Cinco de Mayo: Tacos and Tequila

We love any excuse to enjoy Mexican cuisine and cocktails. So a gathering for Cinco de Mayo was in order.  A variety of tacos, fresh Mexican crema, and tequila cocktails made for a great meal.  We would suggest trying them all.

Homemade Mexican Crema

1 cup regular sour cream

3/4 cup heavy cream

1 tsp salt

Shake all ingredients in a mason jar and let sit at room temperature for 3 hours. 

If you are not ready to use it within the 3 hours then return to fridge. 

However, make sure to sit it out at least 30 minutes prior to serving. 

The Paloma cocktail is a very popular drink in Mexico. 

It is light, refreshing and goes great with spicy food!

 Paloma 

(Serves 1)

3 oz- 100% Agave Tequila Blanco

1/2 cup fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice 

(about half a grapefruit)

1 oz simple syrup 

(you can also use agave syrup here but it is much sweeter so we would use less)

Half the juice of a lime

 Splash of club soda

Mix the tequila, grapefruit juice, lime juice, and simple syrup. 

Pour over ice and top with a splash of soda water and garnish with a lime wheel.

We also made up a batch of Rick Bayless' Margaritas. His recipe is hard to beat! 

We do make a few minor adjustments to it. 

We add more tequila and more lime juice for each drink. Please do not use cheap orange liquor!

The Pioneer Woman has a great recipe for restaurant style salsa just add a side of beans and tortilla chips. Our pick for the best ready-made chips are Juanita's. 

 You cannot find better unless you fry your own!

What is better than one style of taco? Three! The beef tacos began with Josh sautéing red onions and garlic. He then added thinly sliced skirt steak and seasoned them with spices including Hungarian paprika. This spice adds a very different type of heat to the beef.  It is a sweet rich heat. 

The beef tacos were topped with the Mexican crema and chopped green onions.

The chicken verde tacos are a family favorite. Start by shredding chicken.  Skylar used chicken breast she had cooked in the dutch oven but a rotisserie chicken works great too and saves time.  Add salsa verde and chopped cilantro .  Top with Mexican crema and shredded cabbage mixed with lime and cilantro.

To make the shrimp tacos sauté peeled and detailed shrimp in olive oil and garlic until pink. Top with a fresh salsa of cilantro, chopped tomato, red onion, radish and lime juice.

We ended the night with a traditional shot of Corralejo Reposado.  A very crisp finish!

Give Thanks

We took over Thanksgiving hosting duties from our grandmother almost ten years ago and have always wanted to have an outdoor gathering.  This was the year.  Sixty degrees in November!? We worry a lot about Global Climate Change but in this case it worked in our favor.

Through trial and error we have fine-tuned our menu.  No one will forget the year Abbie used self-rising flour (by accident) in the gravy.  The result was a big mass that could have been used as mortar to build a brick wall! Or the sweet potato balls rolled in coconut that were almost like dessert. A dessert you would not want seconds of! Now Skylar makes candied yams using fresh yams and organic vanilla bean marshmallows.

The Menu

• v Salad of Mixed Greens with a Red Wine Vinaigrette
• v Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
• v Sage Dressing with Apples and Sausage
• v Citrus Cranberry Sauce
• v Rolls

And turkey of course! Josh prepared the turkey this year using a recipe from The Idaho Preferred Cookbook, Live Eat Local.  This one is similar  or buy the cookbook!  It has great recipes using ingredients produced in Idaho.

The Cocktail: A Pumpkin Old-Fashioned

INGREDIENTS

2 tbsp. pumpkin puree
1 ½ oz. bourbon such as Bulleit
1 oz. maple syrup
½ oz. Orange Liqueur such as Patrón Citronge

Dash of orange bitters
To Make

Combine pumpkin puree, bourbon, syrup, orange liqueur and bitters in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled old fashioned glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with orange twist.

Please refer to our Pumpkin, Pumpkin, and more Pumpkin post on how to make fresh pumpkin puree.  That ingredient alone really makes this cocktail.

So, in summary we love the holidays and most things that come with them.  We have come up with a few tips for hosting a family gathering.  We always make a list of everything we are going to need by going through each recipe.  You will need twice as many bottles of Champagne as you think you do.  Do as much chopping and ingredient preparation ahead of time as you can. Make sure your old gram (or comparable relative) is not mixing her own cocktails or she will not make it until dinner! And last, but not least, make a detailed time line of all the things that need to be done and at what time or your mashed potatoes will be cold while your dressing is still waiting for its turn in the oven.  Thanks for reading!!