Tequila!

My mom is amazing.  She is hard-working, brave, beautiful, funny, intelligent and the most caring person I know.  When she decided to semi-retire and have some fun, I could not have been happier.  What better reason for a celebration than her last official day of work!

I chose a "fiesta" theme, for two reasons.  One, my mom loves spicy food (as do we!) and two, Scott and I love tequila!  Another great reason for the theme was that it was relatively simple for a Friday night dinner after a long week of work.  This is the menu I decided upon:
-Margaritas;
-Pico de Gallo and corn-free tortilla chips;
-Shrimp with jalapeno, lime and cilantro flambeed in tequila;
-Turkey fajitas on brown rice tortillas;



The challenge of a Latin-inspired meal without corn was one thing.  I have become adept at substitutions and have found some great products, even though the brown rice tortillas do NOT hold together as well as glutenous, white, floury ones.  The other challenge was this:  I had never before "flambeed" anything. 

If you know us, you will know that I am not the coolest head in a crisis.  During the couple little kitchen fires we've had in the past, I tend to stand in said kitchen saying "Oh my god, oh my god!" while Scott calmly puts the fires out.  I don't want to make it seem like we have had tonnes of fires, but well, we had the "Renee holding the pot-holder while it's on fire and not realizing it" debacle of 2008, the "Bacon Incident" of 2009, the "Omg the pizzas are on fire" episode of 2010 and of course, we cannot for the life of us remember what, but we know something caught fire in 2011.  The sad part it, it was only two weeks ago.  Eep!

I am more than proud to announce that I successfully started a fire on purpose last night, using tequila and a match, and it worked and did not hurt anyone!  Yay! 

In case you are interested in the recipe, it was pretty simple and I have to say, pretty delish!  I got the inspiration from a recipe on the Food Network app, but of course, as with most recipes I get, I added, subtracted and substituted.

1.  Pour about a tbsp of olive oil into a skillet.  Add chopped garlic and jalapeno peppers.  Saute;
2.  Add a bag of shrimp and saute until things start to get a little sticky.  (Sorry, I don't measure and I don't time things);
3.  De-glaze with the juice of a lime or two and give it a little shake.  Throw in some cilantro;
4.  Add about a shot of tequila (we use what we now call the "Cooking Tequila" because it's the stuff not as worthy of actual shots in our house... We fancy ourselves slight tequila aficionados);
5.  Light a match and hold it to the liquid (tilt the pan a little);
6.  Cheer and yell at everyone how awesome you are;
7.  Let the awesome fire cook off, spear a piece of avocado on a fancy little toothpick, then a shrimp, and serve!

It's not Patron, but it still catches on fire!

Successful Fire #1

The Pico de Gallo was simply the following ingredients, finely chopped:
-Two large tomatoes;
-Two jalapeno peppers;
-A large onion;
-A handful of cilantro;
-Lime juice.

I hate to admit it, but I use the Slapchop for this since it's one of the only times I really don't care about the shape of what I'm chopping.  Serve with tortilla chips if you can eat corn, but if you're like me, get Beanitos!  They are bean-based tortilla chips that taste and crunch like the real thing.  Amazing.  Life changing.

Spicy goodness.

They have black bean AND pinto bean with flax.  Amazing.

 When and if you decide to make the fajitas, just chop up some turkey breast, onions and bell peppers and saute with lime juice, cilantro, cayenne, onion and garlic powder, whatever you like.  I refuse to use those packaged seasoning envelopes since they are full of sugar, salt and corn starch.  Seriously.  One hint:  Do NOT pull out the wok and hit a pipe under the sink which comes apart from the other one because it wasn't fixed properly before you moved in (Ahem!) and then.  AND THEN, dirty gross pipe water leaks all over your new pots and pans.  And you freak out.  And your husband is out and your mom is going to be there any minute.  Good looking musician husband to the rescue:  He got home, fixed the sink and even managed to get the foot of snow in the driveway shoveled with the help of our amazing neighbours...  Who has nice neighbours anymore?  Who even KNOWS their neighbours?  We do!!!

The dining room 15 minutes before my mom's arrival.  Eeeeek!!!

The "Wok of Shame."  Hee hee.

Throw it in the oven once the meat is cooked and then you don't have to stress over appies!

We ended up having a great time.  Lots of laughs, lots of fun, and spicy, delicious food.  It never feels like I could possibly do enough to celebrate my mom, but it's always fun to try.



We live in Northern Ontario.  It was too cold to get pre-filled balloons because they would have gotten ruined in the time it took me to get them from the store to the car.  So I got a helium tank, balloons and ribbon for $23 at Wal-Mart.  Ah yeah :)