Ensalada de Cangrejo - 97

Spring time and summer always mean that we stop eating so many soups and start eating more salads. We love both soups and salads, so don't mind the trade-off each year as the seasons change. This year Spring has been chaotic. It was announced on the calendar, but out in the real world its arrival has been reluctant. For example, today it is bright and sunny, but the temperatures are just barely in the 50s. Most of last week was dark, raining and cold. One day at the college, my students and I looked out the window, and it was blowing snow. That stopped after about 15 minutes.

Sometimes what seems to be a good idea for dinner in the morning, turns out to be all wrong in the evening. We have defrosted chicken to make a nice hot soup in the evening only to have the temperatures get near 70 later in the day. That chicken usually ends up on the grill. Or, we have bought crabmeat (like this week) and then watched as the temperatures stayed all day in the upper 30s or low 40s. It's been frustrating.

Since we had the crabmeat out, and had bought all of the other ingredients for this Mexican crabmeat salad - ENSALADA DE CANGREJO - we just went ahead and made it. The main ingredients were the crab, diced tomatoes, onions, celery (apio), chiles serranos, chives, lime juice, and a light mayonnaise / yogurt dressing. Muy sencilla y muy deliciosa.

Normally we will eat this kind of salad on a tostada, but since we were watching calories, we just ate it on salad plates accompanied by a glass of cold white wine. For dessert we had some fresh pineapple. This makes a perfect meal for a warm day, so our calculations were off a little, but we still enjoyed it a lot.

Pollo Almendrado - 98

I've had all of the ingredients on hand for this dish for over a month, but just couldn't talk myself into making it. I kept finding other things to do with chicken.

Javier happened to come across the recipe, and after checking to see that we still had all of the ingredients, he decided to make POLLO ALMENDRADO one evening. I still couldn't muster much enthusiasm, but thanked him and then left for work.

When I got home that evening, the garage (which is next to our kitchen) smelled divine as I got out of the car. When I stepped into the kitchen, the aroma was amazing. I couldn't wait to try this POLLO ALMENDRADO recipe that I'd been avoiding for almost a month.

It was really good and really different. It wasn't very spicy, but that was okay because we eat so much spicy food. The sauce was smooth and delicious, and the almonds weren't overwhelming. This is a dish that I would like to make again someday!

Burrito Rojo - 99

...and this one comes straight out of New Mexico from a diner alongside the highway!

We were driving back to Colorado from Texas one year and decided to stop for lunch at a diner sitting out in the middle of nowhere. The waitress talked us into a couple of burritos (the children had already ordered hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches), and then asked us if we wanted red or green chile "smothering" our burritos.

We ordered one of each.

Javier got the green one, which he liked, and I got the red one, which I adored. It was a delicious, thick red sauce full of ground beef and served over a bean burrito. The whole mess was then covered in lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, and grated cheese. I had decided to pass on the sour cream as it might have too many calories - ha!

Javier quickly lost interest in his green burrito and had to have a taste of mine. He finally talked me out of the whole red burrito and I ended up with the green one. It was also good, but not quite as exciting as the red one had been.

We still make both on different occasions, and neither one is better. They're both excellent!

Tacos alemanes / German Tacos - 100

This is the most improbable and multicultural of meals - German tacos. We learned to make these when we lived in Texas the first time (1992-1994) in San Antonio. We attended a nearby chile cook-off, but arrived late and only found a few of the competitors still serving their chile. After sampling a few of the different varieties, which were all good, we discovered that we were still hungry, and headed straight for a taco cart which was doing a brisk business near the chile stands.

The young man making the GERMAN TACOS explained to us that South Texas has a long history of German and Mexican peaceful coexistence. He had taken "the best of both worlds" and combined them into one meal: the taco alemán, or German taco.

The taco part of the meal comes from the tortilla and the hot peppers. The German part comes from the sausage, sauerkraut and mustard. (We sometimes add salsa to make it all even out in terms of the number of Mexican and German ingredients) Any good grilled sausage will do, and this time around we made it with a chicken and jalapeño sausage we'd bought at Trader Joes. We grilled them as we cooked up some canned sauerkraut indoors, and heated some whole wheat /whole grain tortillas on the comal. Once they were ready to assemble, we added some hot German mustard and canned, pickled serrano peppers. Once the picture was taken, we rolled up our tacos, as usual, and devoured them.

