Cinco de...well, no, not really.

     As you are probably aware, today is the 5th of May, aka Cinco de Mayo! While as a person of your typical hodge-podge European descent I have no cultural ties to the holiday, I observe it in the same way I would any other holiday belonging to a group I'm not a part of. Kind of a general "Cool, that's cool." In this case, "Good for you Mexico, I'm glad things came up your way at the Battle of Puebla and you eventually won independence. You do you." A friendly hat tip and I'm on my way. That said, though it's not my holiday, I got a ton of emails from various recipe newsletters saying "MAKE THESE DELICIOUS-LOOKING THINGS FOR YOUR CINCO DE MAYO PARTY!" and I'm only human, so it did make me want Mexican food. Here's some of the recipes I tried out!

     For the main dish I picked these spicy pork kebabs, which were delicious. They were served with homemade guacamole, pico de gallo (store-bought because I didn't want to stand around chopping things for that long), and warm tortillas, so you could just unskewer the kebab directly into fajita-town. Mmmm. 

     Then I made some grilled corn inspired by this recipe. I say "inspired by" because I mixed up the mayo mixture that it talks about, but then forgot about it while I was cooking other things and playing with Ollie and Evie, and I let it sit on the counter a little too long. I wasn't sure if it was ok or not, but I've already been sick more times this year than I'd like, so I wasn't about to risk it. I just used butter instead, grilling the corn then buttering it before rolling it in the crumbled cheese. This one got good reviews from the family too, but then, it's corn with butter and cheese. How could it not. 

     I also assembled this glorious-looking "salad", which is only a salad in the loosest definition (it does have a layer of lettuce).

Side note: Why are these grape tomatoes called "Cherubs?" Are they trying to tie in with "Halos," those little clementines? Dear marketers: I don't need my produce to be spiritually superior, you can take it down a notch.  

     And I can't forget the appetizer, which was this tasty tasty dip. 

     I wanted blue tortilla chips like they have in the recipe picture, because those look delightful, but I live in an area where the only chips you can buy are official partners of NASCAR, so it was not meant to be. 

     Thus ends our feast! All these recipes were winners, but particularly the marinade on the kebabs and the dip (but I'm biased, I love all forms of dip. Except if you're including in that the sort of slang term for chewing tobacco because OH MY GOD THAT IS SO DISGUSTING HOW DARE YOU DEFILE THE GOOD NAME OF DIP WITH YOUR DEBAUCHERY). One of the things I love about Mexican food is that it gets you to eat more vegetables than you otherwise might: in this meal there was corn, black beans, tomatoes, green chiles, avocados, red pepper, and onion. So underneath all the cheese there's actually some nutrition present. Speaking of nutrition, I couldn't end this post without showing what Amanda made for dessert: 

    Yeah, just kidding, there's nothing nutritious about these. But they sure were tasty and good for my soul. They're a box variety, Duncan Hines...filled cupcakes of some sort? I dunno, but me likey. They tasted like Hostess cakes, but fresher and better. And in case you were wondering, they were nicely frosted, all piped out, but then I said they looked like the smiling poop emoji and when I came back they had been squashed. I didn't mean it as a bad thing. Whatever.

     I hope you all had much delicious eating over the weekend!