Tortas!

So I stopped into La Michoacana meat market the other day while on my continued quest for goat meat with which to make cabrito. Once again, I was disappointed, but while I was there I noticed that they sell fresh telera bread so I decided it was high-time I made my own tortas at home.

I split and buttered two telera loaves and tossed them into the toaster oven. While they were toasting, I pan fried a milanesa cut steak that I didn't bother to coat in bread crumbs because I didn't have any and didn't feel like making some.

When the bread was toasted, I spread a layer of refried beans on the bottom and placed the meat on top. I topped the meat with onions and some jalapenos that I'd had marinating in lime juice and a little salt since the night before, added a little fresh cilantro, a couple of spoonfuls of salsa roja, and then spread mayonnaise on the top half of the bun.

I served the sandwiches with a side of sweet bread-and-butter home-pickled jalapenos and corn relish topped with a dab more of my freshly made salsa roja. The relish is made by combining sliced jalapenos and corn in a container with water, vinegar, and sugar. I first got this idea from the Hollywood Deli on Richmond that, at least the last time I was there, served bread-and-butter jalapenos on their sandwiches. They were delicious and so is my version.

I'm still working on the nailing down the final recipe for the relish; it's intended to replace sweet pickle relish in the Tex-Mex hotdogs I'm planning on making, photographing, and eating sometime over the next week or two.

Fun with Lunch Meat!

Since I have been in the mood for sandwiches all week I wound up with some slices of mechanically separated roast turkey in my fridge. I'll admit that most of the sandwiches I wound up making with it were remarkably uninspired but I did manage to make a pretty awesome sort-of-torta. To do so, I sliced up some of the turkey and tossed it in a pan with a little butter, black pepper, diced onion, diced fresh jalapeno, and about 3/4 cups worth of home-made red salsa I found stuck back in the back of the fridge.

While the sauce cooked down and thickened, I sliced and broiled two bolillo buns along with some Kraft slices. I transferred the cooked mixture from the pan to the buns and topped it with more sliced onion and squeezed a lime over it.

I would have liked to have had some cilantro, avocado, and refried beans in order to really take this sandwich to the next level, but when you're hungry and it's late you use what you have and you make it work.

I think it worked out pretty well.





The next night, the situation was even more dire. I was completely out of bread, and had exactly four slices of mechanically separated roast turkey left. As luck would have it, I had some corn tortillas jammed back into the corner of my freezer, so I decided to have mechanically separated roast turkey tacos.

I diced the remaining lunch meat up with some white onion and jalapeno and fried the mixture in a little butter with some salt, pepper, and garlic. I really need to start keeping eggs on hand because a couple of eggs thrown into this would have really pushed this meal over the top

Since I used the last of my salsa the previous night I had to resort to using some bottled habanero sauce my folks brought back from a recent trip to Mexico. This was yet another successful late night snack, but it's come to the point that my larders are pretty much exhausted.

I guess it's time to go to the grocery store. I think all I have left to eat at home is some milk and a half-eaten box of Grape Nuts...