Pollo a la Parilla - 175

Several weeks ago Javier and I made a new batch of limoncello. I know, I know - not exactly Mexican, but bear with me for a moment or two. I learned how to make limoncello, an Italian lemon flavored liqueur, while I was in Argentina last summer, and now we love the stuff. It's not a very complicated process, but rather time consuming. You soak lemon peels in vodka for a couple of weeks, add a simple sugar syrup, let it stand another week (or two) and then strain it through cheesecloth into decanters. It's a wonderful dessert (and digestive) drink.

So, we end up with all of these peeled lemons which we then proceeded to juice. Now we had about 2 cups of straight lemon juice sitting in a jar in the refrigerator, and we start to look for a recipe - a Mexican recipe - that calls for lemon juice. Nothing comes to mind from the years of living in Mexico, and nothing pops out of the cookbooks except for a few fajita marinades that call for lime juice. This reminded us of the fact that we had received the lovely set of Mexican cooking spices from our daughter at Christmas, including on called fajita seasoning. We look on the side of the jar, and there it is...mix the seasoning with some olive oil and lemon juice, marinate the chicken, and grill for fajitas.

We weren't in the mood for the whole fajita routine of grilling the meat, peppers, and onions plus the tortillas, salsa, etc etc, last night, so we just marinaded a ton of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and breasts in the lemon juice / olive oil / fajita seasoning marinade, and then we grilled the chicken and served it along with some grilled calabacitas (Mexican squash). I have to say - that was the best chicken I've had in a long time, and I didn't feel that I was loading on the calories. We ate it hot off the parilla (grill) with the calabacitas and some leftover mashed potatoes.

A friend of ours, Teresa, joined us for dinner last night, so I also made a FLAN for dessert. FLAN is probably the most famous Mexican dessert, and it goes so good as a finish and a flourish to so many Mexican meals. Over the years I have learned to make it with fewer eggs and more nonfat or lowfat milk in attempt to cut the calories.