Gluten Free Brownies, Black Bean Casserole, Tandoori Tofu, Margaritas

I cooked up the Gluten Free Brownies the night before we were to have Dan and Serena over for dinner and Wii games. Jeff had gotten all of the groceries together except Amaranth flour, which needed to be purchased at Whole Foods. After driving to Littleton and back to take advantage of 5 cent photo prints at the Kings there; I stopped by Whole Foods. I got a little carried away….along with the flour I left the store with 4 spice plants (chives, basil, parsley and catnip). I am going to attempt to keep them growing on my porch. I also made a stop at Lowes to get pots to plant them in, cilantro and soil (which I now have a huge bag of…anybody need some soil?). I digress. So anyway, I made up the brownies which are gluten free, egg free and dairy free (I assumed they would taste like crap) and got them in the oven. I was cleaning up my mess and putting chip clips on all the different kinds of flours I had to buy. Oh, lookie here, the Amaranth flour doesn’t need to be clipped, good…..no not good! I didn’t open it; I forget it in the recipe! I had just put the brownies in so I pulled them out to try and stir in the flour. And it actually worked! (I know, I was just as surprised as you are). So the brownies were done and I thought I would give a little taste to avoid the embarrassment of serving cardboard to people and I was pleasantly surprised. The brownies were awesome! They tasted just like normal human food. Success!
So, the next day Jeff and I started to cook up dinner. The Black Bean Casserole (Gretchen) is really good, really easy and very balanced (rice, beans, salsa, tomatoes, garlic, onion, green pepper, cheese, and sour cream). Jeff worked on the Tandoori Tofu and rice. I suggested he cut the tofu into cubes and Jeff wanted to do it in strips like chicken (chicken is in the original recipe). I thought that was a little silly as it isn’t chicken; Serena suggested triangles and the crisis was averted…triangles it is! This Tandoori spice rub is SPICY. The kind of spicy that is near unbearable but you can’t wait to go back for another bite. Dan mixed up the Margaritas (ignoring the low recommendation of tequila amount, which I appreciated) and we ate dinner, drank margs and played Wii. The night ended in a game of Cranium that Jeff and I lost miserably, “come on honey, that looks just like a tambourine”. We finished the night with the brownies topped with ice cream and fudge for dessert.