Mustard-y Mussels

These mussels were delicious. Thanks, Serious Eats! Definitely serve with bread for dipping (we also served with a side of green beans).

I plan to serve the leftovers (which I saved in cooking liquid) tossed with pasta tonight.

Drunken Pinto Beans

Take the cooking time on these beans with a grain of salt. I cooked them for the recommended 2 hours or so and they weren’t done. So I cooked them overnight in the crockpot on low. There’s probably a better way, but eh.

Red Chile Rice

Ok, John and I are officially obsessed with this recipe. Sure, you have to make a spice paste, but the paste makes enough for like three batches of rice. Once that’s done, it’s ridiculously easy and tastes like you’ve slaved over this. Courtesy of cookbook “Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen.”

Create-Your-Own-Salad, Mexican Edition

The make-your-own-salad is becoming a staple in our house, particularly on Sundays when we want something a little lighter after a weekend of not so healthy eating. We’ve done the Cobb and the Greek before. Last night, I assembled some Mexican influenced ingredients and took a similar approach.

Chorizo Sandwiches

Almost too easy to be a recipe. But marinated peppers and onion + grilled chorizo + a bun = deliciousness.

Recipe Variation: Mole-marinated Chicken Thighs

Do you guys remember when I made the green chicken mole awhile back and had a cup or two of leftover sauce? Well, I decided to freeze it and it ended up coming in handy for my birthday party.

I basically took the sauce and used it as a marinade for approximately three packages of chicken thighs. After letting it marinade for an hour or two, I seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper, and cooked on a gas grill until done.

Delicious and easy!

Mexican Panzanella

Panzanella’s one of my signature, I-bring-it-to-everything dishes, whether it be classic or Greek-inspired. So when I was trying to think of Mexican dishes for a themed barbecue, John immediately suggested adapting the dish and Mexican-ing it up. Easy enough!

Mexican Corn Salad

I’m so behind on recipes. Particularly since I made a zillion new ones for a recent birthday barbecue (and of course, took no pictures). Oh well. Here they come.

This is actually a borrowed recipe from Becky (who got it from Food & Wine). She made the scallops version for us for dinner and it was great. I omitted the seafood and served this as a side. I could have used less mayo (I’m a mayo hater) but it got totally gobbled up at the event.

Ideally the recipe has you char the corn on the grill but I ran out of time so I just boiled the corn. It was fine.

Tequila Pork Chops with Guacamole

This marinade is more forgiving than I’d have thought. The recipe (which is actually for pork tenderloin, and was a variation in this month’s Cooking Light) recommends two hours. Due to circumstances, ours marinated, well, let’s just say close to 48 hours. It still turned out tasty.

Tortilla Soup, Take Two

It’s been years since I made tortilla soup. I remember it being a staple when I lived in New York but I can’t even remember the last time we had it. When I saw this recipe on Joy’s blog, it seemed like an easy meal to make ahead and then wolf down when we need a quick dinner (though I decided to tweak it a little based on what we had around). So that’s what we’ll do tomorrow night before I have to go see a play to review.

Now that said (and speaking of reviewing plays), this recipe didn’t go off without a hitch. You see, I forgot to turn down the broth when it reached a boil. And then got caught up in late night review writing. Like, over an hour later, John says, “Man, that soup is starting to smell good”. Except it wasn’t so much the  soup. And it didn’t smell so much good as smell like smoke. Yeah, my stock pot was charring on the stove. Strangely, the chicken had kind of survived (it’s pretty dry, though), so I soldiered on with a messy remake of the recipe using what I had left on hand. Lesson learned: cooking and reviewing don’t always mix.