“That’s weird, but it’s good” is a direct quote from my brother about a simple Italian pork recipe that I made for a family dinner years ago, and I sometimes feel like I’ve taken that as a challenge to see what I can get my family to eat.
It’s really not that hard to create something exotic for my family of meat and potato lovers. When I was growing up, five days a week my family had a gravy with every meal. The other two nights were tacos and a drive-thru dinner, sometimes KFC, making the gravy tally up to six. My olive-stuffed appetizers and sweet pepper-infused concoctions get overlooked for a cheese ball. My brother suggested Mexican food for Easter this year. That may seem exotic in itself, but we do this at family dinners when we’ve already attended a lot of turkey and ham filled meals already and need to switch it up. When someone suggests a Mexican themed meal, my mind goes straight to big ideas like pickled carrots, corn tortillas, and lots and lots of cilantro. My family goes straight to walking tacos. We’re on different wavelengths. With my usual gusto, I went straight for a recipe that had ingredients I’d never be able to find because we technically live in a food desert. The Feasting at Home site has the most amazing pictures of the food and it sold me immediately. Skipping the dramatics, I’ll tell you it was delicious. The link is below: https://www.feastingathome.com/oaxacan-lamb-barbacoa/ Honestly, I improvised on a couple ingredients. I searched high and low for ancho chilies and found none. But I had one ingredient that was definitely farm fresh. If you didn’t notice, it’s a lamb recipe, which was going to be a stretch for my walking taco family, so instead of telling them it was lamb, I just said it was barbacoa because they’ve all been to Chipotle and that would go over better. Again, it was delicious, but I left the oranges in it, which I think deterred those wary family members from it. Too much vitamin C! My mom did try it, and although she didn’t appreciate the spice as I would, she did like it. At least I think she did because then John told her it was lamb and she screamed. But I promise it was delicious. I was going to freeze some to save for another dinner, but then we ate it all. Happy Cinco de Mayo! Try a lamb recipe to celebrate! Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThis is my therapeutic release for all the things that annoy me about living on a farm. If I can make it humorous, I can survive it. |