Fajitas

We love Mexican food, but seldom cook it. I don't know why - I lived in Mexico for five winters as a child and my mother learned to cook amazing wonderful Mexican cuisine. The cuisine, that is, not just the fast food that you get in Mexican restaurants here in the US. Anyway, I had four very small pork chunks, about 3/4 lb altogether, and I was thinking how to stretch them. The idea of fajitas came to me because the marinating would give flavor as well as tenderness, and lots of veggies would stretch the meal. I marinated them for 24 hours, but 3 hours would be fine too.

4 burrito sized tortillas
sauteed veggies
grilled or pan fried meat, cut into thin slices
shredded cheese
hot sauce
chopped tomatoes
lettuce
olives
sour cream or plain yogurt
Marinade
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
juice of one lime
1 Tbs olive oil
1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne to taste

Put all ingredients in a ziplock plastic bag and mix well. Put in the meat and mix well . Zip it closed, put it on a dish (in case there is some leakage) and refrigerate while marinateing.

Cook meat:
Grill meat over charcoal, or on a Foreman grill, or on a grill pan on the stove, or pan fry in a cast iron skillet as I did. Let rest while you cook the veggies.

Prepare veggies:
Slice about 4 - 6 cups of vegetables and saute in a little olive oil with 2 garlic cloves, slt and pepper to taste until softened and cooked through but still a little crunchy. I used onions and peppers.

Now you are ready to put it all together, according to your own taste. Layer the meat, teh sauteed veggies, the lettuce, tomatoes, olives and any other condiments you might want, the sour cream, cheese and hot sauce. Roll up like a burrito and attempt to open your mouth wide enough to take a bite. Yummy!

Notes: This marinade is really delicious and would work well on poultry, beef or seafood.In fact, I think I'll try it on fish next. We ended up pigging out on the sauteed veggies and the meat, so we didn't put any of the fresh veggies into our burritos, though we did use some yogurt (sorry, no sour cream in the house) and some shredded cheese as well. It was scrumptious!

Five stars from dear daughter.