Unusual? Yes - but very good, and something different. They're Tex Mex and maybe not very well known outside of Texas, but definitely worth trying sometime!

Chile Relleno de Queso - 101

We've already done CHILE RELLENOS DE PICADILLO, CHILE RELLENOS DE MARISCOS and CHILE EN NOGADA...so what was left to do?

¡Un buen CHILE RELLENO DE QUESO!

Whenever Javier lights up the grill for a barbecue, we always put on some chile poblanos for other meals. We use the green chile strips in egg dishes, in quiche-type dishes, casseroles, and our favorite - any kind of CHILE RELLENO. Since we had already done several varieties using meat, seafood, and a vegetable filling, it was now time for the more traditional variety with a simple cheese filling.

As I've mentioned before, we have given up the old routine of coating the stuffed chiles in an egg batter and then frying them in oil. We now use an egg white batter and "oven fry" them before putting a rich, tomato-based with chile and onion sauce over them. They are really delicious!

This evening's chiles were stuffed with queso fresco before being coated with the egg white batter and baked in a 400 degree oven for about 25-20 minutes. We then served them separately onto a plate, covered them with a tomato, chile and onion salsa, and served some roasted corn (from Trader Joe's) on the side. They were SO GOOD and I cannot wait to repeat this meal someday soon!

Sopa de Lentejas con Albóndigas - 102

Weren't we just making salads a couple of weeks (days?) ago? Here we thought it was Spring, but the cold weather came back in Central Oregon complete with snow, frost and ice this morning.

¡Qué lástima! Time for soups again...

We had some lentils leftover from the last time we made a vegetable-based lentil soup, so this time we decided to make soup with meat. We made some little tiny meatballs - albondigas - with some fresh, natural ground beef from Whole Foods. We didn't have any rice, oatmeal or breadcrumbs to add to them (which is unusual around this house) so we seasoned them instead with diced onions, powdered chipotle, salt, pepper and a little pinch of oregano.

The soup was made this time with a chicken stock base, the lentils (lentejas), carrots, potatoes, onions and celery. I also added a small amount (about 1 T) of diced jalapeño and 1/4 cup of diced tomatoes. We simmered the lentils first in water, and as it cooked away, we added the chicken stock and all of the other ingredients - vegetales, albóndigas, y sazón. It turned out to be a great cold weather soup which we ate for dinner tonight with warm corn tortillas and guacamole.

Now - cold weather, go away!

Mole rojo - 103 - and an update on progress

When I started this project back in October 2009, my original intention was to see if we could eat Mexican food (almost) once a day for the eight months prior to my summer trip to Argentina. I calculated that there were roughly 30 days in a month x 8 months before travel, which equaled 240 meals we'd try and prepare and eat before leaving.

Now I look at the countdown and see that there are 102 more meals I need to eat and write about before my departure date of June 15. In pocas palabras, as they say in Spanish, I have less than 60 days to eat and write about Mexican food 102 more times - IF I stick to my original plan.

That's not to say that I can't eat Mexican food twice a day, which I do most days when you figure in the leftovers and an occasional Mexican breakfast of huevos con migas or quesadillas. Most days at lunch time I sit at my desk and eat Mexican sobras - leftovers from the night before.

And there's the problem: no, I'm not gaining weight from eating so much Mexican food. In fact, just recently I've lost 6 pounds. Es el trabajo. It's my job. Without going into too many details, over the past 7-8 months I've seen my workload increase tremendously. I used to come home and enjoy cooking as an escape or something to look forward to outside of the college, but for the past several months I've been coming home exhausted. On the days when I can find the time and the strength to fix a meal with Javier, I find myself too tired later (or I'm grading papers) and can't find the energy to do the blogging - which, by the way, I love to do.

So, I'm behind in my goal, but will seguir adelante (continue forward) in the hopes that I get near to my goal. If I don't make it by June 15, then I will try and locate Mexican food while I'm in Argentina; I will see what I can find down there to fix for others while I'm staying in a home; or I'll just finish this up once I return. Please continue to read as we continue to cook, eat and enjoy Mexican food every day.

For today, enjoy the picture of the MOLE ROJO. I made this last Sunday for a classroom presentation I was doing for one of the the Literature courses on campus which had just finished reading Como agua para chocolate. I really did enjoy making it, this time with more of the chiles guajillos for a deeper red color. We all had fun eating it last night at the classroom presentation I did on the history of Mexico and its most famous dish, MOLE.

