Minty Meat Marbles

This week we took a little break from Fiesta at Rick's; we were finding that some of the recipes in there require a major time commitment.  Luckily, Senor Bayless figured that out and wrote Mexican Everyday which covers Mexican cooking for those of us who don't have the luxury of being Mexican cooks.  We pulled a recipe from the book based on how tasty the picture looked and ended up with Chipotle Meatballs.  Along side we cooked up Classic Mexican Red Rice, and Fried Beans.

So those are the meatballs ready to go into the oven; ground pork, bacon, and mint are the major ingredients.

After about 15 minutes in chez oven, a mixture of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, tomatoes, and spices  become a relaxing bath for the meatballs.  And then, back in the oven.

Soothing!

With two of us in the kitchen, we seem to be able to get two or three dishes going and lined up pretty well, even with my interrupting to take pictures. Now, I've been cooking rice in my rice cooker for years.  It's what you do as a student to save money because Corona is expensive.  But this is the first time that I ever fried rice.  

The rice starts in a hot pan until it turns opaque, and then you throw it into the rice cooker with some thinned out salsa.  Once the timer goes off, you dump in some microwave-thawed peas, and you have a side dish.  It's that easy. 

So I think this is the first time I ever cooked with Lard, and nary a pie crust to be found.  It's a pretty easy side dish to whip up: beans, lard, garlic.  No long prep cycles, especially if you just opened a can (like we did) instead of cooked your own (like we're going to in the future).  

And so there it all is.  The meatballs were quite interesting.  It may have had to do with some heavy handedness in the herb section, but I felt that the standout flavour was the mint, and not the chipotle.  It wasn't over powering though.  It was a good pairing; like lamb and mint jelly.  The only real concern we had for this meal was the lack of visual interest.  Our Mexican dinner adventures (both here and prior to the blog) always seemed to be dynamic and ready to jump off the plate.  Maybe this meal could've benefited from the sharp angles of some nacho chips. :P