Mennonite Queso Chihuahua Advice

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I learned the expensive way to not squander ten dollars (180 today pesos) on an unsampled brand of block Chihuahua cheese. More than a few brands I have tried has a distinctly bitter snap to them. Mennonites vacationing at a hot springs spa gave me a small round of unbranded cheese that was as good as any cheddar-like cheese I have ever tasted. The elder in the group said there were a lot of knockoff competitors that were not even from the Ciudad Cuauhtemoc area of Chihuahua.

Like anything else (for instance, butter) quality varies wildly. Try before you buy. Butter? For years Lala brand butter in a plastic tub came from Belgium, and it was as good as Anchor butter from New Zealand. Then Lala switched sources to Uruguay but eventually Lala tub butter fizzled out in the taste department.

After comparing nutrition labels and deciding Primarvera to be the least offensive tasting margarine, when a Wal-Mart is nearby I settle for their house brand butter. Luckily I have mild HDL and LDL levels and can tolerate occasional bouts of butter patties on "hot kakes" the undisputed favorite of the grand kids. When I find real maple syrup I dilute it with "Jarabe Madrilena" Mexican sugar syrup. It's amazing that 15% maple syrup and 85% Madrilena is almost indistinguishable in taste. If maple syrup molds in the refrigerator, simply heat it and skim off the mold. If it's good enough for producers in Vermont and Montreal to skim syrup it's good enough for me. The taste is unaffected.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

The salt and sugar thingy has me vexed as well Moishe. I wish Kikkoman would bring out a 75% reduced in sodium Soy Sauce. The Mexican population is suffering horribly from this newfangled stuff. Especially from fritangas. fried stuff loaded with salt and sugar.

I do not buy totopos (tortilla chips). Tostadas have a great corn taste without the hideous salt content. I wish Herdez would get wise and chop in half the amount of salt in their canned salsas.

Stevia would grow great in Mexico --- so many opportunities down the drain (sigh)

[moisheh]

Hi Chris! Nice to see you back!

Her are a couple of good food finds in Mexico. I have always enjoyed Jumex canned juices. The strawberry banana is my fave. Available at Wal Mart in the USA for les than any store in Mexico. Go figure. However these juices are loaded with added sugar. Not good! I have found that anything packaged in Mexico has too much sugar or worse yet is loaded with salt! But Jumex is changing. I first discovered the Tetra Pak 1 litre of OJ at Costco Comes in a 6 pack for about 19 pesos a Litre. PURE Juice with pulp and zero additives! I see it at WalMart Mexico for one peso more. They also carry Grapefruit Juice but I avoid grapefruit as it interferes with many meds. This summer I tried the Jumex apple juice. Again it is pure juice with no added sugar. Awesome!

Moisheh

[qtla9111]

moisheh wrote:
Even Sonoran cattle will not eat that horrible corn.
But thsis thread proves that Chris still loves us and is around!!
Moisheh

That was a much-appreciated comment 🙂

[MEXICOWANDERER]

qtla9111, does yellow # 4 tinted Valvoline and Nestle NIDO?

Morning toast

Old bolillo. Semi hard. New hacksaw blade. Saw bolillo lengthwise.

Spread on butter

Then a layer of garlic trocitos

Smother with parmesan

Toast until golden brown

Damnedgood hot weather continental breakfast. Traditional Mexicanos go nuts over the toasted buns when they try them. Beats the hell out of sugar buns.

Regional beef can be tender. But not if the cattle forage in the desert. And silage corn is what cattle eat including the green part of the corn stalk. I buy beef that is almost pure red. Let it age until red becomes maroon (Brenda shrieks "noooooooo!") then zip loc it for the freezer. Grocery stores never have good beef. Go to a gringo restaurant infamous for its steaks. Ask the waiter where their meat comes from.

[moisheh]

Even Sonoran cattle will not eat that horrible corn.
But thsis thread proves that Chris still loves us and is around!!
Moisheh

[Talleyho69]

That and milk. Don't do either one!

