Cinco De Mayo Es Numero Uno

    Before you all get excited about the multi-lingual post let me warn you; most of the words I use outside of the English language don't even qualify as real words. I am one of those people that takes the English word and makes it whatever language I am trying to get across by adding or subtracting letters and I find that faking the accent doesn't hurt either.

    I was unfortunate growing up, in the fact that I was not required to take a second language in high school. Spanish was offered in my school but since I grew up in the sticks, as they say, I didn't see much use for it. Flash forward to many years to count and I wish I had taken Spanish. Ay Caramba!

     The good news is you don't have to speak the language to eat the food, or cook it for that matter. I mean you could feasibly have a problem if the recipe is written in a foreign language, so watch out for that. Recipe language barriers aside, I find that cooking Mexican food is quite simple. I also find that making Mexican food is quite messy; worth it, but messy. A lot of dishes are made with sauces, spices and cheeses, and a lot of dishes are fried, or require some frying.

    I woke up on Cinco De Mayo (May 5, :) ) and immediately began to plan the evenings culinary experience. I don't have a lot of experience with Mexican dishes, tacos and chili notwithstanding, but that morning I decided that tacos and chili just would not do. After much soul searching, ok, internet searching, I decided on Beef Enchiladas. I chose this one because it looked fairly simple (and it was), it was a recipe I had all the ingredients for at home, and it seemed like something the kids would enjoy (and they did). And what is an enchilada without a good enchilada sauce? Well actually it's still an enchilada, albeit drier, but still an enchilada. Not wanting a dried up enchilada I also whipped up a batch of my good friend Emeril's easy enchilada sauce. (I know it seems like name dropping there, and though it would be quite cool, I never actually met Emeril) The easy enchilada sauce was just that, easy. As easy, in fact, as any gravy I've ever made.
    

   Along with the enchiladas, we also had Tostadas (fried green Plantains), Chicken Taquitos, and tortilla chips with homemade pico de gallo. As a special treat we picked up some root beer for the kids and for a REAL special treat, some Sangria for the grown-ups.

     

 Overall the meal was muy bien, and for one day in May my crazy house was MI LOCA CASA!