Mexican feast.

I have never made Mexican food before, I am not a huge fan of tacos, or burritos or fajitas, so I guess it never occurred to me to make it. However, my husband loves it and so do our regular weekend guests so I decided to step out of my element and make a go of it. I couldn't pin point exactly what I wanted to make either so I just went all out and did a bit of a lot of things! It was quite labour intensive and I did enlist the help of my husband for quite a lot of it, which was fun! And now we have a fridge full of left overs which is great. 

Not only was I trying to get a lot of things ready at the same time, but we have a limited amount of pots and pans so it was a little interesting getting it all cooked too!

I guess I will start with pictures from the finished end and work backwards on how we got there. 

The first thing I got going was the seasoned ground beef. I fried it in a frying pan and once it was brown I transferred it to a pot with a lid that can go on the oven. I added salt, pepper, oregano, coriander (because I didn't have cumin), chilli flakes, crushed tomatoes, Montreal steak spice and chipotle chilli sauce. I bought a can of chipotles, it is stuffed full of the smoked chillies but there is also a lovely thick sauce around them which I scooped out and used in a lot of the dishes. I just let it simmer away slowly until it was ready and then I put it in the oven, covered, very low to stay warm until we ate. 

Second longest job was making the rice. I fried the rice grains in the same pan I fried the beef in. I added a chopped onion, chopped tomato and crushed tomatoes to this and let it fry a little. Then I transferred it to a pot with a lid too, and added some chicken stock and let it start to cook. I added a chicken stock cube for more flavour too and ended up using an entire box of stock. I cut up 2 chipotles really well and was about to add them all to the rice when I decided to taste them and boy were they hot! So I added half instead. And some more of the lovely sauce. Also some chopped fresh cilantro and salt and pepper. You need to keep stirring the rice, a bit like risotto. It looks a dirty, orangey colour when it is done, from all the tomatoes. I think there were chilli flakes in here too actually. And coriander, because I had no cumin. 

Next I diced up 2 onions and got them frying in a wok, along with about 10 large brown and white button mushrooms, sliced, and 3 different coloured peppers cut into strips. 

I sauteed a can of sweet corn in half butter half oil then added a can of black beans to it that had been rinsed thoroughly. I loved the bright yellow and black colours together. I seasoned it simply with salt and pepper and garlic. 

Lastly I sliced up the turkey breasts and seasoned with salt and pepper and garlic powder and flash fried them. They were the pounded thin breasts so cooked really fast. I had gone shopping for chicken but found the turkey on sale and opted for that instead, it is cheaper normally anyway!

I admit there was a quite a bit of can opening here, corn, black beans, and I bought re fried beans in a can too. It really helped me time wise. I warmed the re fried beans up slowly in the microwave when we were ready to eat. 

On the cold front, we had chopped lettuce, chopped tomatoes, grated cheese, finely cut green onions, finely cut cilantro and guacamole. We normally like a spicy/seasoned guacamole but this time we went really low key because of all the other flavours and heat around. Simply mashed avocados and some green sauce, which is like a green salsa but runnier. I also picked up a peach/mango salsa which I thought would be interesting. Somehow it escaped the photo (I think it was on the table for dipping purposes already) but I made a chipotle sour cream/mayo which was just a finely chopped chipotle and spicy sauce with salt and garlic powder and sour cream and mayo. It was very, very good!

We had spinach and plain white flour tortilla wraps to encase it all in, which were warmed slightly in the oven to make them really pliable. 

Because I am not a huge fan of the hot, stuffed wrap I just had a selection of it all on a plate!

The flavours were amazing! I was so impressed with all the freshness, heat, colour, texture, it really was wonderful. It was very amusing watching the gents try and stuff ridiculous amounts of filling into the wraps and then try and keep them wrapped as they ate them! I did take photos of this but can't bring myself to put them up! Though it does show how tasty the food was with everyone tucking in so voraciously. My favourite part was the spicy rice, with some peach/mango salsa and chipotle sour cream!  Yum! 

I had no idea where to start with this meal but there is a wealth of information online as usual that points you in the right direction. A lot of what we eat isn't necessarily traditional Mexican food, I believe there are a lot of embellished ingredients that we have decided we like in burritos and tacos etc and that is all good, and thus the taste buds evolve. I think go with what you like and try things you think you won't like and it's all good!