But the corn.....

[qtla9111]

Oh god! Not the butter thread again. :S

[Talleyho69]

Sweet corn, the real stuff, is available here occasionally. On Tuesday at Soriana in the area with the oyster mushrooms and hydroponically grown lettuce were 3 pack trays of "Sweet Corn." It looked great, we had heard stories of it showing up occasionally. It was a whopping 30p, so we bought it.

Fabulous! Just like the stuff we loved in the states. Boiled water, turned it off, rolled the three cobs around for maybe a minute to warm, then ate them just as they were.

Whenever we see them again, even if we aren't really in the mood, we'll buy them because who knows when we'll see them again.

At the store where we buy our bolsas for basura and dog poop, they sell jars and bottles of flavorings for raspadas and other goodies. We have talked about trying those to flavor water, just haven't done it yet. They are cheap.

The seed vault is in Queretaro in Catareta, at least one of them.

The peas here suck.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Mexican peas -- green pencil eraser tips.

I have "run into" frozen bags of Mexican peas and had to put them on a paper plate outside and let starving canines have at them.

I wonder why they're so awful?

Del Monte and other US brands stun Mexicans who haven't tried decent peas. And writing about tough vegetables, I have yet to encounter Mexican corn that is more than borderline silage grade. Traditional Mexican corn-on-the-cob is sectioned and tossed into a soup pot. After a half hour of boiling most of the kernels are somewhat edible.

But to be fair Mexico is absolutely paranoid about accidental cross breeding their heritage corn with genetically modified USA corn. Somewhere I think it might be Tuxtla Gutierrez is an underground vault with heritage seeds. Bags of frozen USA corn are available and Costco has a 4 Kg bag that will satisfy the most ravenous USA corn craving.

Costco stores are baking English Muffins, Bagels, and excellent bolillos that are almost large enough to be called a baguette. Dress sliced smoked pork, drizzle melted Oaxaca string cheese over it and wowee.

Most of my diet is classic Mexicana. But when authenticity butts heads with excess sodium, fat, "cloresterol" carbohydrate levels out of a horror flick and endulzantes (sweeteners) that would bring tears to a dentist, then I back off. I think the main offender in my diet is salt. Geez some of the totopos (tortilla chips) have a fetish for the Bonneville Flats.

One of the miracles I am waiting for is Manzanita (apple soda) that is sweetened with Stevia. I have dropped into the habit of favoring mineral water. BTW, Fart & Sminal in the USA used to carry lemon and orange extract at a reasonable price. A dab added to Penafiel makes a super cooldown on a hot summer day.

Another awaited happening would be "Miel de Cana" or molasses. Sweetened with Stevia it would not assault my blood sugar near as much.

If you can sit down with Mexican friends and slurp down a big bowl of menudo then you have reached a milestone of some sort. Notice, they really juice theirs up with lots of squirts of hot sauce and limon.

CHILI. I like the taste of Chili de Arbol. But a wizened indian lady in Oaxaca told me how to get low-flame chilis. Plant seeds in mediocre to poor grade soil. The garden yield will be less, but if you fertilize chili, you'll end up with 4th stage afterburner grade heat.

[moisheh]

LaLa light is great milk. Ultrapaseurized milk issafe as the temp is so high. You can even get it lactose free at all ost the same price. Ibuy it by the case at Costco.Milk from one of the small dairies is "iffy". The aisle at Ley,s with uht milk has lots of choices: almond, chocolate,coffee flavor and more. If the taste bothers you just refrigerate before opening.

Moisheh

[Talleyho69]

Liver in scrambled eggs is a regular here. Also chicken livers over pasta smothered in cheese!!!

At a peso per liver (often less) we often add one a day to our dogs food to make them eat more. They are so active that it's hard to get them to eat enough kibble to maintain their weights.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Liver lover secret...

