Camila’s Welcome Ceremony

Last Sunday it was Camila’s Welcome ceremony. I was going to make empanadas, but the store where I usually buy he shells was out of shells for baking, they only had the frying kind. My mom thought I should try them nonetheless but I figured it was easier to change the menu.
I decided to go with a Maghrebi theme and cook a couple of past favorites. The piece the resistance was a Chicken Tagine with honey and apricots. This was one of the first dishes I learned to cook, soon after I got married, and for many years was one of my staples at dinner parties. I’ve been on the cooking by the alphabet kick for several years now, so I hadn’t made it in a long time, and I knew it’d be a hit. It was, though I overcooked it a little and the chicken was a tad dry. But the sauce is to die for!
I doubled the recipe, but used only 1 1/2 times the butter it calls for.
I also made an Algerian soup, from which I ommitted the chicken so it’d be vegetarian. It was a much less popular choice.
I also served bread, pita bread & crackers with hummus, brie, pate and salame and for dessert we had ice cream cake from Baskin Robins.