Cinco de Mayo: Reason to Cook & Eat Large Amounts of Mexican Food
Growing up in Texas has been a wonderful experience for many reasons, but today I am focusing on just one: Mexican food.
Tex-Mex is very different than food in Mexico, New Mexico and California. I feel like it has more cheese, perhaps more grease and just seems less spicy. Since I try to eat healthy I had to find a way to make my own Mexican food that was just as tasty, but significantly healthier. Cinco de Mayo has inspired me to have a month long celebration of homemade Mexican food and I will be sharing my favorite recipes. Even though I am NOT Mexican, I feel like everything I have made has tasted wonderful and if you truly take offense to this white girl claiming to make Mexican food, let's just call it Mexican-inspired then. =]
My first celebratory dish is cilantro rice! I must admit that I saw a magazine in Sprouts last week that was completely mexican food themed and saw a green rice recipe. It had many more peppers than I could handle so I decided to use it as inspiration but change the recipe based on what I like, which is what I suggest you do too.
This recipe is super simple, delicious and inexpensive.
2 cups of white rice (I prefer jasmine)
2 cups of fresh cilantro
1 cup of spinach
1 cup of lime juice (I used 3 limes)
1.5 cups of water
1 tbls of cumin powder
1/4 cu of olive oil
dash of pepper/salt
1/2 cup of fresh onion
I combined the cilantro, water, oil, onion (uncooked), cumin, pepper, and lime juice all in a blender and mixed until the leaves were completely blended. You can add more water if you prefer it to be a little runnier; I wanted this to be something the rice absorbed as opposed to a paste.
To cook the rice I used the ratio of 2 cups of water to every 1 cup of rice due to the high absorption rate jasmine rice has. It usually takes me about 10 minutes to cook this rice. After the rice was finished I immediately poured the cilantro lime mix over the rice and stirred well, watching the rice turn a beautiful green. The flavor was phenomenal and it was easier than I expected. I think you could modify this recipe by adding other herbs, peppers and spices that you like and prefer. I could eat cilantro by itself so this mix was perfect for me, but it is so simple go ahead and experiment for yourself!
Happy celebrating!
