Javier's Beef Fajitas - 118

This is one of our very best recipes, although I should not include myself in the creativity or preparation category. Javier gets all of the credit for this one!

It's simple: he marinates one big skirt steak in a special recipe of his own that is part soy sauce, water, olive oil, garlic and pepper, then grills it slightly, thinly slices the meat, and finally stir fries the meat quickly with peppers, onions and mushrooms. Javier's FAJITAS are the best!

At the table we serve the FAJITAS with guacamole (por supuesto), salsa, queso, tortillas and a side of FRIJOLES CHARROS, which we featured in an earlier blog. I usually eat two tacos made from a corn tortilla, FAJITAS, peppers, onions, guacamole and salsa. I eat the beans on the side and am stuffed when I finish.

Last night's FAJITAS were no exception. They were fantásticas!

Sobras - Enchiladas y ensalada con Quinoa - 119

We had so much pollo left over from dinner the other evening that we were faced with three choices: enchiladas de pollo, tostadas de pollo, o burritos de pollo? We let my Mom choose since she will only be here for another 6 days, and she went for the enchiladas. Making the sauce was no big chore since we had some of the peanut sauce left over from dinner the other evening. We did a few things to it, like adding some tomato sauce and some more chipotle chile powder, but that was about it.

Last night we attended a potluck and took along a quinoa salad. For those of you not familiar with quinoa, it is a grain from the South American highlands that is now available in almost any supermarket. It is easy to cook, and because it doesn't have a whole lot of it's own flavor, it lends itself easily to being mixed with other ingredients. Last night I made a friend of mine's recipe for Quinoa Salad and added diced cucumber, red onion, chopped fresh mint leaves, parsley, and some dried cranberries. I then tossed it all in a light combination of lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Quinoa is NOT a typically Mexican dish, but it was yummy and went well with the enchiladas and some guacamole that Javier made at the last moment.

Dinner was a spontaneous, unplanned meal, which, as we all know, sometimes are the best!

Pechugas de pollo en salsa de Cacahuate - 120

OK, so it seems like we're eating a lot of chicken lately, but we're not. In between the grilled chicken (POLLO A LA PARRILLA) several days ago and this latest dish using chicken breasts (PECHUGAS) we had been eating other things that Mom liked and that weren't Mexican.

I decided to spring this one on her and see how she liked it. It's an old recipe out of one of my old Diana Kennedy cookbooks, and it is GOOD. The main ingredients besides the PECHUGAS are peanuts (cacahuates), tomatoes, garlic, onion, and chipotle peppers. For Mom's protection, I only added one rather than 2-3 chipotles that are called for in the recipe.

We served the finished PECHUGAS DE POLLO EN SALSA DE CACAHUATE with some brown rice on the side and some hot corn tortillas. Before dinner we had some guacamole with tortilla chips. All three of us - even Mom - liked the PECHUGAS and agreed that the amount of chile chipotle was just right. I think it could have used more peanuts and a bit more garlic, too. I would make this dinner again in a flash - for company, for a potluck or just for the two of us!

Pollo a la Parrilla - 121

Here's a Mexican dish that is Mom-friendly, the kind that isn't too spicy, greasy, or exotic looking for the over 85 crowd.

Javier fixes a wonderful fajita marinade from a recipe he's used for years. I think he learned it back in the 1980's when he still worked in a Mexican restaurant, and it has served us well. It's very simple, and as always, I am happy to provide it to readers if you'd like me to. Just write in the comment section and ask!

So, Mom wanted chicken, but not chicken breast, which is what (she claims) they serve every day in the retirement home. She wanted chicken she could taste. We bought some boneless, skinless thighs, marinaded them in the fajita marinade most of the day, and then grilled them that evening with some sliced sweet potato (camote in Mexico, batata in most parts of South America), zucchini (calabaza) and eggplant (berenjena). The day had been warm, perfect for cooking dinner on the parrilla. We all enjoyed our pollo, vegetales y vino blanco and served a simple salsa to the side for those who wanted it.

