Tacos ver. 1.4

My friend was asking me the other day about my camera lenses, specifically the one I use to shoot most of the pictures you see.  It's a 50mm f/1.4, but I seldom shoot it at that aperture. I've usually got it parked at f/2.8 to get a little more depth of field in the photos.  But this week I figured hey, let's open it wide up; everything you see is shot at f/1.4.  So dial that aperture ring all the way down, and make the jump for tacos ver. 1.4!

Ersatz Taco Soup

Ever have an idea that was funnier in your head? I thought some black and white dithering would be funny.  Oh well. Too late now! Getting Friday Night Mexican back to its roots as an easy to prepare meal on a Friday is something that we've obviously struggled with.

It can be done however.  You just need to be prepared to sacrifice words like 'authentic', 'fresh', 'honest', and 'Mexican'.  Those words are all overrated anyway.  So if you've got limited time and energy and you want to phone it in like I'm obviously doing, print off the recipe and get to work on Taco Soup!

Summer Champurrado

The short story is that it's Mexican hot chocolate.  The long story is that it's much more than that.  One of the defining characteristics of champurrado that I've heard is that you should be able to stand a churro up in it.  Let's see you do that with hot chocolate made above the Mason-Dixon line. Not happening.

This recipe came out of my Better Homes and Gardens Ultimate Mexican recipe guide, and if I wasn't so lazy, I probably would've made the churro recipe too. There will always be another Friday.  Turn on the kettle, and make the jump!
.

Vegetative State - Black Bean Burgers

So I'm totally over compensating for last post's lack of photo-punch.  So if you're into reading and not into pictures, you'll have to suck it up for a week. Ha!

Here are three vegetarian recipes that with a little work could even become vegan.  And since we spend our Monday to Friday schedule being vegetarians and part time vegans, we figured we'd see if we could craft a few Mexican dishes in that spirit.  So we grabbed Rick Bayless' Sweet Potato Salad with Caramelized Onions, Watercress and Guajillo Chile Dressing from Mexican Everyday.  And then from The Complete Vegan Kitchen we made Mango Salsa, and a modified version of the Black Bean Burgers.

Soup N' Salad 2: Forget Old Mexico

Because this week we're taking our recipes from New Mexico; Santa Fe to be more specific.  They still have the same feel and vibrancy as our other dishes and nothing came out of an Old El Paso box, so I figure we're still in the clear.

On the agenda we've got Corn Soup with Poblano Chiles, followed by Santa Fe Slaw with Caramelized Pecans.  These recipes come from Seasonal Southwest Cooking by Barbara Pool Fenzl which is an absolutely beautiful cookbook to look through.  It also contains some great contextual information about the recipes which I find really makes or breaks a cookbook.  Be warned: there are pictures missing this week, so you'll have to use your imaginations for some of this.

Mexican Shawarma

Well, it's not exactly Mexican Shawarma, but apparently that's where it comes from.  And some guy named Al Pastor.  This week's recipes came from a special Ultimate Mexican issue of Better Homes and Gardens which is a pretty comprehensive chunk of information.  It's also got full page pictures of everything which is important for those of us who eat with our eyes first.  Let's face it, recipe books of all text don't exactly inspire you to cook.

So make sure your machines are well oiled and see what happens as we check out Tacos al pastor and Chayote salad.

My eggs have style, Oaxacan style.

What happens when you keep pushing off Friday Night Mexican? You get Saturday Morning Mexican.  And if you push it off some more, you get Sunday Morning Mexican.  And if you push it off more than that, your reader gets angry. Yes, reader.  So these eggs are done Oaxacan style.  What makes them Oaxacan style? I'm not really sure.  Is it the cutting into ribbons? Is it the use of tomatoes?

This recipe came from "Everyday Mexican", which is not to be confused with Rick Bayless' "Mexican Everyday".  Seriously it's two different books.  One of the only things that this book has going for it is that it fits in your jacket pocket.  It has teeny tiny little print, no back story for the recipes, and completely lacks an author.  This is one of those books that companies crank out when they want to publish a book on topic X.  Regardless, it's where we got this week's recipe.  So strap in; it's over before you know it.