pork mole taco, quesadilla, rice, beans

Today over on Chambanamoms, I’ve got some delicious Mexican side dishes for you to try.  Now, you have a favorite taco filling you can make, but different salsas are a great way for everyone at the table to customize their meal.  Sometimes I like something really fiery, and one of my favorite flamingly flavorful salsas is Zarela Martinez’s Salsa Macha.

In Zarela’s Veracruz, she playfully translates this recipe title as “she-man sauce”, and it really does pack a punch that could make any man suffer.  In more careful doses however, the fruitiness of the chiles and the nuttiness of the peanuts really come out and play nicely with a wide range of foods.

She encourages the reader to experiment with the recipe, as this is only a general formula for this type of salsa.  You could try adding different dried chiles, or adjust how long you process it, so it could be as smooth as peanut butter.  You could use different roasted nuts, or roast the garlic before blending it in.

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If you’ve never heard of Pecha Kucha, it involves a presentation given with slides shown in a specific format: 20 images, shown for 20 seconds each.  This is from local artisanal cheese producers Wes Jarrell & Leslie Cooperband of Prairie Fruits Farm, who gave their presentation in verse.  See the farm, some goats, and beautiful images of the Prairie as you learn about their cheese, and their lives as farmers–producers of food.

Laurence, of This Little Piggy fame, presented at the same event, and our chocolate champion, Dan Schreiber, will be presenting at the upcoming event.