Ensalada de taco - 122

The quality of this picture does not match the quality of this meal. This is an old recipe that was given to me years ago by a woman I worked for in Denver, Colorado. She called it Mexican Chef Salad, but most people know it as TACO SALAD.

One of the first times Javier had dinner with me when we were dating, I made him this dish not knowing what a real live Mexican would think about such a concoction. It's principle ingredients are lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, kidney beans, grated cheese, taco meat, and crushed tortilla chips in a thick red French dressing. Javier loved it once he was able to find some salsa and sprinkle it all over his salad before eating it. Over the years we have added chopped red onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, and have taken out the taco meat and added cooked chicken breast. We have also learned to make it light by using low-fat or homemade dressings, less cheese, and baked tortilla chips. To this day - and many years after that first dinner in my home - Javier still loves TACO SALAD and can't wait for the first robins of Spring to signal the beginning of salad season after a winter of soups.

Carne asada -123

It's been a while since I've blogged about our Mexican menus, and once again, I apologize. First I had to have the computer virus cleaned up and cleared out of my computer. Once that was done, I realized that the usual mechanism that I use for uploading pictures had disappeared. This took another couple of days to figure out. In the meantime, we were figuring out menus, cooking, taking pictures and eating - and running way behind.

During this time, my mother came to visit. That's another whole blog right there, but she isn't too keen on spicy Mexican food and we've had to adjust our eating habits a bit for her tastes while she's been here.

And then...we had to take our puppy, Coco, to the vet for some minor surgery. Javier became catatonic as he waited for the call to pick him up and bring him home. Once home, little Coco needed all kinds of extra care and attention. No one was thinking about Mexican food that day.

So, all backed up and ready to go, are some of the meals that we've had before, during and after the multiple traumas of a computer virus, doggie surgery, and a visit from my mother / Javier's suegra. A good CARNE ASADA with a big copa de vino tinto was just what was called for! While Javier grilled the carne de res, I made a nice salsa ranchera. With some fresh, warm corn tortillas, this was all that was needed to set things right...at least for one evening!

Discúlpame por favor

I am currently running behind on my Mexican Meal blogs due to an enormous problem (virus) I had with my computer the other day. I think it's all been fixed, and the computer seems to be running better than before except for one thing: I am having trouble uploading the pictures from my camera that I post on the blog each day.

So, les pido paciencia. I ask for your patience while I get this last "bug" out. We've had a couple of great meals lately - shrimp, steak, salsas and arroz mexicano - but I will wait to tell you about them until we have the visual up and running again!

Muchas gracias y mil disculpas...

Pollo en achiote - 124

Here is something totally different from all of the other meals we've been making for the past 5+ months... but first, a little history.

Years ago, a friend of mine by the name of María Alba, returned to Colorado from Mérida, Yucatán where she had been visiting her family. Among the little gifts she brought back from me were several cakes of achiote paste. I had no idea what to do with it, or what it was, and may have added a little to a sauce or a marinade. I really can't remember.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I visited the local Mexican market to look for some items we needed on our shelf. Once again I came across the achiote paste in a little red and yellow box, so decided to buy some and then find out later what to do with it. That was easy because there is a little recipe (and I mean little - we had to use a magnifying glass to read it) on the back of the little box.

Achiote is Spanish (coming into the Spanish language from the Aztecs' nahuatl ) for the annatto pigment coloring similar to a brick red that is derived from the seed of the plant. It is used in many foods as well as in paints and cosmetics such as lipstick. The paste is made of the ground seeds mixed with other seasonings, including garlic, and a small amount of oil as a binder. To make a sauce or marinade from the achiote paste, you rehydrate it by adding lemon juice, water and a bit of salt.

