Happy Cinco de Mayo!!!! This day is
widely celebrated in the states and regionally in Mexico, most people think it
is a Mexican holiday. It celebrates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory against
the French army at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 under General Ignacio Zaragoza
Seguín. What is so interesting about this battle is that it was believed that
Napoleon was going to give aid the south Confederacy during the Civil War, and
it was this great victory that helped prevent the French from splitting America
in two!!
What we have for you today is a mango
margarita, a pork taco with salsa verde, and a chicken taco with what we like
to call lazy mole! So when you are enjoying your Mexican beer and your Mexican fare,
don’t forget to cheers General Ignacio!
Ingredients: makes 10 tacos
Tacos:
10 corn tortillas
3 skinless chicken breast
3 Tablespoons old bay seasoning
1 ½ Lb pork
2/3 cup pomi or any plain tomato sauce
½ cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon cumin
2 ears of sweet yellow corn
1 green Chile
5 tomatillos
Cabbage for topping
Sour cream for topping
Salt and pepper to
taste
Margarita: serves about
5
¼ cup grand marnier
¼ cup tequila
10 limes
2 mangos
½ cup limeade
Make the margaritas
first so you can have one while you are cooking, and then chill the rest.
Simply place all liquid ingredients in blender, then juice the 10 limes, and
then cut the meat out of the two mangoes, and blend! Yay!
To start the tacos you
will want to get your meat going first. Heat a grill pan on medium high heat,
and heat oven to 425 degrees. Season chicken with old bay seasoning, and season
pork with salt and pepper. Place both meats on grill pan to get some nice grill
marks, about 5 minutes each side. Next place in oven and cook chicken and pork
for about another 25 minutes, or until both internal temperatures are a 160
degrees. Be sure to check the internal temperature with a thermometer, because not
all ovens run the same heat, mine can be a bit hot! Or shall I say caliente!
While those are cooking
shuck your corn and take all the kernels off my holding it by one end, and
using a knife, run it down away from your, cutting the kernels off. Set aside.
Next, peel all the
leaves off the outside of the tomatillos, and roast them. You can roast them as
simply as turning the flame on your stove and using tongs, hold tomatillo in
the flame and turn, until it browns all around. Let cool. Cut top of Chile and
remove seeds, then roasting the same way. Let cool. Once all cooled, blend in
blender with a pinch of salt.
Now for the lazy mole,
my favorite part. In a sauce pan heat the tomato sauce, cumin, cayenne,
cinnamon, and paprika until it simmers. Let simmer for about 5 minutes, then
adding corn and heavy cream, stir and simmer another 5 minutes. Remove from
heat and cover.
Your meat should be
done about now. Remove from oven, and place on cutting board and let rest for
about 7 minutes. Next slice both meats in thin strips.
Place tortillas in oven
for about 4 minutes to heat.
Serve all your
components on separate plates, along with cabbage and sour cream, so everyone
can have a margarita and put together their own tacos! Have a blast, and Happy
Cinco De Mayo!!!
Oscar season is upon us. We have
received all of the screeners in the mail, and have our personal favorites. It
is a fun time of year, when you can cuddle up with your loved one and watch a
good movie. This year to celebrate the Oscars we are going over to our very
good friends’ Jackson and Yasmine to eat some wonderful food, drink some
dranks, and watch some glorious fashion and award giving. Mikey and I were
thinking what do we enjoy the most with movie watching, and we thought pizza!
So we have made you a really simply pizza crostini, or a pizzette you could
say. Though the first thing to our mind isn’t stuffed mushrooms, to Hell with
that, it should be! So we have also made a fabulous tarragon goat cheesed
stuffed mushrooms.
Predict those awards, critique
the fashion, and stuff your face with pizza on the couch!! Not to mention the
wonderful blood orange champagne cocktail.
*Chiffonade= cutting herbs or
greens in to long thin strips by either layering or rolling up the greens.
