Mexicanish X-mas Supper

In order to kill two birds with one stone, as the old adage goes, we introduced a small group of our friends to semi-authentic Mexican food which also served as a holiday supper. You can see in a previous post my entry on homemade flour tortillas. I’ll say it again though that nothing beats real tortillas. Like anything made fresh and never having been in contact with a store, it’s so much better. The taste cannot be imitated. But that’s my opinion.

Now given what I just said, you’ll probably think me a hypocrite to have served canned refried beans. (Note: don’t be intimidated by the fact that these look like dog food when coming out of the can.) Supposedly these take forever to make. Beans on their own are a pain in the ass. Imagine having to refry them! Geez! Anyways, the guacamole and Mexican style salsa were made from scratch. For the guacamole, I put two fresh avocadoes, a hot pepper, a tomato, half an onion and two garlic cloves into my food processor, turned the little switchy thing and voila. Pretty much the same for the salsa but I don’t make that. My girlfriend has the recipe and I’m not quite sure where she hides it.

Also available for tortilla stuffing – in addition to such boring things like slivers of iceberg lettuce, chunks of tomato and shredded cheddar – was pulled pork in achiote and orange juice. The stuff we use is like a red spice brick which is sent to us by my girlfriend’s Mexican stepmother. Strait from the source. On the last batch of products we also got various dulce de leche de cabra treats, sun dried peppers, Maseca, corn husks, some dry pulled pork stuff and other things that I forget cause they’ve already been eaten. The next thing I’m whipping up are tamales.

In order to satisfy my appetite for spiciness, I put the two hot sauces I now have in stock on the table. The hottest in the Tabasco line, the habenero and chipotle hot sauces got a few people sweating. Now I know that these are mild in comparison to most real hot sauces but you’ve got to keep in mind that my French Canadian friends aren’t used to anything spicier than pepper and radishes. One advantage is that I was able to amaze them with my hot sauce eating capabilities. I’m like a super hero to the hot sauce layman’s eyes

For desert, my girlfriend made crème caramels which we found in our Mexican cook book which therefore means that it’s Mexican (A+B=C). The melted icing sugar caramel sitting on top of the gelatinous custard tasted a tad burnt. Supposedly that’s what it’s supposed to taste like. Served with some fresh mango I really didn’t care. It was a great end to a meal and a great launch to hours of wicked conversation and coffee drinking.

P.S. The coffee was made with my new Bodum coffee press by the way. I’m never going back to drip coffee again…ever…