Category Archives: Mexican Food

Rice and Beans, Beans and Rice

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Wow – our last post was 6 weeks ago and our lives look very different – and yet surprisingly unchanged.  In our last post I told you we had delivered 25 bags of food to people in our community who are now unemployed.    Today we will deliver our 1,000th bag!  And considering each family is at least 5 people, that’s over 5,000 people who have been fed using the donations that our friends, family and coworkers have sent our way.

I have lots of stories and each day I have updated my Facebook page with pictures and musings of the day – I just haven’t sat down to update my blog.  I promise I will.

20200511_130355When we started this feeding program, we spent time researching what should go in our bags of staples.  We googled and we spoke to other groups doing the same work.   We asked some of our local friends who themselves were struggling.  Our goal was to feed a family for a week.  After a few changes and substitutions – balancing cost with need – we came up with these ingredients:

  • Macaroni – 220 g
  • Rice – 900 g
  • Oats – 1 kg
  • Black beans – 900 g
  • Milk – 2 L
  • Tuna – 295 g
  • Chicken bullion cubes or powder
  • Corn flour
  • Oil
  • Tomato Sauce
  • Potatoes
  • Oranges
  • Cucumbers
  • Carrots
  • Chicken – ½ or whole.
  • Digestive Cookies

For those who don’t have refrigerators we give eggs instead of chicken.

We also include one lime cream dessert cooked by a single mom who we are trying to help get on her feet.  She wants to start a restaurant and we thought it would be good exposure to send one of her favorite products out into the community.  Helping Ana Luisa start her new business will certainly be a future project for us and a future post!

After a few weeks of delivering these bags,  after spending so many hours shopping and bagging these items, we began to wonder how people were managing.  Were these the right items to get you through a week?   5 days?  So we did what any good researcher does – we staged an experiment.   Could Grant and I live off the contents of one of our bags for one week?

We had a few rules to make it a bit easier:

  1. I could use any spices or condiments I already had in the house
  2. We could eat any food we found – ie fruit on trees
  3. We could eat food given to us – within reason. I did turn down one loaf of homemade bread that I really, really wanted but I knew was cheating
  4. Beverages were not part of the experiment – losing my coffee would not be good for anyone!

So how did we do?  I’d give us an 8 out of 10.  It was easier than I expected in many ways.  I learned how to make tortillas from scratch, to take dry beans and make a delicious pot of savory beans, to use the basic tortilla to make tostados and taquitos and empanadas.   Most of it was delicious.

What didn’t go well? 

  • Making food from scratch takes more time and creates more dirty dishes. The beans need to be soaked the night before, the tortilla dough need to be made and allowed to rest for a while.  The rice wasn’t instant – neither were the oats.  That was all difficult while trying to increase our food delivery work and being gone a number of hours each day.  My slow cooker was definitely my friend.
  • I really needed more vegetables. A salad please.  More fruit.  I admit I did grab some frozen berries from the freezer to add to the oatmeal today.
  • Canned tuna is weird here. It’s not chunky – it’s runny.  I’m not buying that again.
  • I really miss eggs in the morning. And bacon.  And toast.  And bacon.
  • You really have to watch packaged food down here for bugs. The day I opened the bag of macaroni to add to the soup, hundreds of little black bugs invaded my counter.  Some got boiled – the rest just ran everywhere.  As I was digging behind things on the counter to catch the bugs, I found a dead mouse in the Borax ant trap.  That was just a bad day with lots of screaming.

What did we eat?  Here is our menu and a few pics – honestly, that part went better than expected.    A lot of Rice and Beans, Beans and Rice.  But with different spices it wasn’t so bad.  This was our menu:

Menu

Did we cheat?

Surprisingly little!  I did put some peanut butter on the boring cookies.  A tiny bit of pineapple in the Chicken Fried Rice.  Some frozen berries in the oatmeal and empanada.   We bought a mini croissant from a street vendor because he really needed a sale.  One family we delivered food to insisted we accept their gifts of tamales and hot chocolate and jello.  And one total cheat Meatball Stroganoff with friends who invited us to their home – because in the end relationships are more important than experiments and we needed laughter more than beans.

What did we learn?

This bag of food was enough for 2 of us for this week, but most certainly is a stretch for a family.  Mexican families eat a lot more tortillas than we do, so I know that is a filler and we have lots of flour left.  We have rice and beans left, and could have eaten much smaller bowls of oats each morning.   The chicken went a long way and families could make bigger pots of soup than we did using the chicken stock.  I would like to add a few more veggies – more carrots, maybe some peppers.

