Hey all, it's been a little while since we've posted on our blog. We apologize, we know that you've all been waiting in suspense! But we've still been making yummy dishes, see below:

First, we had our friends--Wendy and Jerry--over to sample our south of the border cuisine. We decided to make some Pork Tinga Tacos (which we also found in our favorite "Mexican Everyday" cookbook.

Slow Cooker Pork Tinga Tacos

So we decided on a slow-cooker recipe since it would be the easiest to prepare in the morning and just be ready when we got home for dinner. Tinga is a very simple recipe that involves an onion, a few potatoes, some pork shoulder, and some chipotle chilies (as depicted below) and a can of diced tomatoes along w/ some Mexican oregano and other spices.

Here is the resulting Tinga that went into the slow cooker:

Here is the final product that came out 6 hours later. We tipped off the liquid and boiled it down to concentrate the tinga flavor!
Rick Bayless suggested topping the tacos with fresh avocado slices, white onion, queso fresco, and of course: cilantro. We had never tried queso fresco before, but it is common in Mexican dishes. It's a fresh cheese that has a very subtle flavor, but adds a nice creaminess to the dish. It's available at most grocery stores (around here at least).

In addition to the tacos, we made a nice roasted corn salad (with roasted corn on the cob) and a roasted green tomatillo salsa that we've blogged about before (one of our favorites!). Below is the resulting tacos with the corn salad on the side! Overall it was a huge success, Wendy and Jerry really enjoyed the tacos as did we.

Pasta Primavera

Since we had been eating so much meat (boy the tacos sure were good), we decided to go for a lighter vegetarian meal. Gina bought a fabulous vegetarian cookbook for college students that has many affordable and simple vegetarian options that are OH SO TASTY! We've tried a few recipes out of it before, but this time we decided to go w/ the Pasta Primavera. We bought one pound of pasta, a yellow squash and zucchini, tomato, onion, frozen peas, and some frozen broccoli. This was a very simple recipe, basically just sautee the fresh veggies in some oil, then mix together with the pasta and a bit of milk. Top w/ plenty of salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese (although we subbed in a little of the leftover queso fresco and it turned out well). This meal was very hearty and was a nice, fresh way to eat some yummy spring vegetables. (see below)

Eggplant Curry

The next dish that we made was also from the vegetarian cookbook. This was an eggplant curry w/ potatoes, onion, red pepper, Japanese eggplant, and tomatoes. First, we cooked all of the fresh vegetables in a little oil until they were soft and translucent. After adding some curry powder (and garam masala for good measure) and mixing w/ a little water and a can of diced tomatoes, the resulting mixture is below:

We served the mixture over some rice and topped with some fresh green onions. The dish was spicy, but not overly so. This was also a great way to get our daily dose of vegetables!

If anyone has any suggestions about what dishes we should make next, we'd love to hear them!

Stay tuned for future posts.

Happy Cooking (and happy Easter!)

Zach and Gina