Mexican night

We had Tiffany and Nick over for some delicious Mexican-themed food tonight, and I got to try out some new Ina Garten recipes. I've already made the jalapeno cheddar corn bread, but I also made recipes from three different Ina cookbooks: real margaritas (Barefoot Contessa Parties!), guacamole salad (Barefoot Contessa at Home), and tequila lime chicken (Barefoot Contessa Family Style). Click the recipes below for links to the original recipes.

Guacamole salad

This was a really simple salad with strong southwest flavors, although Ina leaves out cilantro because she hates it. Basically you mix the following:

• Can of black beans
• Pint of cherry tomatoes, halved
• Two chopped avocados
• One chopped yellow pepper
• One chopped jalapeno
• Zest of one lime
• 1/2 cup small diced red onion

Then you mix together some ingredients for the vinaigrette, including lime juice, pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper.


I don't even really like tomatoes and I thought this was really flavorful and delicious. Very juicy! And speaking of juicy...

Real margaritas

Ohhhhh man. This might be my favorite new drink. I want to find Ina and her Mexican chef friends and shake them. So good!

I hate margarita mixes - they're always too sweet, and in a fake, sugary way. Instead, this recipe uses a bunch of limes, a lemon, tequila, triple sec, and I added some Grand Marnier. Ina suggests to blend it with ice, but my friends and I enjoyed it on the rocks. And it was amazing. I really may need to keep limes in the kitchen just to keep a pitcher of this in the fridge at all time. (But that could be dangerous...)

And speaking of tequila...

Tequila lime chicken

This chicken is marinated overnight in a variety of spices, including chili powder, lime, jalapeno pepper, and, of course, tequila. It's very easy, and all you have to do is throw the chicken on the grill.


I used my electric grill, which I love. I'm not sure if Dave loves cleaning it, but he sure loved eating this chicken. I liked to get a big chunk of chicken on my fork and then some veggies and beans from the salad. Then a big bite of corn bread. Mmm.

It was an awesome night, and I think I have made all of Ina's southwestern dishes, because she really doesn't have that many. It was Dave's last meal of solid food before he got his wisdom teeth out, and I think he had a good time. Now a week of smoothie posts!