A Simple Cinco de Mayo Supper for My Family

I know, not quite Cinco de Mayo. But we'll be in the Mexican food eating mood this whole weekend. Tonight I made a very quick and easy Mexi-meal. I had been busy in the garden all afternoon, so simple it needed to be.

I thawed 1 container of scratch refried beans and 1 container cooked brown rice, plus a package of ground beef. I harvested the first of our lettuce and some green onions.

I had about 30 minutes to get dinner made and served, as one daughter had a meeting tonight. This worked really well and everyone loved it.

Steamed (previously frozen) brown rice, topped with a scoop of refried beans (made and froze earlier in the week), and some freshly-cooked Mexican-seasoned ground beef. On top of all of that was a generous dollop of homemade salsa (from last summer). The ground beef was the most time-consuming part of making this dinner. As sides we had small garden salads and tangerines.

A delicious, quick and easy Cinco de Mayo supper. We have some leftover cooked beef and a scoop of beans remaining. I'll use the two in a small tamale pie this weekend. If you've never made a tamale pie, that's another simple Tex-Mex meal -- a Tex-Mex filling (seasoned meat, beans, corn, tomatoes, and any veggies that sound like they would "go") topped with cornbread batter and shredded cheese, then baked until the cornbread is thoroughly baked. A favorite of my kids from their childhoods. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

I'm not giving up just yet . . .

Doesn't this look divine? Homemade cream of asparagus soup,

made with the ends of our Easter asparagus.

I sliced the pieces lengthwise and simmered them in water until soft.

Next I pureed them in the pitcher blender, added milk, onion powder, dried thyme, black pepper and salt. I thickened the soup with a slurry of flour and water. At the very end I swirled in 2 tablespoons of butter.

Don't you think this would be wonderful? Looks can be deceiving, however. I call this "cream of dental floss soup." The entire batch has short little bits of floss-like fibers throughout. My family thinks it tastes wonderful, but agrees the texture is off-putting.

But I'm not giving up yet. If it has "texture" perhaps I just need to lose that texture amongst other textures. My thought is to use this soup as a binder in a rice and chicken based casserole, one that also has some diced celery and perhaps some diced red pepper. I'll use brown rice, which adds more texture than white rice. And I'll give it a cheese and crumb topping. 

It isn't so much that I don't want to throw away costly food, as the asparagus ends were something most people discard anyway. And the rest of the ingredients were budget-wise too. It's the time and effort that I put into making the soup that I can't seem to just let go of. And that is what's driving me to use a soup that we simply didn't enjoy.

Have you ever cooked a dish that you didn't care for, then remade it into something else, hoping it would be better enjoyed in a new rendition?

In any case, I try to use every last bit of food in our house. And I'll try to use this highly textured soup in one way or another.