Cabbage and corn slaw is an excellent accompaniment to Mexican dishes like enchiladas and burritos, providing a welcome crunchy contrast. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Mexican food
Alegrías
2 Jul
I’m always on the lookout for easy, healthy-ish snacks to make for the kids, and I thought these Mexican alegrías sounded promising.
Amaranth is a great source of protein and nutrients, but there’s too much sugar involved for me to consider alegrías healthy.
Chicken tinga tacos
2 Dec
Chicken tinga tacos – fun to say, fun to eat… And a great leftover to use in packed lunches throughout the week.
Another bonus of making chicken tinga is the delicious stock that results from poaching the chicken. Sometimes I freeze it, but more often it gets added to soups or risotto over the following days.
Sweet potato and black bean tacos
18 Nov
Sweet potato and black bean tacos are currently the “go-to” taco around here. Last year was all about fish tacos, but the tilapia I favoured has vanished from the fish counter, for one thing.
Also, we are make a conscious effort to have more meat-free dinners each week, and these are helping with that ambition.
Guacamole
3 Jun
Guacamole is one of those things it should be impossible to get wrong. Mash and season a ripe avocado, serve with tortilla chips – the shortest recipe ever.
And yet, there is so much lousy guacamole out there, it seems worth writing a few words on the subject. Continue reading
Chicken tortilla soup
28 Apr
There are so many versions of chicken tortilla soup – some light and lime-fragrant with bits of chicken and tiny squares of tortilla like some sort of Mexican miso soup.
Others so packed with meat and beans and peppers and tortilla strips that you could do the perform a Mexican hat dance on the surface. Continue reading
Vegetarian mole de olla
18 Jan
Mole de olla (or kettle stew) is a traditional Mexican dish made from beef and vegetables – typically corn, potatoes, green beans and courgette.
This vegetarian version comes from the Sundays at Moosewood cookbook – I’ve been making it for years, and always serve it with fresh cornbread to soak up the delicious sauce.
We’d eat this tasty stew more regularly if the girls weren’t so stubbornly resistant to its charms – they remain deeply unconvinced by cooked courgette. Continue reading
Turkey enchiladas
31 Dec
After turkey soup and turkey sandwiches, turkey enchiladas are the next step on our quest to conquer the post-Christms turkey mountain.
When no one can face another scrap of turkey, I package the rest into ziplock bags and stick it in the freezer.
And forget about it until at least July, at which point I make turkey enchiladas again… Continue reading
Nachos
5 Aug
Done well, nachos are a wonderful thing. And when it’s so easy to do them well, it’s frustrating how often they are a disappointment.
Here are some tips, based on my experience of making nachos at home:
- Chips: Use the right sort of tortilla chips – plain, triangular, no fancy flavourings or shapes.
- Layering. Build your stack of nachos in layers, scattering toppings each time you add more chips. You want melted cheese throughout the heap fusing the chips together, not sulking in unappetizing puddles. And don’t overdress the top – this just steams the chips.
- Toppings: Grated cheese, sliced black olives, sliced green onions, finely chopped tomato, or pickled jalapenos – all good. Meat products not so much, and coriander leaves just burn, so save them for the salsa. Anything else is a no-go around here.
- Temperature: Don’t cook nachos at too high a temperature, or the top will burn before all the chips have a chance to crisp up. 375°F is about right. I’ve also used the gas barbeque, well heated then dropped to medium-low. Three or four minutes with the lid down resulted in perfect nachos.
- Dips: Salsa, guacamole, sour cream – either dolloped on top after taking the nachos out of the oven, or served on the side. You need to eat them more quickly with them on top – but that’s never been a problem…
Fish tacos
10 Jul
We celebrated Mexico’s appearance in the World Cup with fish tacos and Coronas. We had this dinner the first time Mexico played on 13 June, but I didn’t take any photos so decided to feature them again.
Actually, we have fish tacos pretty regularly — it being one of the few ways that Lyra will eat fish. I pretty much follow this recipe I found on the Love and Lemons website. Continue reading
Refried beans
13 Sep
Refried beans are very easy to make, and taste so much better than the tinned ones you can buy. Continue reading
Andrea’s salsa
5 Aug
This recipe evolved through my attempts to recreate the salsa served at the Topanga Cafe in Vancouver. Continue reading
Ten More Bites 