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Cheesy bacon and sweetcorn enchiladas with red salsa, made with crisp, toasted corn tortillas. Assemble and bake them straight away, so they don’t get soggy standing around.
Braised pork shoulder with chilies, Mexican style. The result is epic: tasty, juicy and so tender it falls apart when you look at it. Serve it sliced as if it was a roast, like below; for an ultimate pulled pork taco experience shred it with two forks when hot and toss in the strained sauce.
Carne asada, a Mexican dish of marinated, grilled and thinly sliced beef. The fact is, marinade cooks things. It imparts flavour all right but we sometimes forget that’s not its only role – it tenderises tougher cuts.
Chicken enchiladas with green tomato salsa verde. The salsa can be shop-bought, very well, but if you have some green tomatoes – one easy thing to grow in England – you can try from scratch.
Easy slow cooked chilli con carne with minced beef, cannellini and kidney beans, ancho chillies and a pinch of cocoa powder. Happiness is a warm tortilla!
Chilli con corn – vegetarian sweetcorn chilli with beans goes well with tortillas, baked potatoes or nachos. Corn on the cob cooked with classic chilli flavours – the fresher ears of corn, the better!
Korean beef tacos, probably the best street food fusion. Marinated and grilled steak in soft corn tortillas, with shredded salads and spiced mayo – that’s taste bliss.
Pink Mexican rice, arroz rojo, is easy and incredibly tasty. Spicy restaurant style Mexican rice is cooked like pilaf, with tomato and onion puree for the colour, chillies for the heat and diced potato and carrot for the texture.
Mexican street sweetcorn salad, esquites, with sweetcorn cooked in the frying pan mixed with a salty, herby, spicy, cheesy dressing, is the second best thing after a holiday to Cancun!
Corn tortilla chip nachos with easy homemade beef chilli, sweetcorn and cheese. Homemade nachos are the perfect recipe for a crowd-pleasing supper or snack.
Quick pickled jalapeño peppers, crunchy and sweet and hot. The best pickled jalapeños are homemade, and these are ready within about an hour. Make sure you wear gloves!
Pork mince and red kidney bean chilli is a warming and easy dish. With dried chillies or just chilli powder, beans cooked from scratch or tinned, the end result will always be rewarding.
Prawn tacos with dried fruit salsa, something a bit different for a taco night. Fresh or frozen prawns cooked quickly in a spicy sauce just beg to be loaded into tortillas.
Breakfast quesadillas with avocado, mushrooms and bacon. Now quesadilla is my perfect toasted cheese sandwich as I’ve only just realised. It ticks all the above boxes plus one huge box on top of that: there’s no bread.
Cream cheese and Cheddar stuffed jalapeno peppers, baked in the oven for a delicious snack or appetiser. Much healthier than deep fried jalapeno poppers but none the less tasty.
Baked sweet potato halves loaded with spicy black beans and Cheddar cheese: vegetarian lunch, snack or dinner, blissfully comforting.
Sweetcorn and nduja salad made with fresh or frozen corn, served on a bed of lettuce and topped with homemade tortilla crisps – an easy and gorgeous lunch dish.
Vegetarian chili with pickled red onions. The recipe is dead simple beside that, and a good weekday supper if you put in canned beans. Soaking and boiling is as much worth the bother as it gives you the right crookedness – tinned beans might get mushy after half an hour in the company of tomatoes.