Ceviche y Alcachofa - 104

Lately our weather has been improving, and it finally looks and feels like Spring. So, last night we decided to celebrate with a decidedly Springtime meal which featured cold dishes for our dinner.

The main dish was another version of CEVICHE. The last time we made it, the main ingredient was baby shrimp. This time the recipe we used called from shrimp and bay scallops. The other ingredients in this version of CEVICHE were the usual diced onion, tomato, chile serrano, cilantro, and lime juice. The only seasoning we added was salt.

We like our CEVICHE served on a crisp tostada shell, so we made our own in the oven in order to avoid all of the salt and calories that come with the store-bought variety that are usually fried. They're often made from old corn tortillas, too, and can taste stale if not totally rancid. We took some of our own fresh corn tortillas, sprayed them very lightly with some olive oil, and then baked them until they were crispy enough to hold the CEVICHE on top.

We also cooked a gigantic artichoke - alcachofa en espanol - to eat as a side dish with our tostadas de ceviche. Growing up I was always served artichokes with a little dish of Miracle Whip on the side, which I never liked. I enjoyed going to friends' homes where melted butter or real mayonnaise was served with artichokes. Last night I whipped up my own concoction, a dip made from low-cal mayonnaise with some low cal ranch dressing and chipotle chile powder added for flavor. It was very good, and we are contemplating a repeat of this side dish later this week.

Smothered Burrito - 105

OK, so I've been writing about CHILE VERDE all week because Javier made such a big batch.

Today we decided to finish it off, and to do so, we made some bean and rice burritos, and then smothered them with the CHILE VERDE, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese.

Not only were they very, very good, but they were also very filling. We started with a nice, big warm flour (whole wheat) tortilla, and filled it with some leftover rice and beans before folding it neatly with all of the ends tucked it. We then placed the BURRITO into the middle of a plate, ladled some hot CHILE VERDE over it, and then garnished the whole thing with the shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes and grated cheese. The cheese we used today happened to be a grated Monterrey Jack leftover from the SOPES we made a day earlier.

We've featured a couple of meals lately that owe their existence to leftovers in the refrigerator. I would love to hear some comments about other ways to "spin" leftovers into delicious, Mexican meals!

Sopes - 106

I kept wondering when we'd get to feature SOPES on this blog.

I came home from work one evening, and Javier had been experimenting all day with a combination of recipes he'd found on the Internet to make homemade SOPES for our dinner that evening. He'd done his homework and had taken it upon himself to surprise me with something different that night, something I wasn't expecting.

SOPES are made from the same dough that you can use for making corn tortillas. You can either buy the masa pre-made in a Mexican market, or you can mix your own from a combination of dry masa harina, water and salt. Javier used the latter method.

SOPES start out as thick corn tortillas that you heat on the comal. When they begin to look golden colored, and before they become stiff, you pinch up an edge on them (sort of like a crown) and then return them to the comal to finish the toasting process. At this point, some people remove them and deep fry them in oil - and believe me, they are delicious this way. Javier wanted to keep our dinner healthy and low-cal, so he continued to toast them on the comal and then kept them warm in the oven until I got home from work.

SOPES are assembled in the same way that you assemble a bean tostada: beans, salsa, guacamole, shredded lettuce, tomatoes and/or salsa, and cheese. They are delicious with a nice queso fresco crumbled on top, but this particular evening we only had some grated Monterrey Jack cheese on hand. You can see from the pictures that they look delicious. They were!

Mexican Chef Salad -107

This may seem like a repeat, but it's not. We had some leftover roast chicken, and since we'd both been feeling like we'd been eating a lot of heavy meals lately, we decided to use it in a lighter salad main dish.

We went through the refrigerator and found lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, mushrooms (hongos o champiñones en español) green onions and a bottle of French dressing. We went into the cupboard and discovered a can of kidney beans and a jar of pickled jalapeños. Finally, we decided to toast some tortilla strips, toss everything together with the leftover roast chicken, and call it a Mexican Chef Salad.

The picture you'll see doesn't do it justice because you can't see all of the ingredients tossed together, but it was muy buena. We'd been eating spicy CHILE VERDE for several meals before the salad, so the addition of the pickled jalapeños was just enough spice added to a meal that we enjoyed because of its simplicity, its vegetable content, and the opportunity to clean out the refrigerator and the cabinets a little!

