Prawns for Dinner in Cabo

Back to Cabo for a few cooking posts. Given how horrid our weather at home is I just can't let those sunny days go yet I guess.

The sky Mexico sky and our bellies were telling us it was time to fix some dinner.

So when we first hit the resort we typically make a trip to town to buy groceries for our villa for the week. Otherwise only eating and drinking through the resort restaurants makes it a very expensive vacation. There are a few doable supermarkets in Cabo, there is the Mega about 10 miles from our resort in San Jose. The Mega is fine but believe it or not at this supermarket there are all of these men walking around asking to help you at the Mega that you think work at the store but really they are trying to help you into going to visit some other timeshare in town...it's very wild and obviously predatory so we don't go there as often.(you can follow the Mega link to read more about this experienced by others too.)

We usually go 4 miles the other way into Cabo San Lucas to both the Costco & Walmart.

Yes, it's very bizarre that both are there. I like to hit Costco first as they have great deals on liquor, beer, fresh seafood & beef and a few other things here & there. And also being the gringo that I am it's just easy & familiar I suppose. On this trip as most we picked up a couple pounds of their lovely looking jumbo prawns.

Now honestly we are "Non Walmart" shoppers & supporters at home but there it just happens to be right next to the Costco and it's the only "real Supermarket" available in Cabo so we go. We're not proud but we do go. We can easily get the produce, dairy, freshly made tortillas and sope's and most everything we need to make it through the week.

On this particular evening after G prepared our evening cocktail on the patio we thought we'd try a Rick Bayless inspired recipe of the prawns as best we could given the ingredients we had on hand. We were going for a version based on our March 15th posting for : Rick Bayless' Creamy Chicken & Greens with Roasted Poblano and Caramelized Onion but using prawns.

We'll call this Creamy Prawns & Mushrooms with Red Pepper and Carmelized Onion.

I par cooked the prawns first and then put chopped garlic & onion on the cooktop to caramelize.

Now here's the deal in Cabo there are these bizarre laws that ultimately end up benefiting the Cabo community financially and cost the American consumer more $$$. Don't get us wrong we aren't totally complaining, there has to be give & take when we are basically invading their country are catered to.

But 2 bizarre laws that impact us are each trip 1) unless you rent a car you can't arrange any private transportation back to the airport you must take a taxi. You can arrange a shuttle from the airport to the resort but not back. And of course taking a taxi is 2 to 3 times the cost of taking a shuttle. And 2) Time shares cannot have ovens. So even though we upgraded a few years ago to a 1 bedroom to have a full kitchen. A full kitchen in a Cabo time share means a cook top, usually a 4 top at least but this trip our villa only had a 2 top, and a microwave.

So although we can cook for ourselves it's hardly like cooking at home. We don't often miss having an oven because it's hot and who wants a lasagna in 90 degree heat but we always miss having a grill for seafood & meat.

Okay...back to the meal. So this cooktop SUCKED. I swear the burners took forever to even get warm so getting a sear or even getting the onions to caramelize was a task. But we attempted. We then added the mushrooms, jalapeno and red pepper.

Once all the veggies were done we added the prawns, some of G's favorite Mexican salsa and crema. We made some white rice and G prepared a salad.

We opened a bottle of Mexican Chenin Blanc called L.A. Cetto from the Guadalupe Valley. Which is the largest wine growing region in Mexico according to the tasting we attended.

We don't drink as much wine during our Mexico trips as we do at home obviously. But we usually pick up a bottle or two at Costco to have with a meal/s during the week. At some point I get cocktailed and cerveza'd out.

Last June when we came down for a fabulous 10 day stay we did a personal Mexican wine tasting offered through the "wine spa" at the resort. We weren't sure when we first set it up what we would think of Mexican wine but it ended up being a great experience.

 It was just us..on a fabulous terrace on the resort with our own personal sommelier who had a few Mexican Sparkling, White & Red wines ( I think there were 5 or 6 different bottles we tried) and each paired with an amazing dish. We were shocked ...I mean the food ended up being a full meal for us, since it was just the 2 of us the sommelier eventually just left us to enjoy all the food & wines and we were able to drink and take home the rest of the wine. It was quite an event. Obviously we couldn't finish all those bottles that evening but I believe we finished one of the bottles of the sparkling wine and took home a bottle of the Chenin Blanc..which we now know we like & purchased for this meal. Mexican wine is tolerable nothing like we are used to drinking but not non-drinkable either. We usually stick with the white varieties.

This trip G actually won a bottle of Kendal Jackson Chardonnay playing Mexican Bingo at the Owner's Cocktail party so we did drink at least 2 bottles of wine during this trip.

We enjoyed our improvised, Rick Bayless inspired meal on this lovely evening in Cabo very much.

And then we retired to the patio to watch the sunset for the evening. Another perfect night in Cabo for us.