Mexican wedding cookies and a new year feast

The start of 2013 wasn't great - a monster hangover followed by a bout of nasty stomach bug.

Still, the tail-end of 2012 wasn't too bad - I got to cook for my boyfriend, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend. They're a lovely bunch, and my other half's brother gave me a seven-inch called Flickin' Vs by The Spivs, which impressed me no end.

So, I wanted to cook up something decent for them, and a spare can of refried beans in the cupboard and a bag of chiles in the fridge whispered gently that I should get a Central American theme going on.

Alas, in all the making, I neglected to take any photos. So you'll have to take my word for it that I cooked up an awesome feast: nachos with cashew queso, salsa and Sour Supreme; pupusas with a pinto pecan fireball filling (largely borrowed from 1,000 Vegan Recipes); spicy potato wedges, seitan ribs and Mexican wedding cookies.

The feast worked out well - no one went hungry and no one winced at anything I put on the table! I'm not sure the pupusas were an out and out success - every recipe I saw said the ratio for the pupusa dough is one cup of masa harina to half a cup of water.  But, after I used half a cup of water, I had to keep adding more more and more water as the dough seemed too dry and would crack when I tried to roll it out.

Still, it wasn't bad for a first attempt and I'll give it another go before too long - and maybe make some curtido to go with it.

My favourite bit of the meal though was the wedding cookies. Oh yes. So fluffy, so crumbly, so pecan and walnutty. WIN. I've only ever had Mexican wedding cookies once before, so I've no idea how well these ones measure up against the real thing, but they were lovely nonetheless.