Mexican Summer Salad with Cilantro Ranch Dressing

And here, my friends, we have the most illustrious Mexican Summer Salad–or Bajio Salad–as it’s known at our place. It’s truly just a glorified–reeally glorified taco salad–like the grown-ups make. The key ingredient here is the dressing—we’ll get to that later. We serve ours up buffet style where all the ingredients that you could ever want or imagine that you could ever want are in individual bowls just waiting for you to choose them. There are many ways to do it, but since it’s my blog, I’ll tell you the only true and correct way…how I do it. Being Queen has it’s privileges you know.

1) Start with a warmed flour tortilla and sprinkle lettuce all over it.

2) Next add seasoned, shredded chicken, beef or pork.

3) Spoon on black beans, refried beans or Mexican rice.

4) Add shredded cheese, tomatoes, olives and bite sized tortilla strips.

5) Top with the Magical Cilantro Ranch dressing—See below.

Try to be dainty now, and it’ll be hard. There’s something about this salad that tends to bring out starving wolf-like behavior. Go slow and no one will notice that low growl coming from your side of the table.

Magical Cilantro Ranch Dressing

1 packet of ranch dressing mix
2 cups sour cream
1/2 cup milk or buttermilk
3 tbsp chipotle peppers
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp fresh, chopped cilantro

Combine all ingredients in a bowl of a food processor or blender and pulse until thoroughly blended.
Chill in the refrigerator for about an hour.

Cilantro Ranch Dressing
 
:
Ingredients
  • 1 packet of ranch dressing mix
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • ½ cup milk or buttermilk
  • 3 tbsp chipotle peppers
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 2 tbsp fresh, chopped cilantro
Instructions
  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl of a food processor or blender and pulse until thoroughly blended.
  2. Chill in the refrigerator for about an hour.

 

Destination Quiz

We are going on a road trip my friends. From our little Rocky Mountain home to a couple of places we’ve always wanted to see. Can you guess where we’re going?

Here is a picture of my sweet Jillian, while she was in England, goofing around about where we are going this week. See if you can figure out the clues. First one to guess it correctly will win…

something from our trip. Don’t know what it is yet because I haven’t been there. Oh, and the friends and family that already know where we’re going–you don’t get to guess…because when you know something–it’s not a guess anymore. You know that.

Sheesh.

Watermelon Granita

Oooohh–if you didn’t love us before today, it’s gonna happen now. Here is our lovely first attempt at Italian Ice, and what better flavor to start with than watermelon.

Dang.

The official name for this sweet thing is Watermelon Granita, and I must say–it’s positively the perfect thing for those hot August days, while gliding on a porch swing, or floating in the hammock…

either way.

Positively blissful I tell you.

You may even decide to throw a garden party…just because you can.

And so you should.

Make this…you’ll thank me.

I swear.

Watermelon Granita

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1-1/4 cups water
6 cups cubed watermelon

Directions:

Bring sugar and water to a boil. Cook and stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Set it aside while you work on the melon. This part is fun. Cut the middle out of a watermelon unless that will make someone really mad. In that case–just cut out enough chunks to measure about 6 cups. Now, drop about 1/3 of the pieces in the blender at a time and pulse on low. We don’t want to grind up any seeds.

Pour it into a strainer and press out the juice. Discard all the pulp and seeds. Once you’ve finished you should have about 3 cups of beautiful, sparkling watermelon juice. Now, transfer it into an 8-in. square dish and stir in the hot sugar syrup. Let it cool to about room temperature then set it in the freezer for about an hour. Take it out and stir it into pieces with a fork. Now re-freeze for about 2-3 hours longer or until completely frozen, stirring every 30 minutes or so with a fork or metal spatula. Stir again just before spooning into dessert dishes. It should make about 8 luscious servings.

 

Golden Afternoon

On Sunday afternoon a really peculiar thing happened.

So peculiar, in fact, that some of the braver folk came out…on the roof for a closer look.

The first thing that got our attention was that everything–everywhere– turned yellow–and that’s while we were still in the house.

When we came outside the whole sky was totally yellow…

no matter which way you turned.

Don’t you find that particularly odd?

I do.

One of the kids said, “Ok, this is really freaky…”

eerie even…

you know, like, the end of the world kinda stuff.”

But as you can see–we’re still here. No apocalypse. No Millennium. No end of the world…for now.

In fact, within minutes the yellow sky started to fade away altogether…

and promptly turned…

pink.

Just Hanging Out

This moment…

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from our lives.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Happy weekend everyone!