Okay... I'm cooking up a feast for Cinco de Mayo and thought I'd post some of my mexican recipes & would love to read others!!

Horchata

Horchata is a rice sweet drink made in Mexico. Its best served almost like a slushy with either really crushed ice, or put in the freezer & stirred like a granita.

2 cups medium grain rice
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 vanilla bean
1/4 cup caster sugar
8 cups water

Put your medium grain rice, uncooked, into a spice grinder or powerful blender & mix. It will still be very grainy. Put it in a container (preferably glass or ceramic) with 3 cups water, cinnamon stick and vanilla. Leave overnight. In the morning, put into blender & mix (I don't have a working blender & used a barmix instead). Then add the rest of the water to it & sugar, blend well. Pour through strainer into jug ( you may want to do this a few times to ensure the grains come out). I put it into the freezer and stirred a few times until it was the consistency of granita & then put into fridge & poured it over ice.



Salsa Fresca
Fresh salsa..

4 tomatos cored & chopped finely
1/2 red capsicum chopped finely
1/4 green capsicum chopped finely
1/4 red onion chopped finely
1 garlic clove crushed
1/2 lime juice
1 small handfull coriander leaves (or you could use the fridge coriander stuff, but the dried stuff just doesn't cut it for me...)
1 jalepeno pepper minus seeds chopped finely. (or according to your spicy preferences)

Mix together in large bowl & leave for at least 20 minutes before serving. Taste, if not spicy enough, add some dashes of tabasco sauce.



Guacomole

Okay, this gets stuffed up ALOT in my personal opinion... I'm not sure how... it can be so easy.

2 avocados very ripe
1/2 lime juiced
1 garlic clove crushed
salt & pepper

EITHER:
2 tbsp of salsa fresca OR

1 tomato chopped finely
1/8 red onion chopped finely

Mash avocados with fork well until a paste mix, add rest of ingredients and stir together. IF you are preparing this ahead of time, leave an avocado seed in the middle & cover up well.


Frijoles negro

500gm black beans
6 cups water
3 ancho chillis or 2 tbsp chilli flakes
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 tbsp cumin ground
salt & pepper
Olive oil

*soak beans overnight in a large bowl, cover beans with water & drain in the morning*

I use the slow cooker out of laziness, but you can use a soup pot as well. Put water, beans, chillis, garlic, cumin and salt & pepper into large soup pot or SC. Cook until beans are very easy to squeeze & mash. If you run low on water, add more.

Once cooked I portion out how many I want to use for my meal & freeze others in meal portions.

To refry your beans:

Using a fry pan, pour 1 tbsp olive oil in pan, once hot pour out bean mixture. Using a potato masher, mash beans and alternately stir with a wooden spoon. Taste, adding more salt/pepper as desired.


Fajitas

I use the BBQ for this.

500gm meat or chicken or seafood or... nothing you can do this vego too.
1 onion sliced in wedges
2 capsicums cut in wedges as well
2 tomatos cut in wedges
*If you are doing vego fajitas, you can use carrots cut thin, and zucchini sliced thinly*

2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
olive oil for the grill
tobasco sauce for spice factor
*optional beer instead of apple cider vinegar*

Chop meat/chicken whatever into stir fry style sections. Turn on your BBQ, pour olive oil over grill surface. Pop on your meat/vegetables until mostly cooked, then onions, capsicums and toss in oil. Leave on for 2-3 minutes add tomatos and spices. Tossing to mix together. This is traditionally served on a cast iron grill its cooked on, but in Australia it goes straight from the BBQ to the table on a huge plate.

Serve with:
Shredded lettuce, salsa, guacomole, beans and tortillas. You could add cheese to the mix if you want/need it or sour cream.