Once we made our marinade, we followed the recipe on the back of the box and added a cut-up fryer. We cubed some raw potatoes, peeled and cut up some carrots, and quartered a whole onion. After marinating the chicken for over an hour, all of this went into a foil pouch which we steamed for another hour on the stove top in the same steamer we use for making tamales. When the meal was done, we opened the foil pouch and found some juicy, fragrant pieces of red chicken with cooked potatoes, onions and carrots surrounding it.

Achiote is not spicy, so Javier said that he missed having a little "kick" in his meal. As I ate the chicken and a few of the vegetables, I recalled having had this dish many times before while living in Mexico and never realizing what I was eating. Looking back, I probably thought that I was eating chicken seasoned with paprika! It was really good tonight because the chicken was so moist. The next time I cook this dish, I will add some whole jalapeños to the foil pouch just for Javier!

Caldo Michi II - even better! - 125

The first time we made CALDO MICHI from a recipe in an old cookbook of mine (Diana Kennedy) we were totally impressed. So easy to make using a minimum amount of ingredients, and very pleasing results. So, the other day, as Javier was getting through a cold (catarro) and nursing a sore throat, he asked if I'd make another round of CALDO MICHI. We discussed the fact that we'd featured it once already on the blog, and then decided that maybe we could improve on the first round, which was also excellent.

This time I used more cod (bacalao), more vegetables (carrots, zucchini, onions, garlic), a little bit more seasoning (sal, pimienta y orégano) and a little less canned jalapeños, which for all intents and purposes are the "secret ingredient" in this recipe. I didn't allow the fish to overcook one bit, giving it the minimum amount of time to first be quickly cooked in olive oil, then removed, and then added to the soup at the end to lend its flavor to the broth, but not enough time as to fall apart.

Better than ever it was! Mejor que nunca...

Lo siento - 126

For the last two evenings I haven't made a real Mexican meal. Yesterday, Sunday, I made a beautiful TORTILLA ESPAÑOLA to take with me to a potluck supper where Spanish PAELLA and wines were being served in addition to salad and bread. There were a couple of bean dishes and an Italian polenta dish made with chard, but Mexican - no.

So then tonight...I had these insipid pork chops defrosted in the refrigerator and was going to brown them before bathing them in a hot and spicy tomato sauce, then serve with arroz, frijoles, guacamole, y tortillas. It turned out to be one of the most uninspiring meals we've made since we started this project, pictures and all. I set the table nicely, took a few pictures, and then when I saw them next to the blog I decided not to post them. The pictures were almost worse than the meal, which was edible, but not great.

Conclusions? Do something different, different, diferente with pork chops. TORTILLA ESPAÑOLA is an OK meal, but nothing groundbreaking there, either. And, it's Spanish...

Until tomorrow ~ hasta mañana.

Enchiladas de mole - 127

It's not like we sit around and just decide to make mole one day. We probably wouldn't have all of the ingredients on hand, and even if we did, I'd probably be too busy to just stop everything and make mole there was nothing else in the house to eat, or someone got a sudden craving for the stuff.
No, we usually fix mole - and large quantities of it - around a special occasion, such as a birthday, or the holidays. I have fixed mole on occasion for my Spanish or history classes, but even that takes quite a bit of planning and a running start. Tonight's dinner - ENCHILADAS DE MOLE - was to be an experiment, and an easy one. We bought a jar of ready-made mole from Whole Foods, and we wanted to see how it tasted using a minimum amount of our effort and ingredients. We had made some good caldo de pollo earlier in the day, and had thrown in a few extra chicken breasts to use with tonight's dinner experiment.

It was quite easy to fix. I shredded the chicken breast meat and reheated it at the same time I heated the mole from a jar in a small skillet. I used the small skillet rather than a saucepan so that I could dip tortillas into the sauce before rolling the chicken into the inside of the enchilada. I warmed 7 corn tortillas in the microwave, dipped them one by one into the heated mole sauce from Whole Foods, filled them with tortilla and a bit of shredded queso fresco and then lined them up in a baking dish to keep warm while I whipped up some fresh guacamole to go with our dinner.

