Still Life: Tacos

Last night I made a lemon pepper-crusted pork tenderloin with smashed new potatoes and mint as well as a roasted kale salad. Tonight, the pork was sliced thinly and heated quickly with a touch of stock and tangerine juice and smoked paprika, then covered in radishes, cilantro, onions and homemade guacamole. We also couldn't help but grate a bit of Irish cheddar over the whole mess. Tacos! One of my favorite meals. Witness the still life we were loathe to clean up after stuffing ourselves.

Like Fast Food, But Not

The other day, while searching for what to do with last weekend's leftover pork chops and avocado, I came across this delectable discovery and couldn't stop fantasizing over it.

We finally made them last night (with fresh pork, fear not!), and there was just enough of everything for one messy leftover spicy pork burger tonight, totally disheveled even as it was with sloppy grilled jalapeno and onion and tomatillo, cilantro, mushy creamy avocado and generous shmears of stinky munster on one side of the challah bun and homemade chipotle mayonnaise on the other.

Incidentally--or not so incidentally--the chipotle mayonnaise was naughty on the duck fat fries, too.

Then I took some leftover grilled corn and shaved it off into a salad with leftover onion, cilantro, a tiny bit of lemon juice I'd saved, some fresh black pepper and a kick of Sriracha.

For dessert, Oloroso-and-orange-zest-spiked homemade rice pudding! A virginal attempt, and a damn good one if I do say so myself.

Southern Twang

Being environmentally responsible means, quite sadly, consuming less dirty-delicious red meat than I'd really like to. One day or another, though, something's gotta give, and I need beef.

Preferably in the form of bone-suckable, flavor-savorable, fat-enhancing ribs this time around.

My miniature propane grill, however, is not suited to the kind of ribs I craved, so a suggestion from the Meat Hook was necessary. Required: Delivery of intense beef flavor and finger-licking goodness. Solution: Barbecued short ribs completely saturated with sauce and paired with another suitably Southern exposure-esque delicacy - homemade, artisanal white cheddar macaroni and cheese.

Then, to get a mild daily requirement of vegetables, we made tomatoes slicked with sherry vinegar and tossed with leftover cucumber and avocado. Way more delicious than vegetables should be.

This meal has officially been added to the repertoire of food-things to make for the rest of our lives.

The 22.5LB Wild Striped Bass: Part II

Here's the second meal from our friend, now affectionately known as Albert, the giant striped bass. I will admit to having turned up my nose to fish tacos almost all my life, but this was a game changer. Honestly, the fish wasn't remotely fishy or stinky, even when it got dredged in flour and some seasoning and then lightly fried. Fried fish! Under my own roof! Well, I never...

Then we splashed copious amounts of fresh lemon juice on the succulent little fish bits, and lots of lime on the avocado and cilantro and salted, julienned radishes and chopped onion (very, very conveniently, I had all of these on hand except for the avocado--in fact, having all these ingredients was my impetus for actually giving fried fish a go). Rounding out the lovely little color spectrum was a deep blue-gray tortilla and a chilly, pale pink Chinon rosé.

 

Tacos Without the Truck

I love me a taco. I love tacos sometimes more than I love pizza. And I love pizza a lot.

After living in Los Angeles for seven years, I got this taste for great tacos--preferably from trucks, preferably extra-greasy and absolutely smothered with cilantro and onions that came out of a plastic jug on the truck's side shelf. I can't find tacos like that here, so I have to make my own.

My refrigerator had a half a piece of steak leftover from the Farewell Winter meal, and I had a half a lime, some onion and fresh baby spinach in there, so all I had to buy was corn tortillas and cilantro... oh, and avocado, because I love those so much I could possibly live on them.

Pee Foods Key Foods has Chinantla tortillas which are made just literally down the street from me in Brooklyn, so I felt like a happy locavore buying them, and they're blue corn! These are pretty tasty when slightly charred over an open flame, but they're really tasty fried up in some vegetable oil until they're half-crisp, half-chewy-floppy.

I seasoned the steak with a bit of paprika, cumin, chili powder, cayenne and salt, sliced it really thinly so plenty of flavor coated each bite, and then really quickly heated it up in sauté pan.

All of the green ingredients and the onions were splashed with lime juice and some salt and black pepper before they were piled over the steak.

Add beer; the end.