Tostadas

There is really no rocket science here. The fun part was frying my own tortillas to make the shells. Going against the cookbooks I consulted, I only used about 1/3 of an inch of oil to do the frying. It seemed to work okay, as long as I held down the tortilla to keep it mostly submerged and flat in the pot.

I made 2 versions, piling on combinations of: Mexican rice, homemade black beans, salsa Verde, avocado, hot sauce, chayote, chopped tomatoes, and crema. Easy, but incredibly satisfying to eat.

Enchiladas verdes (with chicken, spinach and mushrooms)

A very traditional dish with some (non-traditional?) additions. For the mushrooms, we used some wild chanterelles that my housemate Mike collected.

I must say, this dish was a huge hit with the crowd!

The only unsatisfying part was the "crema" that I used in the sauce. Crema is like a cross between crème fraîche, sour cream, and full cream -- but Mexican. I used the "Mexicana" brand, which included 2 types of stabilizer/emulsifier along with pure dairy.

Chalupas and Tortillas

After seeing all the highly processed tortillas being sold in Safeway for all these years, I decided that I had to try my hand at making some real ones from scratch. I bought some freshly ground masa (consisting of nothing but corn kernels and lime) from the local taqueria/tortilla factory in Redwood City.

See the images at the bottom of my homemade tortilla on the skillet. Without a tortilla press, it was definitely a challenge -- I used a skillet to push out my small ball of masa into the tortilla shaped (using Saran wrap as a protective/nonstick layer).

Chalupas:

The name sounds familiar, doesn't it? Apparently, though, I had no idea what it meant. It's basically a little boat (like a small quiche crust) made out of the same substance as tortillas (masa) and cooked in the same way (on the skillet).

I stuffed mine with left over shredded chicken, tomatillo salsa, chopped white onion, and queso fresco. Honestly, the flavor was mild, but certainly not ordinary.

Roasted tomatillo salsa

Good as expected.

With the little blender jar attachment for the immersion blender, the preparation is really easy.

The recipe says that the quality of the preparation starts to degrade within a few hours of completion. I'm not sure if I'm convinced of that, but I did notice that the spiciness level tends to fall off after day or so.

Roasted red Pepper soup

I decided to take a stab at improvising this recipe. For fun, I threw in the constraint of not using any dairy or animal products (except for some chicken stock). To thicken it, I puréed a soppy mixture of left over brown rice.

The outcome was more than satisfactory, but not quite rich enough for my liking.

Chipotle shrimp

Fantastic and easy. Worked well with Mexican-style Rice served on the side. The sauce really picks up the seafood flavor.

I looked for the best quality canned chipotle chiles that I could find. Still, I believe the ingredient list on the bottle was not so authentic. It seemed to use tomatoes instead of other chilies like anchos for the adobo sauce.

Grilled fish in tangy Yucatecan Achiote

This dish was super easy and very satisfying. You just have to make sure that it served very hot -- especially once you add the salsa it's going to cool down quickly.

I used the Mexicana brand achiote paste, which regrettably had red food coloring. It was the only variety of the paste that Mi Rancha had on its shelf.

Also, instead of using a outdoor grill, I seared the fish on a skillets and finished in the oven. I think one problem with this technique is that the paste covering the fish tends to pull off when you flip it in the skillet.