Our biggest lessons were the emotions we experienced and the recognition of how blessed our lives have always been.  As self-employed entrepreneurs, we have had financial ups and downs.  There have been seasons in my life where I took the calculator to the grocery store to make sure I stayed within a super tight budget and days where I had to put things back when the total ran over.    I have clipped coupons and scoured sales flyers.  And yet on our very worst day, we had fridges and cupboards overflowing with fruits and vegetables and staples.   Our pantries have never truly been empty.  We have never gone hungry.  My children have never had to chase down strangers in a golf cart to beg for food.   And nothing I have done has caused me to deserve the privileged life I have lived.

This experiment, this whole last 6 weeks, has messed with our minds.  Last week (and probably tomorrow) when I ordered pizza, Grant reminded me how many food bags we could provide for that amount.  The disparity is uncomfortable, and we want to learn how to be grateful for what we have and to turn that gratefulness into generosity, not into some kind of unproductive guilt.

20200425_111814I won’t lie – I am glad this week is over.  I am ready to get back to eating what I want – a pizza, a big salad, some peanut butter on a slice of toast, a steak off the BBQ.  Did I mention bacon?  The people we are serving don’t have that option.  For many we will deliver their 2nd or 3rd or even 4th bag and they will eat it all again.  More rice, more beans, a couple of oranges divided up.  And they will also be grateful that strangers from Canada and the US and Mexico donated money so that their children could go to bed tonight with food in their bellies.  Thank you – your generosity has blown us away!  I don’t know how long this will last.  Every night before bed I look at the money left in the bank and tell Grant  “We have enough money for 200 more bags”.  5 more days.  And then it multiplies.   And we keep delivering.

To Donate to Food for Families:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/food-for-families-banderas-bay-relief?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

CONFESSION UPDATE:

After I finished writing this post, I made our last pot of rice, warmed up the last bit of refried beans and reheated a few tortillas.   Then we looked at each other and agreed …. we need meat.  We grabbed a piece of beef from the fridge, heated up the BBQ and made some proper tacos.   So 7.5 out of 10 it is…..20200518_185639

Christmas in Oaxaca

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For most of us, Christmas is unbreakably tied to long-standing,  comfort-creating traditions.  Activities, foods, songs, people, decorations, even smells – we find comfort in these familiar symbols of childhood, family, fun and belonging.  Like no other time of the year, change is unwelcome.  We cling to sentimental reminders of the times we felt the most loved.

20181126_153938When you move to another country – a really different country – traditions change and that can be hard.  Over these past 3 years, I have tried to hold loose those things that no longer work here and to cling to what is truly the most important.   I have been willing to exchange cold air for hot breezes, crispy snow for soft sand, hash brown casserole for chilaquiles, Christmas carols for tuba banda music.  This year we put up our tree and covered it with the family heirloom decorations we have been hanging since our children were babies.  But everything else was different and it was fantastic!

Oaxaca-map.jpgIn early Fall, our youngest daughter Brett suggested we travel somewhere different for Christmas this year.  She was planning a 5-month trip through Mexico, and although she could easily fly to our home, she really wanted to show us a place she had grown to love.  Her boyfriend would be there and our oldest would fly down from Canada.  Oaxaca.  Let’s all meet in Oaxaca this year.  Every part of our Christmas tradition would be different, but we would be together and that is the tradition that means the most.

So we rented a great Airbnb in Oaxaca and came together for a week to embrace Oaxacan Christmas traditions.  It was amazing, and I want to share just a few things we experienced there.

Posadas (Parades)

I have never seen so many parades.  Every night, the streets would explode with brass bands, dancers in traditional costumes, paper mache giants, and so many people.  Some were religious pilgrimages heading to the giant churches in the plazas, others were celebrating Oaxacan foods like radishes and chocolate.  Seriously, there is a parade for chocolate!

 

Noche de los Rabanos (Night of the Radishes)

Since 1897, every year on December 23rd, over 100 contestants gather in the plaza (Zocalo) to compete in a radish carving contest.  Many thousands of people gather to see the elaborate masterpieces – and when we found out the line to get close was 3-4 hours long, we decided to watch from a distance.   The atmosphere was exciting – and of course it started with a parade!

 

Check out more photos of this crazy competition here

Navidad (Christmas)

In Mexico, Christmas Eve is a much bigger family celebration than Christmas Day.  Again, we headed to the main plaza and watched 3 or 4 different parades go by.  There were at least 7 different Santas greeting children near the massive Christmas tree and 4 or 5 Baby Jesus’ going by in the parades.  We ate tamales oozing with mole and drank giant glasses of steaming hot chocolate.  It was chilly, and it was cute to watch the little Mexican children wearing wooly toques and long scarves.

