Fiesta Mexicana

For a really long time, I’ve been telling Lane we should have a Mexican Fiesta - invite our friends and cook a ton of food. But I was all talk and no action. Finally I came through and we went all out fiesta-ing it up on Saturday.

We had carnitas and all the fixings, Lane made killer pico de gallo, I made an enchilada casserole – which is basically lazy person’s enchiladas. You assemble it like a lasagna – layers of tortilla, sauce, cheese, and filling. I also made my favorite Mexican comfort food – carne con chile, which is basically sautéed pork with a tomato chile sauce. I made a huge pot of rice and beans and we were good to eat all night long.

A couple hours before we got started, we realized we had no dessert to serve. I quickly remembered a little dessert my nana used to make: buñuelos – you basically fry up some flour tortillas until they get golden and puffy, sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and serve while still nice and warm. I’d never made them before, and my mom never did either. They were a great success! Biting into that flaky sweet tortilla goodness transported me to being a little girl, enjoying a special treat from my nana. I can’t believe I never thought of making those sooner.

We had a great time with bunches of our friends. I absolutely love to entertain, get our friends together for loads of laughs and endless delicious eats. I wish we did it more often. I also wish we had taken some photos; I even charged the camera battery, but forgot to bring out the camera once people started arriving.

While the party ended Saturday night, the Mexican fiesta did not stop there. I went a little overboard on the food (as usual). It’s like I have this outrageous fear that we will somehow have a room full of starving people and suddenly run out of food. Maybe it’s the Mexican in me. I seriously could have invited everyone over again the next night and fed them all a second time without cooking anything extra.

This did not stop me from making another of my favorite Mexican comfort dishes – posole. I used the extra enchilada sauce we made, along with the carnitas broth. You just add hominy, some of the carnitas meat, and some extra seasonings and then you have a delicious soup. The best part is adding goodies on the top – fresh chopped onion, cilantro, and avocado along with some lemon juice makes it just perfect.

I also indulged in a little extra Mexican goodness that I learned from my mom. A corn tortilla with chopped avocado and a little salt makes a fabulous taco. I introduced Lane to it yesterday. He kind of laughed at me for how excited I got about it, but he loved it too. Feeling overconfident by my success, I announced to Lane that we would try making tamales (without my mom!!) sometime before the baby is born. I wonder if he'll hold me to it.

We finished off our weekend with a clean apartment – even after having almost a dozen people over!! And we watched a cool documentary – the US vs. John Lennon. It’s the really interesting story of how the US was against John Lennon and tracking him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. The film is full of footage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, it has tons of his songs in it throughout, and really gives a much better idea of who John Lennon was outside of the Beatles.

Needless to say, I probably won’t be cooking most of the week.