Simple, good, and quick - but not the best mole I'd ever tasted. A bit on the sweet side for me. This particular brand (or variety - whatever you call it) had been made with figs, which were the sweetener. I don't know if it was the figs or something else that was a bit on the sweet side, but it was a bit much for me. Not inedible and not even bad, but not the way I like my mole!

Carne deshebrada - 128

The verb 'deshebrar' in Spanish means to unravel, or to separate into filaments, neither of which completely explains what we did to a brisket of beef yesterday. We trimmed it of all of the fat, then put it in the crock pot all day with onions, garlic and a chile chipotle sauce before removing it to a cutting board and then tearing it apart with two forks. It was like pulled pork, but the verb for pull in Spanish - jalar - just doesn't fit. I guess we did kind of unravel a beef brisket...

After separating the beef into filaments, we served it with warm corn tortillas and all of the usual suspects - guacamole, lechuga, queso fresco y salsa. It was a delicious filling for tacos despite the fact that we had eaten ground beef tacos earlier in the week. They are two totally different meals, and as I said before, with a large package of fresh tortillas sitting in the kitchen, you will continue to hear about tortilla-based main dishes in the next week.

Quesadillas con camarones - 129

OK, so we're eating a lot of tortilla-based dishes these days. After the grilled pork loins a few nights ago, I requested some simpler, lighter meals.

We had three whole wheat tortillas in the refrigerator that needed to be used up. We had some shrimp in the freezer and a large block of pepper jack cheese. We had some frijoles pintos and tomato salsa left over from the other night, and one overripe avocado sitting in the fruit bowl. Time to make QUESADILLAS CON CAMARONES with guacamole, salsa, y frijoles on the side!

No tale to tell here. It was a simple, easy-to-fix dinner on our large grill. Javier had marinated the shrimp, so we grilled them first, then assembled the QUESADILLAS while the frijoles were reheating in the oven and I fixed the guacamole. Dinner was ready in less than 20 minutes!

Tacos de carne molida - 130

I don't know about you, but I grew up eating tacos out of hard taco shells (Old El Paso, Lowry's Rosarita), and they were usually stale. But if you didn't know any different... Mom always fried up some greasy ground beef, seasoned it with a packaged mix of taco seasoning (which was totally full of MSG), and there began our tacos. On the table she would put an array of mismatched bowls full of shredded iceberg lettuce, grated Longhorn cheese (how Mexican!), and diced tomatoes. We would assemble our hard shelled tacos with the beef on the bottom of the shell, followed by the lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes. The order depended on when you could grab the bowl of one of the items, grab a handful, and get it into the taco shell before the next bowl became available.

But here's the really good part of my taco story: Mom served our tacos with a bottle of ketchup on the table. No salsa, not even Tabasco sauce - ketchup! I can't say there's anything magical about the taste of Longhorn cheese mingling with ketchup and greasy ground beef in your mouth. But again, if you didn't know any different...

The first time I traveled to Mexico, I learned that a taco was anything that was served in a corn tortilla. It could be shredded chicken, beef (shredded, stewed or grilled), pork, fish, or even animal parts, such as the famous Mexican tacos de cabeza or tacos de lengua. One of my favorite ways to eat tacos in Mexico was to order tacos de carnitas - pork that was cooked on a vertical spit, then shaved away at with a very sharp knife for each individual order. But, ground beef?? The only time I ever saw ground beef in Mexico was in an albóndiga - a meatball!

Javier and I had a pound of grass fed, antibiotic free ground beef in the freezer, and not knowing what else to fix one evening - and craving tacos - we decided to make our own version of the ground beef taco. We cooked the meat with bell peppers, onions, and an all-natural taco seasoning from SAVORY in Denver. We bought some fresh corn tortillas and warmed them up on the comal. We crumbled some queso fresco, mixed up some guacamole, shredded some lettuce and made a nice tomato salsa from scratch.

