It drives me nuts that it's darn near impossible to find a decent Mexican restaurant close to home. There weren't any near Clawson and now there's maybe one that I would consider decent near Plymouth. Truthfully, I think you just have to make the voyage to Mexicantown in Detroit for authentic, delicious Mexican food. My recommendations are listed with my favorite as number 1:
1. Los Galanes
2. Xochimilco
3. Mexican Village
Yum.
Considering I had my umbilical hernia surgery a week ago today, going to any of those restaurants was out of the question. Instead, the day before my surgery, we picked up a rotisserie chicken at Kroger and decided to make some homemade chicken and cheese taquitos with some Spanish rice. It satisfied my monthly craving for Mexican!
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 cup diced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh black pepper
3 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
1 cup shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
12 (6-inch) corn tortillas
Preheat the oven to 425ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook until it's translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes until it's golden and fragrant.
Reduce the heat to low, and then add the lime juice, cumin, paprika, salt and black pepper to the pan, stirring to combine. Add the shredded chicken, tossing to combine.
Transfer the chicken mixture to a large bowl and let it cool for 10 minutes, and then stir in the shredded cheese.
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring the chicken broth to a simmer. One at a time, dip each tortilla into the broth for 10 to 15 seconds, just until it's pliable enough to roll. Transfer the tortilla to your work surface and place about 3 tablespoons of the chicken mixture on the lower third of each tortilla. Tightly roll up the tortilla, and then place it seam-side down on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat the filling and rolling process with the remaining tortillas.
Bake the taquitos for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown and crispy.
These were great! A little bit of prep since you have to tear apart the chicken (totally Scott's job!), get stuff going on the stove, prep the tortillas, etc. On a side note, the blogger says that it's best to dip the corn tortillas in hot chicken broth on the stove before rolling them so they don't crack. I actually found that dipping them in the chicken broth made them fall apart. So, I just rolled as is and they didn't crack at all. It could be that they were super fresh since we had just bought them that day. Or it could be that Ole brand tortillas are amazing...
And that sums up my week.
Seriously.
Monday I took Sean to the Museum of Natural History in Ann Arbor on U of M's campus with Jackie and the girls. Evan and Scott stayed home and hung out. It was a great place - dinosaur bones, all the stuffed animals you could imagine (taxidermy style of course), and an exhibit with play fruits and veggies!
The surgery went well on Wednesday. I enjoyed my time just laying in bed watching old movies all day. When else can you steal in naps and movies once you have kids? Apparently, surgery is a great chance to catch up on sleep!
My mom came over Friday afternoon to help me take care of Evan all weekend so Scott and Sean could go up north to the lake house. I have the best mom. Hands down.
She deep cleaned my carpets and took off all my couch cushion covers and washed them, hung photos on the wall, played with Evan, took him for walks in the stroller, took me out to breakfast and to dinner at Las Palapas (yes, more Mexican), and helped me run boring errands like returning things at Hobby Lobby. We thoroughly enjoyed our time together, as it seems like life is always too busy and too hectic to get in some quality hanging out time. I mean we even had time to go through 841 pictures from my mom's two week European vacation. Yes, 841...
By the time she left on Sunday, I was feeling almost back to normal. That's a mere 4 days post-surgery. Yup, I'm a surgery rock-star.
And so life has gone back to our summer routine. Filling time by working out with the boys in the basement, buying new patio furniture (pics coming soon!), switching insurance companies, and trying to enjoy every. single. minute. that's left of our summer vacation. It's hard to believe we're only a few weeks away from going back to work and the kids back at daycare. I talk myself into getting excited for the change so we can look forward to all the things that come with Fall, but in reality, I'm going to miss these little bugs. They may drive me crazy most days, but they are the loves of my life.
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