Put moo or cluck-cluck liver in a dish overnight filled with milk, stuck on a shelf in the refrigerator. All the difference in the world the next morning even with the worst yuckko commercial grade "higado". The dog gets the milk poured over his kibbles & bits.

A tip from Tia Andrea, in the enramada next door to my kid's. Brenda thinks I'm insane preparing chicken liver in scrambled eggs. The granddaughters despise it. Also try beef liver that way but made with slices of tomate saladetes (Roma) instead of onion.

The kids freaked out when I used the microwave to prepare chorizo. It takes a stack of six paper towel sheets to absorb the grease but the result is amazing. Chopped chorizo in spaghetti sauce is magnificent. Grease soaked paper towels are a great way to light off the palm fronds and coconut husks. It causes daytime mosquitoes not to bite. Rake the ashes into the garden and then plant peanuts. Few things around here are wasted (except the idiot up on the hill who insists on playing musica banda at 0230 at blaring intensity.

[Talleyho69]

It's all about the washing of the eggs.

Chicken in Zihuatanejo is so different that most places! After a lot of investigation, we found out that the very center of the block behind the mercado is where the chickens are butchered. That's why on the outside of that block there are loads of little tiny places that have a block of ice covered with a cloth with fresh plucked chickens on them. You can buy them whole, in parts, skinned, boned, pounded, any way you want. You immediately realize that these birds aren't cold! They also aren't wet. They taste fabulous. Extremely fresh, quickly handled, a totally different taste.

We love the livers. We had to return to California for 3 months and made the mistake of buying some there. What a mistake-not tasty and sweet at all.

We make a point of taking an insulated bag with a frozen water bottle in it in our cart for safety for bringing home all of our meats and cheese. It's very hot here.

[RayJayco]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:


CHICKEN EGGS

Supposedly chicken eggs that come from unvaccinated hens must be kept refrigerated. Does this mean USA eggs come from unvaccinated hens and eggs in Mexico are not refrigerated because the hens received antibiotics or some from of disease inoculation? I raise my own hens and keep them under supervision. But eggs go "right into" the refrigerator. "red" eggs from red hens and white eggs from white hens" Dalia uses a marker and X's or O's nest eggs because hens do not like to have a nest cleaned out. Eggs stay one day before they are gathered. Some of Jesus' oyster shells get ground to grit and the hens love it. Huevos de Rancho are worth seeking out as is the whole prepared hen. It is twice as expensive as Bachocho (the Foster Farms of Mexico) but the taste difference is startling. When I capture scorpions the hens go crazy for them in the morning. They fight over them. And insects seem to be the prime reason for the egg and meat taste improvement. Go figure...

If I recall correctly, eggs in the USA are heavily washed removing a protective outer coating of sorts, so they are best refrigerated.

Typically eggs from Europe and other countries are not cleaned in this manner so they do not require refrigeration.

We typically don't refrigerate eggs from our chickens on the farm. Although it doesn't hurt to refrigerate them.

And yes, you should always leave 1 egg in the nest, marking is a good thing so that you don't leave same egg in the nest too long.

P.S. Store bought eggs from USA will absorb refrigerator odors a lot faster than eggs that have not been processed, and they seem to 'dry' out a lot faster if you take them out of the carton... USDA...

[MEXICOWANDERER]

You should see an Izquintle. Mexican dogs date back to the Olmecs and they were hairless for a very practical reason. A friend in Jalisco had a friendly little female named Antojita.

To keep the thread on an intelligent level the state of Chihuahua is perhaps most famous for it's Little Burros. Burritos in the USA are absurdly fat. Genuine Burritos are as big around as a ten peso coin, and they are NOT stuffed with almost pure rice.

Many people keep a pair of Chihuahuas on their roof as the best home protection alarm system ever devised:

• Power supply is a palm full of dog food
• Sensors include visual, olfactory and sonic
• Reactive alert signal. The closer the target gets the louder and more frequent the barking
• Male and female pairs are self-replicating
• Extremely low maintennce