Mexican cuisine is not my natural cooking habitat. I love Mexican food, particularly tequila. Did you know that if you drink only tequila (you can have it with mixers, but don't mix with any other alcohol) you get into this really fun state of tipsiness. This life-changing insight was delivered to me and a friend of mine on the all-inclusive Club Med beaches of Kemer, Turkey by a French man unimaginatively called Jacques. Jacques with crazy Brian May hair was from Amiens and kept going on about their Cathedral until he'd had his daily fix of tequila tonics after which he became a lot more interesting. Or I think maybe the tequila made us think he did. One evening we ended up sitting on the beach with our tequila tonics singing Tomber la chemise and thought it was the funniest thing ever. Which in retrospect clearly it wasn't, but that's tequila for you. It might even make an Adam Sandler film seem funny.

Husband is ok with the occasional tequila, but has an unfortunate crybaby attitude about chillies and a paranoid schizophrenic relationship with coriander, so that's why I rarely cook Mexican food.

But we are flying to California tomorrow with the kids for an epic road trip. How very epic you will find out later or if not at all epic this is the last you will hear about it. So to get us in the mood I made a Cal Mex inspired dinner for us. It was a long day in the office with head ache inducing pharmacy pathway discussions and bundle pricing calculations, which I never thought would happen to a marketer. But there you go, there is always a  finance business partner lurking behind a corner just waiting to ruin your day. And after work there was packing to be done as well as hair removal, fake tan application, eye brow plucking, tooth whitening, toe nail varnishing and other harvesting and caretaking that holidays and visiting sunny climes impose on women. So it had to be someting relatively straight forward.

I do realise this is actually probably no more Mexican than my mooseballs, but it is easy, tasty and comforting. Husband's summary was "that was a very good lasagne" before he went to the bathroom to colour his beard, remove nasal hair and whatever else it is men do to make them the shiny beautiful things we see before us.



Chicken enchillada lasagne (serves 6)

Oil
800kg boneless chicken thigh (or breast), cut into strips
zest and juice of one lime
bell pepper, cut into strips
1 or more fresh chillies (to your taste), finely chopped
Kernels of 2 cobs of corn (or half cup of frozen corn)
1 large or 2 normal yellow onions, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2-3 tsp dried oregano
2-3 tsp cumin
salt
pepper
400g can of chopped tomatoes
1 cup chicken stock
400g can of black beans, drained
fresh coriander (I substituted with parsley), chopped

8 corn (or other) tortillas
200 g cheddar cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 200C

Heat a splash of oil in a large frying pan. Fry the onion on medium heat for a few minutes, add the garlic, bell pepper, chilli and corn. Continue frying for another couple of minutes, remove to a large deep sauce pan.

Season the chicken strips with salt and pepper. Add oregano and cumin. Use the same frying pan to fry the chicken. Add oil if necessary and fry in batches until browned.

Add the chicken to the onion mix, add the tomatoes, chicken stock, lime zest and juice and coriander. Bring to boil and let simmer for 10-15 minutes, add water if it seems too dry. Add the beans and cook for another couple of nimutes. Check seasoning and adjust.

Assemble the lasagne in a large baking dish. Start by ladling some of the chicken enchillada sauce onto the bottom of the dish. Add two tortillas on top. Add a layer of chicken enchillada sauce, some shredded cheese and cover with another layer of tortillas. Repeat twice and then spread the rest of the sauce and a good sprinkling of grated cheddar on top.

Bake in 200C for 20 minutes or until it's bubbly and brown on top.

This is an interesting little potato salad recipe. There are lots of different ways to make a delicious one. I like a simple warm new potato salad with just some dressing, spring onion and a sprinkling of dill and feta. This one's a bit more complicated as potato salads go. So not that complicated. But I had never thought of putting artichoke hearts in a potato salad until my blinkered eyes were opened by this blog post.

I love potatoes, that’s no secret. I even sang a potato song in the Finnish Liberal People’s Party Christmas do when I was about 5. My father the Liberal is nowadays more of a corservative stickler of dinosaurian proportions than a beacon of progress or a radical reformist, but his liberalism must be seen against the backdrop of 1970s Cold War as an enlightened man's fight against the Finlandization of the Finnish govenment marionetted by the Soviets. (Apologies for the unsolicited political tirade in the middle of an innocent potato post.) He was briefly active in local politics and as a dutiful politician’s daughter and a budding anti-Soviet campaigner I threw my talents onto the altar of freedom. The song went like this (sorry about the lack of rhyming in the translation, I just thought it might be a bit of a waste of effort as it's never going to be Shakespeare exactly, rhymes or no rhymes):

Potatoes are round
Potatoes are oval
Potatoes are the right and proper food.
When you put the potato in your mouth
It starts its long journey
Belly is the best place for it, innit?
Eating potatoes
Will grow our strengh
The little potato will help us grow big!
Hip hip hurrah, potato!

There was also a spellbinding hand choreography to go with it – you can check it here. (I did it a lot more athletically and precisely than this clueless bunch of potatoes. Although even I can see they are quite cute in their weird potato hats. I was also cute, no weird hat though, but a purple two-piece trouser suite!)

That was the height of my career both in politics and as a solo singer. I did go on to study classical singing and a less root veg related song repertoire in my teens for a few years until the teacher told me that my vocal cords would need surgical intervention. Encouraging.

New potato and artichoke salad (serves 4 as a side)

I had a bit of a mustard disaster but at least got rid of any unnessessary nasal hair. Note to anyone who has run out of Dijon mustard and wants to substitute: English mustard IS a lot hotter than Dijon. After some dilution action all was fine in the end.
500g new potatoes
Bunch of spring onion (original recipe says pickled onions)
Jar of marinated artichoke hearts in oil
20 green or black olives
Handful of capers (optional, but will add a nice zing particularly if not using pickled onions)
1/3 - 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
2 tbsp crème fraiche (optional)
1 tbsp of Dijon mustard
Generous handful of chopped fresh parsley and fresh chives
Salt
Pepper

Wash the potatoes and cook them in boiling salted water until they are just done. Use new potatoes with very thin skin, so there is no need to peel them.

While potatoes are cooking chop the spring onions and drain and chop the artichokes. You can also halve or slice the olives.

Prepare the dressing by mixing the mayonnaise, mustard, herbs and seasoning. Check the taste and adjust. I also added a couple of spoons of crème fraiche because I made the salad ahead and new that the potatoes would soak some of the dressing.

When the potatoes are done (fork goes in easily, but they are not breaking yet) cut them into whatever size you like and mix everything together. You can serve immediately while the potatoes are still warm or let it sit for a few hours in the fridge and serve cold.

Rhubarb and strawberry sangria (serves 4 or maybe just 2, makes 2 large pitchers)