Verde Chile Verde - 108

Javier loves to make CHILE VERDE, and when he does, he usually uses the same ingredients - tomates, chiles, cebollas, cilantro, carne de puerco, caldito de pollo y pocas especias. The result is almost always delicioso and we have taught ourselves to eat CHILE VERDE in many different ways. We smother burritos, eat it in bowls, ladle it over white corn posole, and eat it to the side of arroz. We also serve it over eggs, and then freeze whatever we have left.
I used to know someonewho worked at the Mexican restaurant we worked at that used to eat an enormous quesadilla made with a flour tortilla and tons of cheese topped with CHILE VERDE. He used to ask Javier's kitchen to serve him a little dish on the side, and then he would pour a thin veil of CHILE VERDE over his big quesadilla before eating it all with a knife and fork. I tried it one time, and it was delicious.
Javier wanted to make another round of CHILE VERDE this week with part of a pork tenderloin that we had not used from a previous meal, and so I asked him to do something different. I asked him to make it very very verde.
This time he made his usual recipe, but instead of tomates, he made it with tomatillos. He had also cooked up some frijoles pintos, but not knowing how I wanted to eat the VERDE CHILE VERDE, he also cooked up some posole de maíz blanco and let me choose. I went for the Javier couldn't make up his mind, so he ladled his portion over posole y frijoles. Then he topped it with some grated queso fresco before eating it all.

King Ranch Casserole - 109

Not exactly Mexican from Mexico, this classic casserole is very popular in Texas and appears at many potlucks and family reunions. When we lived in San Antonio and later in Houston, you could always count on at least one - and often several - King Ranch casseroles at school and church potluck suppers.

The main ingredients in any King Ranch casserole are cooked chicken, tortillas, some kind of cream-of-something soup (or cream sauce), tomatoes, onions, chiles and cheese. There are any number of deviations and additions, such as corn, sliced olives, different kinds of cheese, and tortilla chips (or Fritos) instead of corn tortillas. As long as the resulting casserole is both creamy, cheesy, slightly spicy, and piping hot, it's all good.

I have several recipes for King Ranch casserole as well as many others for a variety of Mexican casseroles that call for ingredients that one can typically find in popular dishes such as tacos, tostadas, enchiladas and tamales. I even have a recipe somewhere for a quesadilla casserole. They are all calorie-laden, including the ones that claim to be "light." They're usually easy to fix, however, and if you have an aversion to canned creamed soups, you can make your own white sauce and season it however you wish.

Ensalada Mexicana - 110

When I was in Mexico for extended periods years ago, I could count on one hand the number of times I ate salad. In fact, whenever I'd return to the US, one of the first things I'd do was either make a salad, or order one in a restaurant - even in an airport on a stopover on my way home! One of the reasons for not eating salads had to do with an old taboo on eating any kind of vegetables that hadn't been baked, boiled, or stripped of a thick, outside peel. Raw root vegetables such as radishes and carrots were to be avoided altogether. Lettuce and tomatoes were, of course, off-limits because they're not cooked for salads, which usually left cucumbers one of the few raw salad vegetables that could be eaten because of the removal of its thick peel.

Another reason for not eating salads was the fact that they weren't on many menus, and none of the homes I stayed in ever offered them as part of a meal. The usual offerings of salads on restaurant menus included potato salads, marinated vegetable salads, and a small number of pasta salads. One home I stayed in made a very simple potato salad made with boiled potatoes, mayonnaise, a drained can of peas and carrots, and some salt - period. Green salads just weren't popular when I was in Mexico, and even if they became popular over the years, I was never offered many.

I remember being taken to a wonderful Italian restaurant in Guadalajara that had an enormous salad bar and wondering if I should go ahead and eat the salad. I did, and there were no problems following that dinner.

So, when I located a recipe for a Mexican salad made with Romaine lettuce, cooked beets, diced avocado and queso fresco I thought - why not? - and made it for our dinner one night. The recipe called for fresh beets to be roasted in a foil packet with a little balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Ours burned a little, but it gave them a special flavor. I made the salad and tossed it with a homemade balsamic vinegar dressing, and it was amazing. I just happened to have company that evening, and I think everyone enjoyed this salad as much as I did.

Pork Tenderloin in an Orange Chipotle Sauce - 111

This is a totally new and different recipe culled from the pages of a very old Bon Appetit magazine that featured mostly Mexican recipes years ago. We had a pork tenderloin sitting in the freezer, so decided to give it a try.

