So since I am finally getting feeling back in my fingers, I can now write about our most recent cooking adventure in the
Siefer household....a little something called
Encilantrada...and also a little something I call "lessons in handling jalapeno peppers!"
Since we live in San Antonio, I should have known that it wouldn't be long before we tried to cook some authentic Mexican dishes, but I had no idea that would require speaking Spanish!
Jeremy came home the other day salivating over a dish that one of his co-workers had brought in to share with everyone. It was a spicy chicken stew of sorts with a base of a green
tomatillo sauce...which you can then smother on top of chips. Jeremy loved it and has been talking about it
incessantly ever since! I think he would bathe in the stuff if he could.
At Jeremy's request, his co-worker tried to
acquire the
recipe from his
Spanish-speaking grandmother, but unfortunately she is one of those grandmothers who just does all the cooking by sight. Needless to say we ended up with a cryptic
recipe that either needed 3 tomatoes or 3 pounds of tomatoes, and a laundry list of items, of which I could only pick out the word "
pollo" since
as you know, I just learned how to spell and pronounce that one!! I knew we were in trouble!
I tried my best to Google all the items, on the
Spanish Google site no less, and it took me almost 30 minutes to translate "
herba buena," which
apparently is our version of spearmint. Oh, and we either needed 4 leaves of the stuff or maybe a handful....I was just hoping the
concoction would be edible!!
Jeremy headed off to
frisbee and I was still working away on the
recipe...in particular I was preparing the 10 jalapeno peppers and 5
habanero peppers...trying to roast them and get the outer layer of skin off....if only I had worn gloves! Why didn't I wear gloves!?!! About an hour later, just as we were biting into the finished
Encilantrada dish, my hands were on FIRE!
Oh, and at this point our mouths were on fire too, along with faces turning red, and eyes watering! Let's just say we
couldn't handle the heat...and maybe the jalapenos were just a bit too much
for us.
I spent the remainder of the evening googling "
remedy for jalapeno burn," and let me tell you, I tried it all...from dipping my hands in milk, rubbing
alcohol, and even making a salve out of baking soda and water! In the end I just needed time...and over 36 hours later I finally got feeling back in my hands. So I hope you all can learn from my mistake...and put on those gloves...oh, and you'll just have to wait on the
recipe for
Encilantrada...or, if you want some, we've got a ton leftover in the refrigerator calling your name!
He actually got a jump named after him...we called it the "Kevin Corkscrew 360." He would start off in one lane, bounce, roll over 360, and land in the other lane...with enough momentum to make it all the way to the end! Look, we can't just do plain jane slip n' slide here...there have to be some elements of difficulty!
The feet-first attempt.
Molly vs. her sister Julie...even though it was her birthday, Molly lost to super-star Julie in this head to head competition.
By the end of the night, after the 6-person relay, the head-to-head tournament, and some pretty tasty ice cream cake, Jeremy was ready to buy one of these slip n' slide contraptions to take back with us to San Antonio! Anyone looking for some summer fun, I'd definitely recommend it!!
