My family loves salsa. If we’re eating Mexican food, eggs, or just eating chips and salsa, we enjoy each fiery, garlicky bite. My first experience many years ago with salsa was prepared by my ex-mother-in-law. We were in Colorado Springs and she was making turkey enchiladas. As a condiment, she simply mixed a can of tomato sauce with some chopped jalapeno. And it was HOT! At least to my inexperienced taste buds at the time. I remember all sorts of attempts to tamp down the heat in my mouth, to no avail.
The only Mexican food I knew growing up were the tacos my mother made, and they were awesome. Hers is one of those recipes the taste of which I have never been able to accurately recreate, and I helped her do everything but the frying. Mom would make hers with El Milagro corn tortillas that were shipped daily from Chicago. Mom was absolutely overjoyed when she reached into the box at our local Mexican food market and found the paper wrapped dozen to still be warm – that’s how fresh they would be. We never ate refried beans or rice or burritos or enchiladas – and Mom refused to try avocados Her story was that avocados were one of the highest calorie fruits, and her waistline could not afford to fall in love with another high calorie food. But now we know that avocados are an excellent source of monounsaturated fat, the good fat, the kind of fat that may actually help lower blood cholesterol levels. Ole!