 

Although they are more often associated with Easter, I purchased traditional cascarones, hollowed out eggs stuffed with confetti, and broke them on the heads of all my family members – and of course I got one too.    It is supposed to bring us good luck but I’m pretty sure I just gave Meigan a headache!

Although I had given up on the idea of a Turkey dinner, I was excited when my daughter texted on Christmas day to say she had seen a sign advertising turkey at one of the street chicken stalls.  She would bring it home for dinner.  Yay – turkey after all.  But when it arrived, it looked more like the leg of a tough old dinosaur, and the sweet macaroni salad was not exactly mashed potatoes.  But we were together, and we laughed at the sad Christmas feast!

Fireworks

Sparklers and fizzlers and cannons.  So many fireworks and noise makers.  Everywhere.  All day and all night.  If you can’t beat ‘em you may as well join ‘em.  We are now officially part of the problem!

Food

Traditional Oaxacan food is outstanding – some say the best in all of Mexico.  Over 200 kinds of mole (chile sauce), including my favorite, the thick slightly bitter black chocolate mole.  Tlayudas – crispy blue corn tortillas slathered in lard and bean paste and other vegetable and meat toppings and grilled over hot coals.  Tamales – pockets of chicken and tomatoes and peppers wrapped in corn dough, steamed in corn husks or banana leaves.  Quesillo – the mild white string cheese that is pulled off the round balls as needed.  Chapulines – grasshoppers that are eaten crispy like peanuts or are used in sauces or even in ice cream!  I can’t say I loved that – the taste was okay, but no one needs tiny grasshopper legs stuck in their teeth!  Giant plates of meat – thin beef and pork marinated in orange chiles, and small round links of spicy chorizo.  Big mugs of hot chocolate made with either milk or water to drink, or the local favorite mezcal, a smoky version of tequila.   All of it so affordable.  We ate many times a day, at the local markets or small restaurants, with no guilt because of the low price and the thousands of steps we knew would wear it all off.

 

Family Time

Most importantly, we just spent time together.  We played our traditional game of Upwords (I won…woop woop).  We went exploring throughout the grand historical city, shopping for small artisan gifts for each other.  Oaxaca is famous for its black pottery and for its colorfully painted Alebrijes, those imaginary animals that come alive in the movie Coco.  Intricately embroidered blouses and handmade jewelry.  We came home with a bit of it all.

 

We headed out of the city as well.  Mont Albán is a cluster of archaeological ruins dated to 500 BC.  We walked over 18,000 steps and climbed 78 stories as we explored these pyramid-like structures.  Another day we headed into the mountains to visit Hierve el Agua, an area that contains stunning rock formations (petrified waterfalls) and mineral springs.   We climbed to the base of the formation to see the stunning view up close, but of course what goes down…..

 

The thing with travel is that when we let go of what is familiar and embrace the experience of another person in another place, our own traditions become less rigid, more fluid.  We can build new ones.  We can see things we never knew existed and taste flavors that change our outlook.  Turkey flooded with gravy gives way to turkey bathed in black mole.  A slab of bread becomes a flat corn tortilla, my morning caffeine comes from chocolate instead of coffee.  But like every other Christmas tradition, it comes with my husband at my side and my daughters nearby.  We have grown, we have changed, we have risked….  But still we say, from our family to yours,  Merry Christmas and Feliz Navidad.  Happy New Year.  And most important of all,  Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

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A Week of Parties

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The hotter the temperature rises, the quieter our little town becomes. Most of the tourists have now gone home and many of the local restaurants and shops have either closed for the summer or reduced their hours.  The ones that are still open are offering great discounts.  We are enjoying eating out more, supporting the locals who are hoping to hold on until the tourists return.  Yesterday at Los Tejabanes we had a full lunch with vegetables soup, rich and delicious Chile Rellenos with rice and a drink for only 70 pesos –  $4 CDN.

The summer slowdown definitely does not mean the Mexicans have stopped partying however, and we had two great parties this week.

