Let's Have Mexican!!!

I have a friend – let’s call her Kathy (that’s her name) - and she loves, loves, loves to cook. Me? Not so much. I see making dinner night after night after night as supremely b.o.r.i.n.g. She sees it as an opportunity to try something new and different. Every night! I think that is a good attitude to take towards something you have to do anyway, but I can only very occasionally manage it. Like once or twice a year. Cooking for guests is an entirely different thing. It can either be intimidating or fun depending on what I choose to try to make. But the day after day stuff? Bleaahhhhh.

Yesterday, however, was one of the days I decided to emulate my friend. I picked out recipes from the Pioneer Woman's cooking blog: tequila lime chicken, Mexican rice, pico de gallo, and homemade tortillas.

[Oh, let’s just kill the impulse to cook in one meal, let’s do. ]

Step one: the grocery store. No problem. I found everything I needed.

Step two: mix the ingredients for the tequila lime marinade. Uh, no tequila. Good thing I decided to marinate the chicken overnight. Liquor stores aren’t open in Georgia on Sundays. Why? I have no idea. Probably the legislature protecting us from ourselves: getting blotto drunk six days a week is enough, perhaps.

Step three: dH volunteers to go to the liquor store and get tequila. What kind? he asks. I have no idea. When I was in Mexico with my friends the first year, they sent me into the store to buy some -I asked what kind? Just not rotgut! they shouted. So that was my answer to dH.

Step four: Since dH bought better tequila than I probably would have, I decided that it must be good enough to drink a shot of. I see people on The Good Wife do that, so I tried it.

Whooooo---eee!….probably won’t do that again…

Step five: Mix the ingredients for the marinade, put the chicken in it, and put it all in the refrigerator. Done.

Now today:

Step one: make the pico de gallo. EASY! So easy and so good that I don’t think I will ever get store-bought again. (But the fumes from the cut-open jalapeno? Yikes!)

Step two: make the dough for the tortillas. Easy! Except for the stick form of Crisco which expired in:


Oooops!

Fortunately I had a recently-purchased can of Crisco (I hate measuring that - dry method? submerged in water method?) so I used that and the dough sat covered by a towel for an hour; then the dough was broken up into ping pong sized balls and sat another hour in a towel-covered bowl. There is no yeast in the dough, so I have no idea what it’s doing in the bowl. Siesta time? Conspiring against the cook?

Is there a collective noun for tortillas? If there is, whatever it is, I have it. FUN! The trick is to roll out the dough so thin that you can see the counter top through the tortilla (black counter tops rock!) and then to cook them for just 20-30 seconds on each side with the heat just right. And that’s pretty easy to figure out after you end up with the first one either burnt or pale but cooked through. In the time that it took to cook one, I could roll out the next one. Honestly, I don’t think they taste any different from store-bought wheat tortillas, and there’s not a round one in the bunch (maybe that’s the collective noun?), but it was still FUN to make them.

Dinner:



Results: delicious.
Prep. time: two days
Cleanup time: don't ask

Tomorrow night: takeout.