Bingo 3: You
What else am I going to be looking at here but a cookbook, and one that I’ve read but may or may not actually use otherwise. I haven’t done the numbers, but that’s gotta be a significant percentage of my reviews. Comida Casera is vegan Mexican cooking, but chef-y. It’s not shy about ingredients that might not be familiar but that are native to the cuisine, but also relatively accessible.
First thing I noticed was an entire chapter on tamales, which are one of my favorites. I’ve made them before, and they’re a lot of work, but I still might have to try some of the options here. Strawberry tamales actually sound really good, both the masa (involving chopped fruit) and the filling (basically, jam). Apple cinnamon? Yes, please. Apparently sweet tamales are legit a thing in parts of Mexico. I think I’ll pass on the (chickpea) tuna tamale though; I like chickpeas, but not a big fan of tuna-adjacent much of anything. The posoles also look good, although some of the ingredient lists are intimidating, both in length and getting ahold of some items without access to a specialty market (I don’t like grocery shopping on the internet).
Some less familiar items (at least for me) include hibiscus flower barbacoa (I know what both parts of that mean, but never heard of them together), huitlacoche and zucchini blossom quesadilla (I know what everything is, but wouldn’t be able to find several key things easily; I’ve also never actually tried huitlacoche), probably also not doing the pink mole (I dislike beets), and cantaloupe seed horchata just sound a little too unusual (it calls for equal amounts of fruit to seeds, and I’m not convinced you can get that smooth even with a Vitamix-type assist and strainer).
There’s also plenty of tacos, moles, enchiladas, a few desserts, and drinks too. One part of the reason I don’t foresee doing a lot of cooking with this book is that a lot of the recipes are time-consuming; I’m not going to take the time to simmer dry beans for hours, not even the 2-hour speed-y method (down from 10 as cited in the main recipe text). That’s what an Insta-Pot is for. Also not likely to boil and peel walnuts for a sauce, which the recipe says you can skip if the visual aesthetics aren’t as important, but that’s buried in a footnote.
