Charro Beans for Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo is coming up. Last year Jim and I hosted a "drinko de mayo" party in the back yard. The big hit were these stick on mustaches - I think the girls look great!

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "Fifth of May") is a regional holiday in Mexico, primarily celebrated in the state of Puebla, with some limited recognition in other parts of Mexico. The holiday commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely defeat of French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín.

In the United States, Cinco de Mayo has taken on a significance beyond that in Mexico. The date is perhaps best recognized in the United States as a date to celebrate the culture and experiences of Americans of Mexican ancestry, much as St. Patrick's Day, Oktoberfest, and the Chinese New Year are used to celebrate those of Irish, German, and Chinese ancestry respectively.

Similar to those holidays, Cinco de Mayo is observed by many Americans regardless of ethnic origin. Celebrations tend to draw both from traditional Mexican symbols, such as the Virgen de Guadalupe, and from prominent figures of Mexican descent in the United States, including César Chávez.

A successful cinco de mayo party must have plenty of mexican beer and margaritas. Cascarones are a Mexican tradition for Easter as well as other holidays. A cascaron is an egg that is decorated much like an Easter egg and then filled with confetti. Cascarones are broken over the head for good luck. You can make your own cascarones at home with simple supplies that you probably already have lying around.

Lucky for your I LOVE MEXICAN FOOD and I have some of my favorite Mexican recipes to share with you. These are simple to follow so you can treat your guests and family to a festive cinco de mayo celebration of your own.

Fish Tacos and Salsa Veracruz

Classic Beef Enchiladas

Mexican Chicken Soup

Chicken Spaghetti Ole

Ninfa's Green Salsa

Taco Soup

Spanish Rice

Exceptional Margaritas

Chicken Enchilada Dip

Mexican Lasagna

Chipotle Meatballs

Cream of Green Chile Soup

Chuy's Jalapeno Ranch Dip

On the Border Copy Cat Recipe

Mexican Wedding Cookies

Charro beans are a wonderful side dish to serve with mexican food, especially fajitas. I recently made my "white girl" version of charro beans for a bbq with friends - they were really great. Let me show you what I did.


These are the ingredients for a double recipe: 2 sausage links, 5 slices bacon, 1 onion, 2 T garlic, 4 chopped tomatoes, 6 cans trappy pinto beans with jalapeno, 2 ribs celery, 2 jalapenos, 1/2 T bouillon, 1/2 T cumin, 4 T bloody mary mix, 1 can water.

Begin by prepping the bacon and sausage links. Dice and slice them up into bite size pieces.

In a large stock pot over medium high heat, saute the bacon and sausage until the bacon is almost done, but not crispy yet.

Dice the onion.

Add the onion to the sausage and bacon.

Add the minced garlic and stir to combine. It should be smelling REALLY good about now.

Chop the tomatoes into manageable pieces and add to the stock pot.

Stir to combine.

Now add all but one can of pinto beans.

Beans and bean juice - add it all.

Stir to combine, lower heat to medium low.

With the last can of pinto beans, throw that into a cuisinart or blender.

Split the two jalapenos open and pull out the seeds.

Then add those to the cuisinart along with two ribs of celery that have been washed and sliced.

Pulse just a few times to blend.

Adding this to the stock pot will thicken and flavor the beans. Charro beans are more like a "stoup" than beans on a plate, it's best served in a bowl or cup so you can taste all the juices/sauce.

Now, I add more flavor by throwing in 1/2 Tablespoon of chicken bouillon and 1/2 Tablespoon cumin. I added more liquid to the pot by filling a bean can with water, and then adding about 4 Tablespoons of bloody mary mix, but adding more tomatoes or maybe even V-8 would have worked here too.

Let this simmer for an hour, stirring often to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. Uno, Dos, Tres, Charro Beans! Made by a white girl to boot!

Fish Tacos and Salsa Veracruz

I have no shame. These Onion Goggles are one of my favorite things in the kitchen. The cupcake apron was a gift from my mother.

I look so cool in these goggles - ha! I'm wearing them while chopping onions for some pretty amazing specialty salsa I made one evening. I had been thinking about making fish tacos for a while, and finally found a good post online from homesicktexan.

This salsa turned out to be fantastic as it is salty and acidic from the tomatoes, capers and green olives. Very interesting combination. I can't wait to make these fish tacos again, so so so yummy! Elke, this post is for you!

The first thing I did was wear my pink onion goggles and dice one yellow onion along with one jalapeno. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pot over medium high heat, then cook the chopped onion and jalapeno for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Here are the rest of the ingredients for our Salsa Veracruz: 1 can crushed tomatoes, garlic, green olives, capers, dried marjoram, dried thyme, cayenne, bay leaves, cilantro, lime juice and salt.

After 10 minutes the onion starts to brown, then I add two cloves of minced garlic and cook for another minute.

Turn off the heat and add a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, scraping any brown bits that might have formed on the bottom of the pan. Mix well but don't let it get too hot.

Now I use my immersion blender and go to town on this mixture - blending it up until we have a smooth puree.

Now we add the rest of the ingredients. Here is 10-12 green olives which I chop up and add to the tomato sauce.

2 tablespoons of capers - basically the small jar, drained.

Add 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram.

Add 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme.

Add 1/4 teaspoon cayenne.

Add 1-2 bay leaves.

Stir to combine and then throw in 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro.

Bring the mixture to a boil and then turn down to simmer on low for 20 minutes. The last thing to do is fish out the bay leaves. Salsa Veracruz Ya'll!

