Tonight I made “Red Chile Chicken and Rice with Black Beans” from Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless (my hero). Yesterday it was some seafood au gratin thing. Tonight was so, so much better, but I think that’s because this recipe didn’t involve cream anything. This could have easily been a veggie meal with tofu…if my husband were blind. The chipotle chile powder gave everything a delicious burn. Loved, loved, loved it.
The cool thing about this recipe is that it’s flexible. I could have used green onions or epazote or hoja santa but opted for cilantro instead. I could have switched out the chipotle chile powder for smoked paprika (and the recipe actually called for ancho chile powder). I could have given it a Yucatecan twist by adding achiote paste and lime juice. It was super easy as it was. Here’s the coolest thing: my meal looked exactly like the photograph in the book. How often does that happen?
Bayless, Rick. Mexican Everyday. New York: Norton & Co., 2005.
~*LunaSea*~ 
damn you! Now I’m so hungry….
gotta get me some of his cookbooks…..
The Everyday book is probably the easiest to cook from. His ingredients are traditionally Mexican, but he does offer “common” substitutes (hence, the cilantro). He doesn’t have a Food Tv show of his own (and I admire him for that), but he has been a guest of Emeril’s before.