Source: The Best Mexican Recipes, America’s Test Kitchen
Total time: Just less than 2 hours
Servings: 5 (Recipe says 4-6, and you could probably make anything in that range work)
This one was a bit of a scramble because, as mentioned in my last post, we completely forgot we had tickets to a matinee this afternoon. I saw it on my calendar around 8:00 this morning and had to rearrange our meal plans last minute. Because it’s summer, I have been making time-intensive recipes, so I wasn’t confident I’d have something to make that I had already grocery-shopped for. I looked over the list for the week, looked over the recipe, decided it was manageable, and pushed the samosas that I’ve been looking forward to making back until Tuesday, since I got mushrooms on clearance for tomorrow’s dinner and I don’t want to push that back any later.
The process wasn’t too difficult – I learned that Roma tomatoes don’t dice super well with my mandolin even though other tomatoes have diced beautifully, but I made it work. Side note: Sean gave me this mandolin for Valentine’s Day because he has learned that the way to my heart is through America’s Test Kitchen-recommended equipment and I am so very glad that he did. Absolutely worth shelling out $50 for. Everything else was pretty standard, except for needing to grate cheddar from a 2-pound frozen block (because I was not anticipating needing cheddar tonight) and accidentally grabbing at least one stem of parsley from my herb keeper along with the cilantro, which I did not notice until I smelled it while I was chopping (I picked out as much of it as I could see, but there was probably still some parsley in my 2 tablespoons of cilantro). I also should have prepped more of the ingredients in advance, but because the previously-frozen corn was still cold, it took longer than stated to cook, so I had some extra prep time while cooking.
The results, however, were great. Maybe it was some first-food-blog-recipe luck, but both children really enjoyed it, even though it included hated ingredients: black beans and tomatoes. The flavor was light but complex, with just enough cumin while relying mostly on vegetables rather than spices for flavor. I have been neglecting Mexican recipes in the past few months because many rely heavily on meat, which we’ve been avoiding, or beans, tomatoes, and peppers, which usually don’t fly for the boys, so I am glad to have found a good vegetarian option that the kids approve of, too.
Testing the Test Kitchen 