First was a surprise birthday party for me at the orphanage.  I am usually not there on Wednesday afternoons, but I have some new English teachers and was showing them the ropes.  We held our 5 classes – 3 hours of singing “Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes” while teaching body parts (when did I stop being able to comfortably touch my toes?) and I really can’t believe that none of our little students gave away the secret.  While we taught the oldest class during the last hour, the staff and younger children were busy blowing up balloons, decorating the house, stuffing a piñata and putting a LOT of candles in the cake.  Just before 5:00, the classroom door opened, and Grant came in carrying a cake followed by a crowd of little ones wearing crowns and masks and yelling “Happy Birthday Karen”.  We spent the next 2 hours singing and dancing and eating cake and piñata candy and of course the obligatory Mexican tradition of smashing my face in the cake.   This is called “Mordida” – literally “taking a bite” – everyone yelling “Mordida, Mordida” while the birthday girl or boy takes the first bite of the cake.  Gael thought it was hilarious to really shove my face in that delicious chocolate icing.

The next day I looked through all the cards that the children – and the grown ups had made – and I was moved by their love, their openness and their artistic abilities.  They had worked hard to make beautiful messages of love and I am so grateful.  Perhaps my favorite came from Mareli who is one of our weekend children.  This is the card she wrote:

This is the translation:

“I love you and I give thanks for all that you have given us Karen. I love you very much.  Karen with all my heart I thank you for giving me the opportunity to go to your house.”

Sometimes it’s hard to love children who have really tough lives and families, who struggle and who can never truly be my own, but this message just made it all worthwhile.  Not because they are grateful for the ‘stuff’ we give them, but because they feel loved and are able to share love.  That is good for them and also super good for us.

On Friday night we were invited to another party.  You remember Gloria?  I told you about the house she built and the pit her husband dug to be an oven for their birria.

Gloria Builds a House!

Well this week Gloria invited us to come and share the deer that one of their friends had hunted up in the mountains.  I have never seen a deer in Mexico, but apparently they do exist.  Gloria and Adrian put the gifted deer meat in a large pot with chilis and spices and slices of oranges and buried it all in the ground with hot charcoal and wood and waited a few hours.   It was exciting to watch Adrian take off the coals that had been heaped on top, remove the metal covering, hoist up the hot, heavy pot, unfold the layers of foil to finally reveal the meat.  The mouth watering smell hit us first and although I wasn’t very hungry and hadn’t planned to eat much, I ended up with a heaping plate of beans, tortillas and tender shredded deer meat.  It was a feast and of course the night ended with karaoke and laughter and I even blew out my shoe dancing!

 

Thank you for the many birthday wishes I received this week from all over the world – Canada and the US and Sweden and Mexico and Cuba.  I couldn’t be more excited to see where this new year takes Grant and I.  All I know for sure is there will be children, there will be delicious food, there will be adventure, there will be love, and there will be DANCING!

Gloria Builds a House!

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I’d like you to meet my friend Gloria and her husband Adrian.  In fact, I’d like to invite you to join me for a Fish Feast at their new home!  I know Gloria won’t mind if you come with me – she’s proud of her new home and loves to cook and entertain.

 

I met Gloria at Manos de Amor.  She works part time in the kitchen and helps clean the home.   She speaks no English, but we are friends and I have been cheering her on for the last year as she and Adrian build their dream home down the river on the outskirts of town.

Life has not been easy for Gloria.  Just over a year ago she lost her oldest son in a car accident and she has never fully recovered.  What mom could?  Her oldest daughter has a learning disability.  But Gloria is strong and resourceful and over the past few years she has been paying tiny sums of money each month to buy a piece of land.  Her dream was to own her own home, so she would not have to pay rent.  On her small salary, the rent was killing her, and she was determined to create a better life for her family.

Finally, the day came when Gloria announced to us she had paid off the land and she was ready to start building.  And by ‘ready to start building’ I don’t mean calling a general contractor, and an architect and an engineer and an interior designer and a bunch of crews for different trades.  I mean she was literally ready to start building.  She and Adrian took a saw and some machetes and headed into the bush near their land.  They cut down trees to form the posts that would hold the structure.  Over the next few months they accumulated some cement blocks and a friend donated money for a roof.  They created two bedrooms and a tiny kitchen area for storage of food and dishes.  The cooking and eating will be done outside.  In fact, as in most Mexican homes, most of the living is done outside with family telling stories gathered around a fire.  Adrian dug a hole that will be their underground pit oven for cooking birria.  Birria is a spicy Mexican stew usually made from goat, a favorite dish from the state of Jalisco which is just a few miles from Bucerias.  The rocks in the bottom of the pit will be heated and a clay pot full of meat and chilies and other spices and covered with maguey leaves will be roasted for many hours.  Gloria also planted a garden to keep her family supplied with the important Mexican salsa ingredients – tomatoes, avocados, chilies, onions and cilantro.  To ensure her late son was not left behind as they moved into this new chapter, Gloria hung pictures of him in every room – there is no doubt he is still a big part of her family and even in her new joy, she continues to mourn.

