lolita,

...would oversee the preparation of  the carne asada, the home-made tortillas for tacos, and all the sides and fixin's, while I'd be in charge of - what else? - the desserts.  In fact, as my cherry almond streusel pie had been requested in advance, I schlepped along 4 cans of Kroger red tart cherries on the Megabus, since I've not yet been able to find in Chicago this essential ingredient for my pie.

      As the guests - a group of Miguel and Claire's friends - were invited for 2 pm we had to hit the ground running on Saturday morning to get the shopping and cooking done in time.
       But first breakfast, of course.
       Tom and I woke up early and headed out  around 7:30 am from our hostel back to the Bongo Room (see yesterday's post), hoping to beat the Saturday morning breakfast crowd.
       But crowded and lively as the streets of Wicker Park had been the previous night, this morning they were empty and quiet.

     Along the way we passed a vintage phone booth, which appeared to have state-of-the-art working innards.  Probably not many of these left on the planet, right?

     The traffic was so light that I was able to stand in the middle of the street and get a couple of good city shots.

      Anyway, between the empty sidewalks and the empty streets I guess it shouldn't have come as a complete surprise that most of the stores and restaurants in the area weren't yet opened, including The Bongo Room which, as it turned out, didn't open until 9 am.
       It is me, or does that seem kind of late for a breakfast joint to open?
     Oh well I guess in this neighborhood of the 3 am cookie crowd nobody gets up early for breakfast on a Saturday morning. 

     No problem, though, we found ample nourishment at a very nice -  and  - empty Dunkin Donuts.

   After breakfast Claire and Miguel picked up Tom, me, and the cherries and drove us to their place, where we met up with the others and formulated a battle plan.

     After a shopping trip to a local Mexican market, which was the best place to find skirt steak for carne asada, we returned to Claire and Miguel's and got to work, Lolita on the marinading of the meat,

​...with a rub made from salt, lemon pepper, paprika,  and olive oil.
        Lolita also made a fresh pico de gallo salsa  with tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and a jalapeno pepper from Claire and Miguel's garden,

...and home-made corn tortillas,  cooked on a lightly-oiled  griddle.

​    Getting a second and third opinion on the tortillas,

...which came out beautifully.

     I also got to work on the desserts,

...with the help of sweet Brisa,

​...who also helped with the tortillas, the meat, and just about every job that needed to be done.
​     Along with two cherry almond streusel pies,

​...I also made a peach pie,

...a fruit salad for which Lolita cut the watermelon shell into a beautiful bowl,

​...and, as blueberries were on sale at the market that morning, a batch of blueberry bars. (See post from  7/6/2016 for the recipe)

     As the guests started arriving, we started setting out the hors d'oeuvres,

​...including a yummy guacamole brought by Josh, one of the guests.

​       Turned out the desserts were fair game, too.
​       Then Carlos went to work grilling up the carne asada and some tasty zuchini-kebobs,

​...to go with the other sides of black and red beans.

     We set out a butcher block on which people could  cut up the carne asada, the better to fill a tortilla with.

     A good - and delicious - time was had by all.

To be continued...