Last weekend was the 7^th annual Mexican party hosted by Amy and Cheryl.  Mandi and I were lucky enough to go last year, and this year TFIMB was the corporate sponsor (without actually giving any money).  A great time was had by all and I took some pictures of the festivities.  There will be no recipes today except for one vague one for the pork that everyone requested.

Dan:  hey you think i could get the pork recipe for the post today?   im not going to put up any recipes except that one cause it was such a big hit.

Amy: There wasn't a recipe actually.  I put a Mexican dry rub on it that I bought at Target (Archer Farms).  In the bottom of the pots, I put a mixture of orange juice, lime juice, garlic and oregano.  Roasted at 425 for about a half hour to brown a bit, then took it down to 300 for about 5 hours.  Each Boston Butt was about 5-6 lbs.  Oh my god, I'm hungry!

Mandi always claims she hates burgers.  I think one of the reasons is that when I make them, they always end up huge and have no direction.  I put in whatever is in the fridge and they end up tasting more like meatloaf than cheeseburgers.  Now that grilling season has begun, I am trying to make more focused burgers and turn around Mandi’s opinion. My first attempt was a taco burger.  An obvious choice due to her love of tacos!

I wasn’t sure what to call this really…  Quinoa salad?  Mexicany rice bowlish thing?  I settled on Black bean avocado bowl.  It came about when Mandi and I were brainstorming about quick easy healthy weeknight meals we could completely make AND eat in a half hour and run after.  This would actually be great as an alternative to pasta salad at a BBQ and would also travel really well, but we just had it as a quick and healthy weeknight dinner.

I have really wanted to sear tuna lately.  Why? I have no idea.  For some reason it has been one of those dishes that gets stuck in your head and you can’t stop thinking about it until you finally make it yourself!  But what would we do with this seared tuna?  I didn’t really want to put it in a salad.  The brainstorming began at 2:30ish between Mandi and I over email.  Mandi wanted avocado because Thursday is usually taco night and if she couldn’t have tacos, some avocado would at least ease the pain.  I thought mangos would be a nice compliment to the lightness of the tuna.  After looking for awhile online, I was reminded of a raw tuna nacho appetizer I had at Mesa Grill in New York.  I saw a recipe that included an avocado and a chipotle crema and decided to make these, wing a mango salsa, and put it all on a corn tortilla.  The results were delicious!

I totally did not plan to make a Cinco de Mayo themed post today.  I had tamales all lined up to go, and I woke up and was like…hmmm today is Cinco de Mayo...  crazy!  We made these because Mandi was scouring the internet for other things to steam.  Once we bought the steamer she decided that she wanted every meal steamed from that point on.  The thing about tamales is you are supposed to use a metal pot steamer.  This is because they take over an hour and a half and the bamboo starts to get really soggy at that point.  This is fine, it still dries out and everything, you just have to be careful with it.  They came out great for us and we even got some nice bamboo flavor in the tamales that was delicious.  In a totally unrelated side note to TFIMB fans, check out the web comic xkcd from today and also from Friday.  They are both food related, slightly nerdy, and hilarious as usual.  Be sure to mouse over to see the alt text.

On Friday I posted my usual tacos that Mandi and I make most Thursdays.  This past week however, we were trying to be healthy.  We still wanted tacos, so we decided to make a more authentic Mexican version of tacos from the cookbook “Authentic Mexican” by Rick Bayless.  I’ve had this book for a few months and we had yet to make anything from it, seeing him on top chef last week prompted me to finally open it up.  While what we made isn’t healthy, it is better then the tacos we usually make, and since it was different, we would be more conscious of not stuffing ourselves.  It turned out really great and I think if we made it one or 2 more times it would be even better with a bit more kick in the sauce. Click below to continue. 

Tacos.  Almost every week since college I have eaten tacos on Thursday night.  At one time it was much simpler.  Taco kit, jar of salsa, bag of cheese, some pre washed/cut lettuce, and call it a day.  As the years went by, we swapped out the pre made ingredients one by one to get where we are today. Trade a jar of salsa to bought fresh salsa to actually making salsa.  Go from the taco seasoning packet, to half the packet and some of your own spices, to fully using your own blend.  This obviously is a very American version of tacos, tune in Monday and I will post a more authentic Mexican version of tacos we actually made last night!

On Sunday afternoon I was making some Chile-Chocolate Ice Cream. Rich emailed me saying that he and Kim were making Chili with vanilla in it. I really thought it was weird that we were making exact opposite foods. Click below for the story...