Yesterday Gloria invited us to her home for a feast of grilled fish, homemade spicy sauces, beans and of course corn tortillas.  The entire fish was brushed with a spicy sauce made of garlic and chilies and flattened on the grill.  It was delicious and there was something comforting and liberating about pulling the white meat off the fish bones and licking the spicy sauce off our fingers.  Some of my friends popped the cooked eyeballs into their mouths – I drew the line there!

Grant and I tried to keep up with the Spanish conversation but mainly we just enjoyed sitting back and celebrating success with this family – including their 2 dogs, some cats and 2 baby parrots.  They still have work to do.  They don’t have lights yet.  Eventually they’ll have windows.   But this is their forever family home, built with their own hands and dreams and love and we say SALUD GLORIA AND ADRIAN!

 

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It’s Really All About the Food

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Let’s face it.  One of the main reasons – maybe the primary reason? – people vacation in Mexico is because of the food.  Yes, the weather is perfect, the beaches and mountains are breathtaking, the people are welcoming, the culture is exciting.  But the food – well the food is amazing and addicting in both its simplicity and its complexity.  It’s generally just some kind of meat flavored with chile in a tortilla, but the flavors and the spices and the sauces come together to create heaven.

For as long as I’ve lived, I’ve loved to eat – but I’ve never really loved to cook.  I’m too clumsy and too easily distracted.  Inevitably shortly after I begin, my computer whispers to me that there just might be a super important email waiting (Is Publisher’s Clearing House Lottery even a thing anymore?)  and before I can download and delete, I smell the burning.

But recently I have been thinking it’s time for a change.  For a few reasons:

  1. 20170809_085053Money: To do all the things we want to do here, we’ve started tracking a budget.  We’re cutting back. ☹
  2. Weight: Our 6-week road trip did some serious damage to our midlife midsections.  We’ve upped our exercise game together too!
  3. Health: A recent cancer scare in our family reminded us that we need to get serious about cutting out sugar and chemicals and processed foods.

So this week I got the urge to cook some Mexican dishes. From scratch.  If I am going to do it, if I’m actually going to cook, I need to make it a fun part of our new life experience.  No lasagna, no meatloaf, no pot roast – nope I’m going Mexican!

I started by thumbing through the Mexican cookbooks I had accumulated.  (I’m so weird – for someone who hates cooking, I love to collect cookbooks) and then went shopping.  I was determined to buy everything I could at the small local shops and stands in my neighborhood.  I read about the different types of chiles – red and green, fresh and dried – but when I got to my neighborhood fruteria, they all looked the same to me.  But I did it.  For less than $20 I loaded up my basket and headed home to spend an entire day in the kitchen.  I toasted peppers, I grilled peppers, I peeled and seeded and blended peppers.  I soaked beans and boiled beans and mashed beans.   I roasted and shredded a giant chicken and made a huge pot of chicken broth.  I chopped a LOT of onions and minced many cloves of garlic.  I boiled and blended tomatillas and tomatoes.  When it was all done, I had a big pot of refried beans, a container of salsa verde (green sauce) and a container of red enchilada sauce.  I had enough shredded chicken to make dinner for many nights.  And of course, I had guacamole.

Last night we had red enchiladas and I have to say they were delicious.  Grant said they were the best he had ever had.  Not sure if that’s true, but HE SAID IT and that’s enough for me.  Tonight, the green enchiladas – pretty good too.  Both served with a bowl of guacamole and some refried beans.  And a salad.  Enough left to try a few other things this weekend.

Red Enchiladas, Green Enchiladas and a huge pitcher of Pineapple Agua Fresca

As you are probably guessing, it wasn’t all successful.  My first round of beans was a FAIL – I blame the computer and the stupid stove.  Grant blames my basic lack of attention to the pot that had boiled dry.  Whatever.  The poblano peppers that were on their way to being stuffed hit the garbage can after tearing in half.  Meh.  That won’t discourage me.  My oven dial does not have degrees on it – it has numbers 1 through 5.  Took me a while to figure out that just past 2 is 350.  That’s dumb.  But I’ll keep trying.  I think we’ll head to the fish store next and try some seafood dishes – how about a nice grilled red snapper? Some ceviche? Some giant shrimp rubbed with the left over chile paste?  Obviously some fish tacos with chipotle sauce.

But that’s on the weekend.  I think tomorrow night we’ll head over to California Pizza for some Chicken Tequila Fettuccine – I’m exhausted and craving some Italian!