Mexican food | Mama Cormier

…..surprisingly healthy

On Sunday we celebrated my husband’s birthday with the family. Food is very important when we have family get togethers and K is usually the architect of our meals. Our daughter suggested we do a taco theme and K started searching for recipes. On our shopping trip on Saturday, pork shoulder, tortillas and banana leaves were purchased.

On Sunday while the pork was cooking inside the banana leaves and the rice and beans were thrown together K decided that we needed something else to round out the meal. I found a couple of Mexican side dishes that looked interesting and we decided on the Avocado, Orange and Red Onion Salad. I quickly did some last minute shopping to pick up some of the ingredients that we were missing and I bought a small birthday cake for K.

When I returned home, my daughter G and her husband were already there and A and her partner were on their way. G helped me slice the oranges while I prepared the avocado. The salad was simple to prepare. The orange and avocado slices were arranged on a platter with the slices overlapping each other. Then the red onion was sliced into thin rings and randomly arranged on top along with some cilantro leaves. The platter was drizzled with the juice of 1 lime and a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil. Not only was it a pretty salad and dead easy to prepare but it was also tasty and refreshing.

The recipe for this salad came from Delish.

Everyone assembled their own tacos with shredded pork, pickled red onion, cilantro sour cream, and Mexican fresh cheese.

The whole meal was surprisingly light and healthy tasting. Nothing was fried and everyone took as much or as little as they wanted. The two salads helped round out the meal and added some pretty colours to our plates. G made the pickled onions. They added a nice crunch to the taco. I’ll share the recipe in a future post. The green dip was simply sour cream and cilantro blended together in the Nutra Bullet. It could probably be made with yogurt if you want to reduce the fat content.

After dinner K blew out the candle on his birthday cake ( the number 3 has no significance…I couldn’t find any other candles).

Coffee was served and then the board game came out. We had a great time playing Ticket to Ride. K has wanted to have a regular game night for awhile now. All in all it was the perfect way to celebrate his birthday.

….another visit to the market but with daughter, G and sweet Lucy

Whenever we go anywhere with my daughter’s Bassett Hound, Lucy, people stop to make small talk. Yesterday we went back to the Junction Farmers’ Market, sat outside on the patio at the Full Stop and window shopped along Dundas St. W. One of the stores that we wanted to show G was the new meat market situated between the coffee shop and the farmer’s market.

Gourmeats is relatively new to the area. The owner and the employees are extremely friendly and helpful. One of their special features is marinating your choice of meat before you leave the store. There are numerous options to choose from and after the marinade is added (no extra charge) the bag and contents are vacuum sealed.

My husband and G went into the store while I waited outside with Lucy. Every time someone entered or left the store Lucy approached the door, hoping to make her way inside. After awhile both Lucy and I began to peer through the glass door to see what was keeping both of them so long. Someone passed by and commented on what a funny picture that would have been, seeing both of us longingly peer through the butcher’s door.

The meats at Gourmeats are of excellent quality. My only complaint is that they are a tad expensive but then we shouldn’t be eating so much meat anyway and you really do get what you pay for. K purchased some pork shoulder, which he should be cooking shortly for our dinner with the kids today. Everyone is coming over later for a family meal to celebrate my husband’s birthday. We’re also hoping to make it into a ‘game’ day as well.

The only other thing we bought was a capon. I’ve become a huge fan of capons after purchasing one down at the St. Lawrence Market earlier this year. We’ll probably get four or five meals from this big bird alone.

Today we’re having the family over to celebrate K’s birthday and the plan is to make Mexican tacos from scratch. One of the things that we needed are fresh tortillas. We knew of a place situated closer to our daughter’s place so we called her and asked her if she could pick some up for us. She texted us back and told us of a place that has recently opened up very close to where we live.

So after visiting the Junction we made our way to La Tortilleria to pick up fresh yellow and white corn tortillas. La Tortilleria makes tortillas and nacho chips daily and also prepares ready to eat meals as well. You can sit in or take out and there is a small store attached with Mexican products so that you can prepare your own meals if you’re so inclined.

Our last stop of the day was at the Pie Commission. This is a brand new take out place that K discovered on Twitter. Our daughter’s partner, J, also texted us about it so K checked it out a couple of weeks ago and he wanted to show us the place and order some pies for dinner.

The Pie Commission makes a variety of savoury meat pies and sells them from a take out window. There are a few seating areas outside the location where you can sit and enjoy your meal or you can opt to buy the pies frozen and take them home and bake them in your own oven. There are plans to expand the place so that you can go inside. They’d better hurry. As good as the pies are I can’t see people lining up outside in the middle of February, especially if we have another winter like last year’s.

We took home a selection of 4 different pies and served them with a large salad. A great meal and a very special treat for us. As good as these pies are, they aren’t exactly diet food.

After dinner we made our way to a birthday party across the street. We enjoyed the company of our neighbours and met some new people. We also got to know some of our dog walking acquaintances better.

One of our fellow dog walkers is Adrian deRooy. I mention his name here because he is quite an accomplished artist and I would like to feature some of his work here. We’ve only met Adrian and his dog a couple of times but he always engages us in conversation. One of the things we didn’t know about him is that he makes his living as an artist.

At the party we noticed that T had great paintings on her walls and four of them were painted by Adrian. Here is Adrian deRooy’s website where you can check out more of his work. I’ve included a few of his paintings here so you can see what a talented guy he is. He is also a very nice man and very down to earth.