I enjoyed the hybrid - a taste for US-style ground beef taco filling mixed with more authentic Mexican ingredients in a fresh, warm tortilla. Neither of us was disappointed!

Crepas de hongos y Chile Relleno de Elote - 132 y 131

Last night we decided to do two meals together and make it a true vegetarian (but not vegan) feast. I had found some recipes in that old Mexican cookbook of mine for 1) CREPAS DE HONGOS CON SALSA DE CHILE POBLANO y 2) CHILE RELLENO DE ELOTE. It seemed like a good idea to do them together, and the results were fantastic. The two dishes complemented one another perfectly, and we served them with frijoles pintos on the side.

The CREPAS had a filling of mushrooms (hongos), onions (cebollas), garlic (ajo) and cilantro which were cooked in a minimal amount of corn oil - thank goodness / menos mal. The filling mixture was then tucked into some crepes we had made over the weekend, and the crepes were kept warm in the oven while we moved on to the sauce and the next dish.

The CHILE RELLENOS de ELOTE were made from some chiles poblanos that Javier had roasted on the grill several nights ago when the weather was nice. He then peeled and seeded them for me for later use. I made the filling of corn (when it comes off the cob it's called elote), epazote, y cebolla. This filling is put into the cavity of the roasted and peeled chile along with a small slice of queso fresco which melts beautifully once this go into the oven to be warmed through. (They don't really need cooking as the chiles and the relleno have already been cooked before assembly).

The sauce was a delicious mixture of sauteed onions, garlic, butter (oops!) a few chile poblano strips and cream. (I used whole milk to cut down on the calories) It is thickened with flour, but again I cut down on the amount. After everything has been sauteed, warmed up, and thickened, it is pureed before reheating and serving over the CHILE RELLENOS and the CREPAS.

Javier said that whatever the point system was for last night's meal, I had earned a 100, an 11 on a scale of 10, or an A+. I could take my pick!

Lomo de puerco - 133

Yesterday we ate too much starch...healthy buckwheat and granola pancakes in the morning at a well-known local place; tamales for lunch; a biscotti in the afternoon with our coffee as we were out grocery shopping, and; bolillos in the evening with the queso fundido that we served with dinner. Today, we said to one another, we're all about protein and vegetables, no starch.

Good idea until I had to make 3 dozen arepas (a Venezuelan corn cake) for my classes tomorrow. We had to sample a few of them to make sure that they were OK for my students. They're not exactly my "cup of tea" but they're authentic and I'm sure the students will love them with the different toppings I've selected - dulce de leche, mermelada de guava, y crema fresca.

Dinner? We had just bought two small pork tenderloins, and Javier rubbed them with a seasoning mix that consisted of chile, comino, sal y ajo. We grilled the lomos along with some fresh green beans, seasoned both the green beans (ejotes verdes) and the lomo with a tiny amount of olive oil and lime juice - and that was it - nuestra cena / our dinner! Simple, but it hit the spot and we've got some tremendous leftovers for mañana.

Otro Queso Fundido - 134

Last night we had company over for a delicious and healthy meal of chicken on skewers, raw vegetables and dip, and sliced fresh pineapple for dessert. It seemed too healthy, so I decided to make something else to go with the meal.

I made a QUESO FUNDIDO con ALCACHOFAS - a hot cheese 'fondue' with artichokes - which also has hot peppers as a main ingredient. The cheese I used in the recipe was the pepper jack variety that has diced jalapeños in it, but that wasn't enough. Since we had roasted and peeled a large number of chiles poblanos the other day (and you may be hearing more about those over the next couple of days as we start using them) I decided to dice some of those into the QUESO FUNDIDO to make it spicier and more appealing.

