a weekend of mexican-inspired dinners

Prompted by Lindy Loo's lentil tacos, I attempted some tacos of my own. They were good, but chewing away, D commented, "they're tasty, but they're not really Mexican-y;" and I realised the reason for that was I had forgotten the cumin. Woo go me. But they were still good! Topped them with some lettuce, tomato, grated carrot, and avocado.



Got home after a D-family afternoon tea, had a bit of the lentil taco mixture left over and thought I'd just whip up some sort of rice to go with it. Originally the idea had been to use the lettuce leaves to make some sort of san choy bao thing, but the lettuce had frozen in the fridge, and rinsing them turned them in to tissue, so we just ate the rice and lentils on their own. The rice was very quick, and very tasty, I suspect it will be making a reappearance in our lives as a fast dinner.

I'm not really sure what to call this. I googled 'mexican rice' to see what came up, but the internet was not as helpful as I had hoped it would be, and if someone published a 'chinese rice' recipe I'd be all WHAT? so I don't know. I need to learn more about Mexican food, it's not incredibly common in Perth, perhaps my local library will be able to help me out tomorrow. Or I can flex my googlefu a little more.



Mexican(ish) Rice

ingredients
1/4 red onion, diced
1/2 carrot, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/8 capsicum, diced
1/2 tsp cumin
ground pepper
1 cup long grain rice
2 cups stock
1 tomato
1 sprig spring onion

method
In some oil, fry onion, carrot, capsicum, cumin and garlic, until onion starts to soften. Add rice, stir through until covered, then add the stock and pepper. Bring to boil, then reduce to low, cover with lid and simmer. After fifteen minutes, remove from heat, add spring onion (chopped roughly), and stand for two or three minutes. Serve hot.