Tea

I’ve been baking quite a bit these last couple of weeks. Lucky for me (and my waistline), most of these goodies have been going out the door, either to Michael’s or my place of work.Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been making. You’ll notice that I had to taste-test everything I made before I could make them public!Because Michael is from Mississippi, I have a soft spot for all things, especially foods and cookbooks, from there. I’ve been to Mississippi with Michael once in the spring of 2005 and we had a fantastic trip driving from Memphis to Oxford to Jackson, visiting his family and eating some great Southern food. We are long overdue for another trip down there. In the recent past, we would plan to go and visit Mississippi and a few weeks before every trip, something terrible happens to Arthur and forces us to cancel our trip. In 2006, Arthur was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks before our visit. This past summer, we planned another trip and Arthur had his seizures and liver diagnosis. I really hope we’ll be able to go down there soon.In the meantime, I have discovered a wonderful cookbook called Continuing with my ongoing craving of all foods Mexican, I’ve discovered a wonderful cookbook with recipes that are both delicious and easy.I knew of Rick Bayless from his television series on PBS. On television, he makes (as all great chefs do) everything seem so deceptively simple. Reading through some of his cookbooks, I know that it’s much more complicated if you’re a novice cook like myself. But looking through our library’s collection I saw one one of his books that looked like it might be within my reach, Mexican Everyday. I like this book for so many reasons but mainly because it makes yummy Mexican food seem doable at home. He uses a lot of common ingredients, which is really helpful because unlike Los Angeles, the local grocery store here doesn’t carry espazote. He also has a few recipes that use a slow-cooker (my favorite!) with instructions if you don’t have one. I also like his “riffs” on the recipe that are included at the end, where you can change a few things and it turns into another dish. (I have to confess now that I made this dish a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. I liked it so much that I even made on of the “riffs” on it, as I will explain later, just in case you think that I made this and the “riff” back to back right after the pozole. I would have gained about 15 pounds if I did.)This is the Pueblan Chicken Tinga which can also be made with Pork (which I made and it pictured above) or Beef.
Yukon potatoes are quartered and placed on the bottom of a slow cooker.Chicken legs are placed on top of the potatoes along with some chorizo taken out of the casing.I topped the chicken legs with a mixture of tomatoes, chipotle, garlic, Worcestershir