A Twist on Paella

If you've never had the opportunity to try paella, you really should find a Spanish restaurant and order it. Famous in the coastal regions of Spain (particularly Barcelona) the seafood and rice dish can easily fill you with a single helping. But, one of the main ingredients in paella is saffron... Between the $20 jar of saffron, paella rice, and the mix of seafood, you can easily spend $60 making paella for a family dinner. This variation uses sage instead of saffron, wild and brown rice instead of paella rice, and meat from land animals instead of seafood. 

Enchiladas

A friend at work says that Mexican food is a rip-off... it's the same 5 ingredients rearranged on a plate.  While there are a few staples, it's all so different.  And of that multitude of arrangements, enchiladas are probably the easiest to make.  This is how my mom taught me.  This one you MUST read the whole recipe first.  Being a recipe passed down over the generations, there's no such thing as measurements.  And it can get pretty messy so wear something you're okay with getting dirty.

Chocolate Mole

Mole.  Not the animal, the sauce.  From the Nahuatl word molli meaning "sauce."  You know, like guacamole.  The Nahuatl word for avocado is āhuacatl, which became aguacate in Spanish.  So ahuacamolli becomes guacamole, or quite literally, avocado sauce.  But back to mole.