Food Friday: All Mexican, All the Time

It’s my birthday week and I decided to treat myself by cooking Mexican food for suppers this week.  Here’s a road map to the feasting:

Sunday supper: chicken tacos

This is a go-to celebration supper at Sassafras House, the original comfort food in our world.  A recipe for my chicken can be found here.

Monday supper: burrito bowl

This bowl came together incredibly quickly and was perfectly awesome.  I used red cabbage and leftover guacamole from the day before.  I also used canned black beans that I warmed and spiced up.  I don’t like plain rice, so I used saffron rice from Sunday’s taco supper supper.  I served the bowl with some warmed corn tortillas.  Tasty, easy, delicious and likely to become a staple in this house, the recipe can be found here.

Tuesday: 8 layer dip

Strictly speaking, this dish is Tex Mex but it fit the theme and it’s my birthday, so it qualified.  Plus, JT loves it.  My 8 layer dip features refritos, sour cream, guacamole, chopped tomatoes (the last ones from my garden), grated cheese, green onions, cilantro, and black olives…..in that order.  There are zillions of recipes for layered Tex Mex dip and if you’ve never made it, try this one.

Wednesday:  shrimp quesadilla

As should be clear by now, Simply Recipes is my go-to website for food basics.  The writer is from Sacramento, California, a place near enough my hometown to ensure that her definition of Mexican food meets mine.  I saw this recipe on the website and give it a try.  Tasty and easy to pull together on a weeknight.  Try it!

This week is proof-positive that I could eat Mexican food every day of the week.  Plus, having a theme for the week sure makes the planning part of cooking easier.  Happy Birthday week to me!

Real Life Conversations with T: Regional Awareness edition

The backstory: T and I went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to check out the battlefields and brush up on our Civil War history.  While there, we took the time to stroll through the charming town of Gettysburg, where I sighted a Mexican restaurant.

Me:  That Mexican restaurant looks cute.  I wonder if it’s any good?

Without missing a beat, T issued her response.

T:  In Pennsylvania?

Enough said.  We had supper elsewhere.

On the Pleasures of a Simple Taco

I made chicken tacos for Sunday afternoon’s early supper.  I’ve been making tacos in my kitchen for more than 20 years and the familiar steps of simmering the chicken, grating the cheese, chopping and stirring together the salsa, and preparing the refritos and rice is something I now cook entirely from memory.

As I was pulling Sunday’s supper together, I started to think about all the ways that tacos have featured in my life.  Growing up, it was my favorite supper.  It was always the best school lunch as well.  In the fourth grade, when our brand new house caught on fire, it was the oil my mom was heating to fry taco shells that was to blame.  Tacos were the last homemade supper my mother made before I moved away to college.  When I moved from California to Tennessee, standing in the bread aisle looking for tortillas showed me just how far from home I had travelled.  Turns out that in the rest of America, tortillas aren’t in such high demand, so they stay in the refrigerated section.  Over the years that I have been away from California, I've turned looking for authentic Mexican ingredients into a high art.  

These days, many of my favorite Mexican food ingredients are available locally, thanks to New Jersey’s diversity.   There's a supply of fresh cilantro and loads of chiles in the produce section; tortillas can be found with the rest of the Mexican ingredients and aren't in a refrigerated case.  And homemade tacos are still my favorite meal; they still taste like home.  

Food Friday: Carne Asada

It's been quite a while since I posted a Food Friday recipe and this year I want to get more recipes up on line.  My reasons are mostly practical ----- if I post a recipe (or a link to a recipe) on my blog, it's easier for me to find when I want to make it again.

This week's post is not a recipe of my own making.  But it comes from Simply Recipes and it tastes like home because it's Mexican food.  I make a whole lot of Mexican food (tortillas are a staple like bread at my house) and though beef doesn't make regular appearances at my table, when a craving for beef strikes, this recipe for carne asada is the way to go.  I served it with homemade refritos, Spanish rice, and a corn and black bean salsa that has become a real staple at my house.

Yummy!