You can serve QUESO FUNDIDO as an appetizer, sort of like a hot artichoke dip, with a good sturdy tortilla chip, or warm tortillas, either flour or corn. Since this was part of our dinner menu last night, I bought some bolillos (Mexican hard rolls) and sliced them for people to enjoy with their dinner - with or without the QUESO FUNDIDO on top.

I wish I'd made more because the chicken skewers which I'd bought already prepared and ready for the grill were no big deal. In fact, we were all adding more of the sauce at the table to them to give them some flavor. The raw veggies with the white bean dip and the QUESO FUNDIDO went over much better!

Tamales - 135

Today we were at a local farmer's market where people were selling all kinds of homemade salsas, barbecue sauces, baked goods and TAMALES. Everything looked good, and it had been a while since we'd had a good TAMAL, so we decided to buy 1/2 dozen and see if we liked them.

Remember: I didn't promise to cook Mexican food every day. I only promised to try and it eat every day. So far, so good, but it is hard when you're on a trip with other people or when you're sick. Today I had no good excuse, although I could claim to still be recovering from last week's bout of bronchitis.

TAMALES are not hard to make, but they're time consuming and you need a lot of space and a helper or two, if possible. My kitchen is small and I have found that I have to move the whole tamal making operation out onto the dining room table, which then makes a big mess everywhere. So, if I can buy good ones - I do.

We had two for lunch today - uno de puerco de chile rojo y el otro de pollo y chile jalapeño. They were both delicious, and so much so that I wondered if the masa (dough) had been made with manteca (lard) in the traditional way. I console myself by saying that I only ate 1/2 of each tamal equaling one whole one...

When talking about TAMALES remember that one is a TAMAL and the -e- only gets added to the end when you're also adding an -s- to pluralize. There is no such thing as a tamale. If you think you've seen it that way over the years, it's just a common misspelling of the word.

Lenguado con espinacas - 136

Ok, so this is a recipe straight out of a cookbook, and one I wouldn't think of as Mexican until I ate it and tasted the chiles in the filling and the sauce. It was very good and I wish I'd made more!

LENGUADO CON ESPINACAS - Filet of sole with spinach - was a perfect meal for a Friday during Lent. After laying the fish filets out on paper towels to soak up excess moisture, I lightly salted and peppered them. I made the relleno (filling or stuffing) from chopped spinach, finely diced white onion, a finely diced chile serrano,grated cotija cheese, salt and pepper to taste (although you don't need much since the queso cotija is naturally salty) and a little olive oil to bind it all together. Before filling the filets, I put two of them together, overlapping them a bit where the relleno was spread over them. Then I rolled them up and placed them in a baking dish with the seam side down.

(Sorry you can't see the spinach filling in this picture, but it's there).

The sauce was a rather traditional looking white sauce with lots of butter, so I made a few changes and used less butter, more skim milk, and crushed red pepper. It was good, but Javier commented that he might have preferred just a nice cream sauce because the filet filling was already spicy. (And he thought my sauce looked a bit like Thai peanut sauce). We ate the LENGUADO CON ESPINACAS with some brown rice on the side.

We will repeat this dish sometime next month since we still have loads of chopped spinach (espinacas) from our garden in the freezer and will work on the sauce.

Sopa de fideos - 137

This is one of the most Mexican recipes I have, even if it doesn't look like very Mexican. On my first trip to Mexico many, many years ago, I stayed in the home of Doña Mercedes Gil de Vaca. We called her Doña Meche. She was an excellent cook, and every meal every day was a small masterpiece. Several times a week we would have la SOPA DE FIDEOS before our main course, but since the SOPA DE FIDEOS was so good, I used to think that it could have easily been our main course if she had only served more!Other pastas such as alphabet, small shells, or bow ties can be made into similar soups, but the SOPA DE FIDEOS of my youth still stands out as the original.

FIDEOS are thin little vermicelli noodles. You can buy them nested or already broken apart. The trick to making a good soup is to first brown the FIDEOS in oil with some garlic, and then add the tomato sauce before adding the chicken or vegetable stock. The tomato sauce needs to "brown" a little along with the FIDEOS and garlic.

