Tonight Roommate and I enjoyed a delicious taco night. I was a little inspired by Camacho Watcho's mission to purge the contents of her fridge and cupboard. And every now and then I get a surge of domesticity and like to cook for people. So I took stock: frozen chicken breasts? Check. Tortillas? Check (oh, check check check to that one. Thanks, CostCo). Rice? Check. Key limes? Check.
To supplement things, I bought some salsa, sweet peppers, a can of black beans, and some half and half. Oh, and some Trader Joe's Corona facsimiles--those Key limes needed a home. Roommate contributed habanero cheese and avocados (thanks again, CostCo!) and sour cream.
I wanted to try making rice like they have at Chipotle. This site has a lot of ideas for replicating their recipes (along with a truly terrifying nutrition calculator) but I decided to wing it and try my hand at some cilantro rice mimicry. So I salted the water while the rice cooked (1 1/3 cups rice to three cups water), and when it was done I splashed on a healthy...sploosh?...of half and half and tossed in about 2/3 of a large bunch of chopped up cilantro.
Results? That shit was bangin'. Seriously. I'm proud of the rice on many fronts, not least of which is that this might be the first time I've cooked rice properly. Plus, Chipotle in mah kitchen! The half and half was a good addition, and just made everything a little richer and helped the cilantro stand out.
I sauteed the peppers in some Pam, heated up the black beans, opened the salsa, warmed up some tortillas, and we were in business. I spent less than $20 on ingredients to supplement my kitchen stockpile, and I will have leftovers for days. Except for the beer, which accounted for about 1/3 of my expenditure and got consumed about 3x as fast as the rest of the meal, proportionately.
So we ate, watched Lost, played the Wednesday Night Game, and it was good. The weekend (and its good weather) is getting closer, and I'll get there eating delicious taco leftovers. Not bad.