Ingredients: serves 12-15
Pizzette:
1 Baguette
½ cup tomato puree
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
1 pinch garlic salt
2 balls buffalo mozzarella
5 basil leaves
Stuffed Mushrooms:
15 cremini mushrooms
¼ cup goat cheese
2 sprigs tarragon
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Blood Orange Mimosa:
Champagne
Blood orange
Maybe you should make this
cocktail while you prepare the food, because it is very refreshing and a simple
twist on a mimosa. Simply squeeze the juice of a blood orange into a glass and
top off with champagne, and then garnish with a blood orange slice. So sleek!
The first thing you should do is
prep all of your ingredients and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice the
baguette on a diagonal slice so the bread is about a ¼” thick, set aside. Next
slice all the mozzarella about the same thickness, set aside. Next roll up your
basil leaves tightly, and using a sharp knife chiffonade all the basil, set
aside.
To make the sauce simply mix the
past, puree, and garlic salt together.
Now we assemble the pizzettes.
Cover the bread in the tomato sauce, then lay down some mozzarella, and top it
off with basil. Lay the pizzettes out on a baking sheet leaving room for the
mushrooms.
In order to make the mushrooms,
pull the stems out, and if need be use a paring knife to cut the rest of the
stem out. Put the mushrooms in a bowl, and coat them with the olive oil. Chop
up the tarragon and in a separate small bowl mix together the tarragon and goat
cheese. Fill the mushrooms with the cheese mix until overflowing a bit. Place
on the baking sheet.
Put the baking sheet in the oven
and bake for 10 minutes, pull out and remove the pizzettes, and then put the
baking sheet back in the oven and bake for another 5 minutes.
Now enjoy your delicious Oscar
food! Hurray!
I first made this for Michael’s
birthday last year as part of a prohibition era party I threw him, where we
fermented our own liquers, made gin, and this delicacy….spiced rum. It seems
only appropriate that we would yet again, make this drink during the winter month,
where a warm spiced drink can warm your shivered bones, and bring a smile to
your face!
This spiced rum is very
simple, and is great to drink straight, and in our case we like to add a little
water and warm it. Enjoy and get creative, you will figure out how you prefer
to spice it!
Ingredients:
750 ml dark rum
1 vanilla bean
2 large strips of orange peel
1 cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
This is such a painfully easy
recipe. Basically you want to pour the rum out into a large pitcher (keep the
bottle to rebottle the liquor), and put your ingredients with it. For the
orange peel, use a peeler to take the skin off, just make sure that you get rid
of the pith, which is the white part, the pith will make your drink bitter.
With the vanilla bean, take a knife and run into down length wise to open it so
all the lovely flavor can come out. Once all the ingredients are in the
pitcher, place plastic wrap on top, and let sit in a cool dark area for 3 days.
Once a day stir the mix, and reseal, and let sit.
After the third day, strain
out all the spices, and rebottle! Now enjoy, you can spike some hot chocolate,
drink warm, or on the rocks. Enjoy and be safe!
This is a really quick and
easy one that we are posting to celebrate the 4th day until
Halloween. We are showing you this incredibly simple recipe because we think it
is great to have an option besides a cocktail in a glass, serve a cocktail in a
shot, in the form of jello! This is a Halloween and fall inspired twist on the
age old college jello shot, but much more refined.
Ingredients:
1 oz gelatin
2 cups boiling apple cider
6 oz cold water
10 oz spiced rum
Black sprinkles
This recipe is so simple it’s
silly. Basically start by boiling two cups of apple cider, once boiled pour
into a heat proof bowl and then whisk in the gelatin, until completely
dissolved. Next pour the cold water and spiced rum. To set it, pour the mix into a square baking
pan that’s no larger than 9”x9”, and refrigerate for up to three hours to completely
set.
Once set, to remove from the
pan, fill a sink with warm water, and dip the bottom of the pan in the water
(being sure to not get any water on your actual mold) for 2-3 seconds. The mold
will release from the side of the pan. Flip the jello onto a cutting board and
cut into equal sized pieces, and dip the top into your black sprinkles.
The sprinkles will cause a
black run a bit, but this is great because it adds to the spooky effect of your
alcoholic treat!!
