SB2K11

I'm officially on Spring Break!!!! WEEEHOOOOO!!!!!

Since I'm chilling this Spring Break, and not headed anywhere, I decided I wanted to do a few things this week to make it memorable, rather than just watch movies all day.
My plans fall under the umbrella of "Getting in touch with Tucson" - and mainly includes cooking, reading, and enjoy the grand ol' outdoors.

The COOKING part of the plan:

I realized I'm going to be heading into a phase of life where I'll be having people over for dinner, specifically some Hispanic friends, and I don't really know how to cook Hispanic food. Sure, people can eat whatever I cook, but I thought it would a good skill to work on and help me get more in touch with Tucson culture. My mom bought the following book when she was here from Native Seed SEARCH (which is an INCREDIBLE store on Campbell south of Ft. Lowell), and I have been cooking my way through several recipes.

I made roasted tomatillo salsa from the book on Saturday, and it was AMAZING! I'm going to try more salsa recipes this week, but I'm currently making Nopales and Black Bean salad. Nopales are prickly pear pads that you cook with. I've eaten them at my student's house but never made them.

However, I didn't anticipate how long the beans would take to cook (several hours, after soaking most of the day), so the salad will be lunch tomorrow.

Instead of salad, here's what came out for dinner:
Fried potatoes, red onion, fresh garlic, and banana peppers, seasoned with oregano, thyme, and fresh cilantro. I put refried beans on tostadas and topped it the stir-fry mix and queso fresco - WOW! I definitely have never considered being a vegetarian, but with no meat able to cook quickly, this was freaking awesome!

Oops moment of dinner: I thought the banana peppers weren't hot, but apparently there are 2 varieties, and I got the hot one. (I should have known! I got them at Food City!) It's all good though! They were very tasty. The only issue came from me seeding them with my bare hands, so now my fingertips feel like they're on fire!

I also bought another "Irish Pub" cookbook, in honor of St. Patrick's Day this week!
There are lots of fun recipes, but today Erin and I conquered this one.
Irish Cream Liquor Chocolate Cheesecake with chocolate chip cookie crust.
Heck friggin yeah it is as good as it sounds! And now we have leftover Bailey's - oh happy day.

Stay tuned for tomorrow culinary adventures....

PS: The above pictures were taken with my new Panasonic camera from Woot!