So for my friend’s birthday she requested a Tapas-like dinner. I’ve done something like it before, but this time I really wanted to go with the Spanish feeling. I was also working with two party-goers who’ve had the gastric bypass surgery and need to focus their dining on proteins. Here are some of the dishes I served with notes on how I made things.

Gambas al Ajillo — basically garlic shrimp with a little kick from red pepper flakes. I morphed this a bit by creating a sauce from a Scotch Bonnet pepper, olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar, salt pepper, garlic and some guindillas peppers (Spanish/Basque peppers). Blend that up, grill or roast the shrimp, pour the sauce over the top and call it good.

Mejillones a la Marinera — easy, fast and a hit. Minced onion and garlic in a pan with a light coating of olive oil, once that’s sauteed throw in some rosemary sprigs and a generous amount of Ribeiro white wine, then a pound or two of mussels. Steam them open and serve in a big bowl, drizzling some of the pan goodies on top.

Costillas de Cerdo — pork ribs in a tangy sauce. I used spareribs and had the butcher cut them across the bone so they’d be more of a tapas-sized serving. Made a rub out of sage and pimenton (Spanish sweet paprika), covered the ribs with it, then cooked them in my crockpot for 5 hours on low. I chilled them overnight, so the next day for the pary I could just re-heat and let the sauce cover them — sauce consisted of equal parts mustard and maple syrup, squeeze of lemon juice, some brown sugar and a dash of salt and pepper. This would have been even better if I’d been able to grill the ribs and carmelize the sauce.

Jamón, Queso y Chorizo con Pan — meat, cheese and bread. What’s not to love? The website I will mention below has a perfect slicing chorizo (very different from Mexican chorizo), and instead of bread I found some excellent super-thin flatbreat/cracker/crisps with rosemary in them that complimented the serrano ham, manchego cheese and chorizo beautifully.

I found a lot of what I used at www.latienda.com, and what I didn’t get there I got at Central Market here in Shoreline, Washington. La Tienda packed everything perfectly — I was really pleased with the shipping and service. As a present for my friend, I got a set of 4 tapas bowls from them as well, which are dishwasher safe and very cool.

All in all it was a great meal, and there were plenty of things to interest everyone.