As you may or may not know, in the US, we have somehow misappropriated the Mexican Day of Beating the French into Submission (Cinco de Mayo, not a true Mexican holiday) as a ridiculous excuse to go out to the nearest Mexican restaurant, eat lots of enchiladas, and get drunk off as many Dos Equis, Coronas, and margaritas.
Also, this year, said holiday of American debauchery (do we REALLY need an excuse to drink and eat lots of cheese?) fell on a Wednesday. Most of our friends are no longer in university. They have real jobs, like us. Those that are still in school at the local university had final exams that week. So, as it starts to be come clear, we were completely unable to celebrate said fiesta. But some friends came up with a brilliant solution. As we're not really celebrating 5/5 for it's true purpose, can't we just celebrate some other time?
This is how yet another great theme party was born. Last night, we celebrated Catorce de Mayo. And here's how:
(I apologize none of these pictures are mine. The food was too awesome and disappeared too quickly!)
I made turkey enchiladas. I've made these in a more "gourmet" way before, but since I had all of 45 minutes last night, I used canned enchilada sauce... They were still delicious.
Another food geek friend made carnitas de puerco , pico de gallo, and guacamole all from scratch. EVERYTHING was delicious. I bow to his kitchen skills. And he's like me. If he's gonna cook at someone else's house, he travels with his own chef's knife, salt, and pepper grinder. Yeah, we can be picky.
Of course, there were margaritas. I love margaritas, and one of my friends once gave me his awesome recipe. Now I use it, and share it. He's from San Antonio, TX, so he knows his Tex-Mex stuff. I will now share my recipe with you. If you're not in the US, use whatever you can find that's acceptable. This recipe takes the pre-mixed Jose Cuervo Golden Margarita mix and makes it MUCH better.
PS - Margaritas shouldn't be fluorescent green!
Margaritas of Awesome
This is for each serving:
2.5 ounces margarita mix (75 mL)
1.5 ounces gold/reposado tequila (45 mL)
1.0 ounce orange juice (30 mL)
0.5 ounce *good* orange liqueur such as Grand Marnier or Cointreau (15 mL)
0.5 ounce triple sec (15 mL)
1 pinch kosher salt
Stir together in a pitcher and serve over ice. I will warn you, these are strong, not for the faint of heart. If you need to cut anything down, go a bit easy on the tequila. I also recommend trying different juices, not just the orange. Lime works nicely as does my favorite, blood orange! Enjoy!
Then, we watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles and decided to apply fake tattoos. I have kanji that does not mean what it claims to mean on the inside of my left wrist. It was a wonderful night!
