mexican food made easy

I recently discovered Thomasina Mier's fantastic cookbook, Mexican Food Made Easy, and we have been eating it up. We've tried the tortilla soup, mexican breakfast (eggs, tomato sauce on a tortilla) and mushroom quesadillas. From the a taco for all seasons  section we've been chowing on corn and courgette tacos and mushroom tacos. Black beans have been put into sweet corn and black bean salsas and eaten over baked potatoes. The spinach enchiladas are satisfying and so filling. Perhaps my favourite hot sauce ever is from this book: sweet chipotle paste. Hot, sweet with some lime for an added sour kick, I keep making it and put it on everything. My clothes now have chipotle stains on them but it is oh! so very tasty. Tonight we're trying grilled polenta with mushrooms and greens. 

Admittedly, C hasn't eaten everything I've made but he's eaten most things and loved it. The great thing about the recipes (and this style of cooking in general) is that it is family friendly: you can spice it up or  down without ever feeling like the food is being "dumbed down" or that you are losing any taste. It's written in the UK so the ingredients are easily found locally. There isn't a lot of technique needed and most recipes take around 30 minutes to prepare.

The most impressive recipe I've tried from this book is the grilled langoustines with coriander and pumpkin mole (see the photo, left) which I made substituting king prawns for the langoustines. The sauce is pretty easy to make and seems versatile (I actually forgot the percorino cheese, it was very good but I am curious and will add the cheese next time). Mier gives ideas of other uses and I will be putting it on grilled fish sometime soon. 

All in all this is an amazing cookbook. I had it from the library for an embarrassing amount of time and had to buy it from Amazon. It's already in high rotation in our meal schedule.

all is well

It's been a rough couple of months. No, it's not that. It's been a rough couple of years. I started this blog having just broken up with my boyfriend, on the cusp of running a marathon and starting law school. Lot of stuff has gone down and I wish that I had the ability (the courage? the strength?) to write about it here. But maybe the purpose of this blog is to be a reflection of something else: my attempts to write regardless. To express what's going on despite everything. I wish sickness, loss and sucky jobs didn't exist but that's not where we live. And that's what we do: we struggle on and continue our lives in the face of a whole lot of stuff we don't understand or even like.  I'd like to think that's the brave choice. It isn't really but most of life isn't great acts of bravery. Life is the act of movement and choice: to keep going despite the odds and sadness.

I bought myself a necklace for my birthday, inspired by one that nienie wears (if you haven't been reading the nienie dialogues, well off you go:

http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/). The necklace says "all is well". It's sort of a talisman. Not so much a good luck charm or a form of protection but something that grounds me and reminds me exactly where I am. And that's ok. All is well.