The Importance of Tradition

I lived in Southern CA until I was nine. During that time I developed a deep affinity for Mexican food and spice. In fact my whole family was all about Mexican food with our favorite meal being tacos. I may not be a huge fan of my mother but she does know how to make a mean taco. She would use corn tortillas to make her own taco shells by frying them in oil, she'd make her own flour tortillas, guacamole was a must, and they were always had with chocolate milk.

I realize that sounds bizzare and most people do a double take when I tell them about this tradition but if you think about it, milk is great with spicy things because it takes away some of the burn. And chocolate and chiles are a classic combination. So, naturally this being my family's favorite meal, and half of us being vegetarian, we opted for tacos and chocolate milk as our Christmas meal rather than the traditional ham. I wanted to share this little tradition with some friends so last night I had a few people over and we had a Christmas get together/housewarming complete with tacos and chocolate milk. Which everyone agreed was insanely awesome. Meaning, you should try it too.

I used potatoes, red peppers, lentils, zucchini, and some onion to make a vegetarian meat substitute for the tacos. Although I did take pity and make some real taco meat as well. I had planned to make my own tortilla chips and taco shells but then I decided I didn't really want to mess with the whole oil ordeal so I opted to just do soft shell tacos (which I think are really just burritos) and everyone seemed content with that. I made rice and slow cooked black beans with green peppers and diced onion as sides. And I made a salad of roasted corn, cucumber, garbonzo beans, pomegranate seeds, and a dressing of rice vinegar, salt, pepper, olive oil, and blackberry honey. I have to say, it was all pretty delicious.

Also we watched Elf so even if the food had been terrible I'm pretty sure we still would have had a good time.

P.S. I stole this picture from Lana who actually took pictures.