Miss my Ole Friend

      I lost my best friend Perry about a year ago. I think of him often. It seems like we did everything together growing up. The other day, while sitting at a Mexican restaurant, I was reminded of one of our "great " adventures. You see, we spent a good portion of the summer between our freshman and sophomore year of high school in Saltillo, Mexico. We stayed with a host family while attending a school to learn Spanish and Mexican History. The real motivation for this was to get credit for second year High School Spanish. IT WORKED ! But what brought back the memories was me thinking of trying something new at the restaurant. You see when I was in Mexico we ate with the host family. I wouldn't try anything. I ate re fried beans every meal. All these wonderful looking dishes they brought out, I turned my nose up to. I do not know whether I would have liked them or not, I wouldn't even try. Fortunately they served the beans with every meal. How naive I was. I should have tried every thing they made. I know now I would more than likely liked them.
     Well times have changed. I decided at the restaurant that I would try my hand at making a Mexican dish or two. I picked out recipes from Cook's Country magazine.  These were Carne Guisada and Calabacitas. The first being sort of the Mexican version of beef stew, commonly served as a taco filling. The stew featured beef chuck-eye and potatoes and bell peppers.

It turned out so good. The "stew" was completely satisfying and so flavorful. The whole family says "yes, please make these again". I will definitely do just that. The only tweaking I may do is to let it cool and serve it re heated the next day. The leftovers seemed better the next day.  The corn dish featured onion, poblano chiles, bell pepper,  squash and zucchini, topped with a little cheese.
It was quick to make and again full of flavor. I will make this often to accompany many dishes. I believe it would go well with any meats coming off the grille.
         I also served a fruit tart for dessert that came from the same 2017 August/Sept issue of Cook's Country. My crust for this was tasty but broke and allowed the filling to run out sadly. But it was still okay. They cannot all be winners.

    Over the years I have primarily lived on the all american diet, pizza, fast foods and processed convenience foods. What a shame, I sure missed out. But still, I would give anything to sit down with my ole buddy Perry at his favorite parlor and eat an extra large double pepperoni pizza again.