Mexican Menu 240

So, we're sitting at our dinner table here in Bend, Oregon and as we're finishing our dinner of GREEN MOLE over grilled chicken breast, we're wondering why we don't eat Mexican food more often. It's delicious, it's not that hard to fix, it can be extremely economical (depending on what you fix) and it can always be nutritious if you avoid certain ingredients (lard), techniques (frying) and stick to certain basics (not using large amounts of sour cream and/or melted cheese on your finished product).

We love good Mexican food and want to eat it more often. But more than that, we want to share our love and knowledge of Mexican food with others.

I learned to cook Mexican food as a 15-year old doing a study abroad program in Mexico years ago. My husband learned to love Mexican food as a Mexican growing up in Guanajuato in a rural area where ingredients were varied, cheap and plentiful.

We've always eaten 2-3 Mexican meals a week. Most of them have been at home, and some have been in restaurants.

As we were eating our GREEN MOLE, we decided to test ourselves: could we eat Mexican food every day of the week for the next 8 months? And, could we find all of the ingredients we'd need for real Mexican food here in Central Oregon? Could we have one day off per week, and did we need to eat three Mexican meals per day?

We've decided to challenge ourselves, and these are the ground rules: Dinner has to be Mexican food every evening but one per week. Even Mexicans living in Mexico occasionally eat a hamburger, pizza or fried chicken. There are only two of us, but we'll make enough food so there will be leftovers for lunch the next day. Breakfast should also be Mexican whenever possible.

Follow our progress, and I promise to post recipes, food sources, ideas and solutions to the breakfast problem. Whenever I write out the name of a dish in CAPITAL LETTERS, just ask me for the recipe if you'd like me to post it.

By the way, I also teach Spanish full time, so feel free to ask me any questions you have about coooking vocabulary and the Spanish language. ¡Buen Provecho!