Tex Mex dinner

You may have caught the mention of having friends over for dinner the other night. We fixed a Tex-Mex dinner of fajitas with our precious, authentic, mesquite-smoked barbeque.

These had to be really special friends, you might say, and yeah, they are our good (only) English-speaking, American friends.

So the meat was authentic but the “hunting and gathering” resulted in the following ingredients:

FLOUR TORTILLAS: the package says “Tortillas Mexicaines pour Fajitas Buritos and Enchiladas” made in Saveurs. On the back of the package, the history of the tortilla is explained in detail – but I didn’t read it – print too small, didn’t want to work that hard to translate, and really didn’t care about the history of the tortilla

CHEESE: no cheddar or monterey jack cheese here but a dutch cheese called Minolette is close – same yellowey color and same texture, kinda same taste but very very smelly

AVACADOS: very authentic and worth 1.30 euros each but finding just the right degree of ripeness was tricky – actually had to throw one out

BEANS: well, you know the story… I cooked these before and had them squirreled away in the freezer

SOUR CREAM: none of that here but the imposter is Crème Fraisce. It’s kinda sweet but mixed with all the other stuff, you don’t notice

TOMATOES: no problem, the real deal, and very tasty

LETTUCE: no iceburg lettuce here, but the right part of the leafy stuff can pass for iceburg

PICANTE SAUCE: …. Interesting…. They sell something here (and not easy to find) called “Salsa Heaven”. Never mind the name… you can imagine that it’s more like “Salsa Earth” but I used it as a base and made my own sauce.

JALEPENOS: no such thing anywhere (that I have found – and I have looked) but I did buy a jar of Piments Vert (green peppers) but no indication of what kind of green peppers they are… but they are long and skinny. They don’t taste hot right away – but hit you much later (an interesting after-wallop).

CILANTRO: I was worried about finding cilantro over here so I actually went to Berings and bought some cilantro seeds to bring with me. But it has been somewhat easy to find at the supermarkets but 10 sprigs cost about 2 euros. At the market on Sunday we found a huge bunch for one euro. (score!)

And PICO de GALLO: made from all the ingredients…

Mmmmm c’est bon!
No margaritas.... way too much hunting and gathering to try that!