I'm glad we did because it was delicious and completely different than other meals with meat we've been cooking. It went like this: Javier grilled the tenderloin (lomo) on the grill and I cooked the sauce, which was a combination of shallots, chicken broth, orange juice, canned chipotle chiles, chives and cilantro. The sauce took a little work in terms of dicing the ingredients and then keeping an eye on it so it didn't reduce to nothing, but it was worth it. Once the pork was grilled to medium well, we sliced it onto a large plate (pictured) and gently poured the ORANGE CHIPOTLE SAUCE over it.

On the side, we had some grilled sweet potato slices and sauteed mushrooms. For dessert we had the BUDÍN DE MANGO that I wrote about (and made) the day before. This recipe is one we will repeat, although probably in some more elegant context, such as a holiday meal or for company.

Budín de Mango - 112

Not really a meal, but a unique dessert... I learned to make BUDÍN DE MANGO several years ago in Morelia, México when I was there with a group of students. We were offered cooking lessons, but they were set up differently than other cooking classes I'd been to. First the students' instructor would walk them to the market where each student would purchase some item that was to be used in the cooking class that day. This encouraged their use of the language. Then the students were walked to a private home where either the lady of the house - la ama de casa - or her trusted housekeeper would then give the students a cooking lesson using the ingredients that had been purchased earlier in the mercado.

The day I accompanied the students, we arrived at the home of Señora Raquel, who first sat us down for some entertaining chatter, and then turned us over to her housekeeper to give us a cooking lesson on SOPA TARASCA and BUDÍN DE MANGO. I've already featured SOPA TARASCA in an earlier post, so thought it was high time for the dessert recipe.

Basically, BUDÍN DE MANGO is very simple. You cut several ripe mangoes into chunks and put them in the blender. You add crema fresca (not sour cream), some vanilla, and a little bit of sugar. You puree the ingredients until they're smooth, and then pour the mixture into individual dessert cups and refrigerate until the BUDÍN is set. Crema fresca is quite fattening, so I made ours this evening with some fresh, nonfat yogurt. I licked the spoon after making it for our dessert this evening, and it tasted just fine.

(Otra) Sopa de Pescado - 113

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine sent me a recipe for a fish and shrimp soup that looked a lot like our recipe for Caldo Michi. The main differences were the addition of potatoes and celery, the shrimp, white wine, and the method of cooking.

On the scanned recipe that my friend, Susan, sent me was the notation that out of a possible 10 points, someone had given this recipe a 12.5. I knew I had to try it. If you haven't noticed by now, soups are one of my favorite meals!

This turned out to be not just a soup but a very filling and elegant meal. The soup - which was full of potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, jalapeño peppers and tomatoes - was very rich and delicious. The shrimp and fish went into the simmering soup towards the end of the cooking process, and helped the flavor and texture reach a crescendo. We served it as we usually serve Mexican soups with diced avocados and limes on the side.

This one's a keeper. We will definitely serve it again as we would any traditional Mexican main-dish soup. Thank you, Susan, for sending this recipe to me!

Tacos al pastor / borrego - 114

We had some delicious leftover leg of lamb to use up from a meal we had while my mother was visiting. One of her favorite things to eat is lamb, so while she was here, Javier grilled a boneless leg of lamb from Costco, and now we had the leftovers to contend with.

The whole idea of a taco is to put anything you like into a warm corn (or flour) tortilla and eat it that way. It's the same principle of putting anything between two slices of bread and calling it a sandwich. I've seen just about everything but desserts put into tortillas and eaten at mealtimes, so the idea of warming up leftovers and recycling them into another meal is not that weird.

So we had this leftover boneless leg of lamb and decided to dice it, warm it up and serve it in tacos in a "style" that's called AL PASTOR. When meat is served AL PASTOR - or shepherd style - it means it will be served with diced onion, cilantro and maybe a little salsa that you have on hand. The key ingredient is the fresh, warm tortilla.

This simple meal turned out well. I had 3 TACOS AL PASTOR, and later in the evening helped Javier finish up a small portion of FLAN that was also left over from my mother's visit. It was not what you'd call a remarkable meal, but very filling and delicious.

Calabacitas rancheras - 115

The other day I got a real good deal on some zucchini squash, so I bought a little over a pound and brought it home to see what I could do with it that would fit into our Mexican Menu.