Fish Tacos! I think any white flaky fish will do. I'm using tilapia which I seasoned with a little cumin, salt and pepper.

I cut each fillet in half to make them more manageable since I was going to wrap these up in a tortilla.

Each seasoned fish fillet went through a dusting of flour.

A bath in eggs.

Then a bath in japanese bread crumbs called Panko. The flour sticks to the fish, the egg sticks to the flour, the panko sticks to the egg. I set them all on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and put them in the fridge for 30 minutes to "chill out." I read on foodnetwork.com that after you bread something like chicken or fish that placing in the fridge helps the coating stick together and stay on the meat after you cook it.

Meanwhile I prepare the black beans. I simply opened a can of black beans and poured into a small saucepan.

Then I seasoned the black beans with the same seasonings found in the salsa and on the fish. Cumin, marjoram, thyme, cayenne and garlic.

No measuring here, I just improvised. Then threw in some chopped cilantro. Let this heat through on the stove over low heat.

Now I'm ready to cook the fish fillets. I used about 1/2 cup of vegetable oil and heated on medium high heat for five minutes. If you flick a drop of water and it sizzles and pops, it's ready.

Without crowding the pan too much I fry the fish fillets until golden on the bottom, and flip to cook until golden on the other.

Drain on a paper towel. Work in batches until all are cooked.

Don't these look great? I really like using panko, they give such a great light and flaky crust when baked or fried.

When the fish completed I threw in some corn tortillas to fry until crispy - making a chalupa, my favorite vehicle for eating mexican food. It takes about 60 seconds per side to crisp up.

Once fried crispy its time to top this chalupa. Jim prefers to eat his fish tacos on a soft tortilla.

Here, Jim has a soft flour tortilla that he tops with two crispy fish fillets and a spoonful of fancy black beans.

Next top with some of the Salsa Veracruz.

My crispy chalupa has the flaky tilapia fillets, fancy black beans, salsa veracruz and fresh cilantro on top. Come to mama!!!

{Salsa Veracruz}

Simply Perfect Lemonade

My precious baby Cole fishing his baseball out of the fountain. It was a hot day so I let him play in the water, but soon regreted that decision when he came over and shook right where I was sitting. Stinky dog quickly became wet stinky dog. Boys will be boys I guess. Speaking of boys, I had no idea how crazy happy Jim would be the day I made lemonade. It was one of those hot Texas days and I needed a sweet and tart beverage to quinch my thirst. Luckily, Elise had a post about perfect lemonade that I found online.

The secret to perfect lemonade is to start by making sugar syrup, also known as "simple syrup". Dissolving the sugar in hot water effectively disperses the sugar in the lemonade, instead of having the sugar sink to the bottom. This is also a great way to sweeten iced tea by the way.

1 1/2 c water
1 c sugar
1 c lemon juice

Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely. Add the lemon juice and the simple syrup to a pitcher. Add 3 to 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes. If the lemonade is a little sweet for your taste, add a little more straight lemon juice to it. Serve with ice, sliced lemons. Serves 6.

I boiled 1 1/2 cups water and added one cup of granulated sugar. When sugar disolved, I removed from the burner and added one cup of lemon juice.

Then I poured this concentrated lemonade into a glass container and stored in the fridge.

To make the perfect glass of lemonade I added 1/2 cup of the concentrate, topped with ice and water. Voila, simply perfect lemonade. You would have thought I created cold fusion the way Jim flipped over this lemonade. It's the simple things in life!!

You know what could make this perfect glass of lemonade even better? Titos Vodka! Jenna, have you come up with a name for that concoction yet?

Here is another alternative! Make an Arnold Parmer, a great non-alcoholic cocktail. 50% lemonade and 50% iced tea.

Or better yet, freeze the lemonade in your ice cream maker or on a sheet pan like you were making a granita. Then, make iced tea and serve a scoop of lemonade on top.

Pomegranate Sorbet in Champagne

Here is a picture of Jim and I at Flying Saucer, one of the fun happy hour spots we like to visit on Friday's.

Now for the other Pomegranate dessert I recently made - this one was my favorite of the two! I researched several recipe ideas (check out this one and also check out this one) and loved the idea of serving the pom sorbet with champagne.

Actually this recipe for champagne sorbet sounds awesome:

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

2 lemons

1 bottle Champagne or other sparkling white wine, cold

Combine the sugar and 1 cup water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and place in the refrigerator until cold, about 1 hour. Using the finest grater you have, lightly scrape the skin of 1 lemon, removing only the top surface of the peel. Squeeze out the juice and remove the seeds from both lemons. Open the Champagne or sparkling wine, and pour it into a 9 by 12 by 2-inch pan. Mix in the simple syrup, lemon juice, and grated zest. Place mixture into the freezer. Check after 30 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, break up any ice formed on the sides and stir into the rest of the liquid. Continue to freeze and repeat this procedure every hour for at least 3 hours. Before serving, fluff the granita by "chopping" up any clumps with the spoon or gently whisking the frozen mixture. Spoon into small glasses or cups and serve.

Sounds good, but thats not what I did.

I started by making simple syrup. Boil water, add sugar.

Then I threw in some mint, took the simple syrup off the burner and let it steep for 20 minutes.

Next I added some Pom juice.

Then strain the mixture to remove the mint pieces. Put this in the fridge and let it get cold.

Then simply process in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.

30 minutes later we have some awesome tasting pom sorbet. To serve, scoop the pomegranate sorbet into chilled dessert bowls or Champagne saucers. Pour just a little champagne around the sorbet, garnish with a sprig of mint.