After the stock is added, it's wise to adjust the seasoning and add some cilantro for good measure before covering the pot and allowing the FIDEOS to simmer on low for 20-30 minutes. They are then served as soup in a bowl and can be garnished with queso fresco o queso cotija.

In tonight's picture you'll see some guacamole to the side. This is the salad part of the meal, and can be eaten on warm corn tortillas as tacos de guacamole or on tostadas with a little more of the crumbled queso fresco o queso cotija sprinkled on top. It's a very quick, easy and economical meal, and Javier commented on how good it went down on a cold, snowy day.

Salmon a la parrilla con salsa chipotle - 138

I'd been craving salmon for over a week, but kept telling myself that any kind of salmon (salmón en español) was probably not the most Mexican type of fish I could be craving. This is the Northwest, and sometimes we take salmon for granted. One time I ordered grilled salmon for lunch when I was in Argentina, and as I waited to be served I talked myself into believing that it was going to be mediocre and the only reason I'd ordered it was to stay on my diet. When it was served with a salad and grilled vegetables, it turned out to be the best salmon I'd ever had. So, maybe there are great salmon dishes in Mexico, too, and I just haven't had the pleasure yet.

Before I get back to the salmon, one thing I'd been wanting to do, and that I'd eaten in Mexico on a trip to Zihuatanejo on the Pacific coast was grilled pineapple. We had a beautiful pineapple sitting in our fruit bowl here at home, and I decided that no matter what I decided to do with the salmon to make it Mexican, we would grill pineapple slices, too.

In the meantime, I found a recipe for a raspberry / chipotle sauce that can be served on any grilled meat, including fish. Raspberries - called moras or frambuesas in Spanish - are not all that popular in some parts of Mexico, but they're not totally unknown. Where my husband is from they call any berry that's not a strawberry a mora. So, having some fresh raspberry jam on hand (made by my good friend Renata), I heated it through and then added some pureed chiles chipotles to the simmering sauce. It was wicked!

Javier grilled the salmon along with some sliced zucchini and the pineapple slices, and then we served the fish with the sauce on top. It's never a good idea to smother the delicate flavor of the salmon with an overpowering sauce, so we started with a little and added as we ate.

It was an unusual dinner, but unusual in the very best sense of the word. Different, delicious and spicy!

Burritos de Pollo - 139

Today's a milestone...I now have fewer than 100 Mexican meals to complete before finishing this part of the blog! And I have to honestly say that I am not sick of Mexican food. It's been a lot of fun and muy delicioso along the way.

Tonight we used some leftover grilled chicken and some leftover pinto beans combined with some leftover enchilada sauce and some new whole wheat tortillas to make BURRITOS DE POLLO. Javier shredded the chicken and cooked it (again) with onions and seasonings. After mashing some of the frijoles pintos that I cooked yesterday and heating some flour tortillas, he filled them with about 2 T of the frijoles, about 1/2 cup of the shredded chicken and onion filling, 2 T of grated cheese, and then rolled them before ladling sauce and sprinkling additional cheese on top. For being a semi-recycled meal, it was excellent. We ate the BURRITOS with a little shredded lettuce to the side, and felt that we'd included all of the major food groups in one simple meal.

BURRITOS of any kind are really an American invention, although they have caught on more recently in Mexico. I remember a time in the 1980s when you could hardly find a flour tortilla in a local market and had to ask someone if they knew where you could buy some, or who in the neighborhood would make them for you. Tortillas de harina (flour tortillas) have been somewhat popular in Northern Mexico for a while, and were used for burritos de machaca con huevo, a dish made with scrambled eggs, dried beef called machaca, and salsa. They were very good, but a far cry from the bean and cheese or bean, beef and cheese burritos being sold on every corner in the US. New Mexico has some of the best smothered burritos I have ever eaten. But that's another story...