I had marked a zucchini recipe in my old Diana Kennedy cookbook and decided that now was the time to try it. I had all of the ingredients on hand - zucchini, white onions, garlic, and charred and peeled chili poblanos. I also had defrosted some boneless, skinless chicken thighs (muslos) and decided that we would grill them on the side.

CALABACITAS RANCHERAS is very similar to a dish that we used to eat all the time when I lived in Guadalajara, but the one we ate then also had fresh corn off the cob (elote) thrown into the mixture for good measure. This recipe was so incredibly simple, the hardest part being the chopping of so many zucchinis, an onion and three cloves of garlic. The charred and peeled chiles had been done weeks ago and frozen, so that made things easy.

As you can see, I served the CALABACITAS with a little queso fresco sprinkled on top, with the grilled muslos, and with some fresh and warmed corn tortillas. It was an excellent, easy meal - low on calories and high on flavor! The picture on the right shows the calabacitas as they were cooking, and the smaller picture to the left shows the dish we served at the table with the queso fresco crumbled on top.

Sopa de almejas - 116

Weeks ago while planning meatless Friday meals, I bought a couple of cans of clams and some beautiful organic wheat pasta to make linguine with clam sauce. Initially the only thing troubling me about this meal was whether I was going to make white clam sauce or red clam sauce.

As someone who tries to eat very little flour in my meals, the idea of a big plate of pasta began troubling me. And, as someone who writes a blog on trying to cook and eat Mexican food each day, the idea became even more disturbing.

I got out one of my older cookbooks to look up clams - almejas in Spanish - and most of the recipes featured clams in their shells - steamed, in paella-like dishes, or in seafood soups or stews. Just as I was beginning to give up on the idea of using my canned clams for a Mexican meal, I came across this recipe, SOPA DE ALMEJAS from Baja California, México.

My initial excitement over this dish was due to the fact that the clams would be cooked in a broth with vegetables and not in a thick, creamy chowder like the American version. My second surprise came when I realized that I had all of the ingredients on hand and wouldn't have to run out to buy anything else. I also noticed that this recipe didn't include any kind of chiles in the cooking process which made it the ideal choice for our dinner last night while Mom is still here.

Preparation was easy as the ingredients are simple: olive oil, garlic, onions, celery, potatoes, chicken broth, canned clams and their juice, and either chopped parsley or cilantro. From start to finish it only took 30 minutes. The final surprise came when we ate it served with limes and sliced jalapeños. Now, this was no CALDO MICHI with lots of different flavors, textures and spices, but it was a very good soup on a cold Friday night, the last meatless Friday in Lent.

When I make it again, I will add carrots for color.

Chipotle Chile Brownies - 117

Not really a meal, but something different for dessert.

The other day I bought some powdered chile chipotle and it came with this recipe. I decided to try it as it looked so unique.

The brownies were definitely spicy, but they needed more chocolate and less ginger. I was able to taste the ginger more than the chile chipotle although it's definitely there.

The next time I make these - and I will - I will cut back on the ginger, add more chocolate (and maybe some chocolate chips) and finish them off with a dusting of powdered sugar. It's a really good idea, but for my tastes, it needs work.

Tostadas vegetarianas - 118

It was time to clean out the refrigerator. Javier had cooked too many frijoles pintos a few days before when he made the excellent FAJITAS, and there was a variety of salsas, cheeses, and an almost overripe avocado that all needed using up. We decided to turn leftover night into VEGETARIAN TOSTADA night at our dinner table.

I know I've said this before, but TOSTADAS are one of my favorite Mexican meals. Just the other day Javier and I decided to lump people into categories, by their love of either an enchilada, a taco, a burrito or a tostada as their favorite meal. Javier definitely loves wrapping things up in flour tortillas and calling it a burrito; our daughter, Erica, loves enchiladas, especially cheese ones; and I am a tostada lover. I also have a friend in Colorado that awaits our visits every year so that we can make a meal of chicken tostadas at her dinner table. Where my other kids stand on their favorite Mexican food is a mystery. I'm going to poll them.

But back to the VEGETARIAN TOSTADAS...Javier mashed the remaining frijoles pintos, made a fresh guacamole (and the avocado turned out to be just fine and not overripe), and we used up two jars of commercial salsa in addition to some queso fresco that we had crumbled earlier in the week. We also diced some tomatoes, chopped some lettuce, and baked rather than fried our remaining corn tortillas. Dinner was delicious and today our refrigerator looks more organized!